GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- As college hockey cranks up again after a hiatus of sorts over the holidays for a lot of the teams, the World Juniors has filled the gap nicely with the United States reaching the gold-medal game in this year's tournament.

While the University of North Dakota has loaned many of its top players to World Junior teams from the United States, Canada and even Slovakia over the years since Dave Geving became the first to go from UND in 1974, unfortunately there are no Fighting Hawks in this year's tournament.

Hey, but UND Coach Brad Berry (gold medal) played in that tournament for Canada in 1985, so at least there is that current connection to the tournament.

The highlight year for UND in the World Juniors came in 2004, when three players -- Zach Parise, Brady Murray and Drew Stafford -- off the then-Fighting Sioux team, helped the United States win the gold medal in Helsinki, Finland.

The only other years when multiple UND players were on a gold medal-winning team came in 1982 and 2021.

That first year, Troy Murray and James Patrick, who played in a combined 2,195 NHL games and are inducted into the UND Athletic Hall of Fame, played on Canada's gold medal team at the World Juniors. They then returned to UND and helped it win the NCAA championship that season. 

Murray won gold at the World Juniors, an NCAA title in college and played on a Stanley Cup championship team in the NHL. I believe he is the only UND player ever to accomplish that lofty hat trick of honors.

Most recently, Jake Sanderson and Tyler Kleven teamed up to capture gold for the United States during the 2021 World Juniors before both embarking on professional careers that saw them play as teammates again in Ottawa. 

This tournament always hits home to hockey fans here. Besides the numerous UND players who have played in it over the years, it was held in Grand Forks and Thief River Falls in 2005.

That's when UND had both Brian Lee and Stafford on the U.S. team in a tournament that featured such future NHL stars as Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby.

And in a couple of years, the tournament will come closer to home as Minneapolis-St. Paul has been named as host city in 2026, with Bemidji being mentioned as a possible site for one or more of the preliminary round games.

So even without UND representation in this year's World Juniors, Friday's title game between the United States and Sweden at 12:30 p.m. and televised on NHL Network will draw a lot of us hockey fans to the telecast. Title games, at any level, are special to watch.

In matters closer to home, UND has its final non-conference games of the regular season here at The Ralph this weekend with Alaska in town, where they have stayed all week and practiced here since the Nanooks last played in the Great Lakes Invitational in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Alaska has a team in contention for an NCAA berth, with a strong season going as an independent (10-7-1) and currently ranked No. 20th in the NCAA Pairwise Rankings. A win or two over UND this weekend would do wonders for Alaska's chances of a postseason berth.

What we all can hope for is that neither game goes into overtime. UND has a perplexing string of four straight overtime losses, twice to Colorado College and once each to Denver and the U.S. Under-18 team. The game against the USA team was an exhibition game and doesn't count on UND's overall record, so the record is officially three OT losses in a row.

Still, it begs the question of what UND can do better to turn an overtime game into a win. UND does have two overtime wins (Boston University, Bemidji State) to its credit earlier this season and one overtime tie (Minnesota State), but has fallen into this string of losses of late.

And as the season goes on, an overtime win or loss in conference play could determine if your team wins the league title, or settles somewhere down the ranks. In postseason NCAA play, an overtime loss will end your season. Done. Finished.

This is a talented UND team here, one cobbled together with returning players joined by incoming freshmen and transfers from other programs. It is a team that has come together with a chance to make a solid run at the NCHC title and post-season berth.

These games this weekend do not count toward that NCHC race, of course. But they very well might give us a good indication whether this team can come together in the second half of the season to make that run.

And a key might be learning again how to win overtime games -- or play well enough to avoid them entirely.

So as 2024 college hockey swings back into full gear, here's wishing you Fighting Hawks fans a Happy New Year with Happy Results on the ice.

Virg Foss is in his 54th season of writing about UND hockey. He was the beat writer for UND hockey for the Grand Forks Herald for 35 years prior to his retirement in 2005. He is currently in his 19th season of writing about Fighting Hawks hockey for UND Athletic Communications.