GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- After following the UND hockey team from coast to coast as the beat writer for UND hockey from 1969-2005, my interest has never wavered in the best college program in the country.

At age 85, I don't travel as much as I used to. So while my heart will be in Nevada with the UND Fighting Hawks in this year's Frozen Four, my body will be propped in front of a TV screen in Grand Forks or Fargo, watching with friends.

I have been at the home games with this team this season, and have had the honor of interviewing players and coaches after those games in my role as a hockey columnist for UND Athletic Communications.

I have been there in person to watch and write as UND won national championships in 1980, 1982, 1987, 1997 and 2000. I watched on TV as UND won NCAA title No. 8 in 2016. UND's other NCAA titles came in 1959 and 1963, when I was either in college in Minnesota in 1959 or in my first year as a young Navy officer on a destroyer in Norfolk, Va., in 1963.

And now we come into 2026, as UND joins three other teams who were once in the same league (WCHA) with UND once upon a time. Now UND and Denver will represent the National Collegiate Hockey Conference in Las Vegas, while UND's foe on Thursday in the semifinals, Wisconsin, joins Michigan in representing the Big Ten.

I've written before about this being the most unusual and in a way, most unexpected UND  team, to reach the Frozen Four.

With an entire new coaching staff put together by former UND player Dane Jackson in his first year as head coach, he first of all, assembled a great crew.

Then when a few key players transferred to other schools as the coaching change took place at UND after last season, Jackson and staff did an amazing job bringing in 10 freshmen and a handful of key transfers who make up the bulk of this team.

Some key veterans stayed with the program through that transition, believing that in Jackson and in this program, these fans, this was the best place for them to be. Thank you to those who stayed. The grass isn't always greener on the other end of the ice!

All this team has done is win the NCHC Penrose Cup as regular-season NCHC champs and follow that up with two rare shutout wins in the NCAA Regional tournament in Sioux Falls to advance to the Frozen Four.

That Jackson and his staff could put this team together in this fashion, this quickly, and so very successfully, is rather remarkable, in my view. That means this program is in good hands going forward in future years as well.

It is unfortunate that Ralph Engelstad, the former Fighting Sioux goalie who donated this palace on the prairie of a rink bearing his name at UND, is no longer with us. He would have loved to welcome his old school to the city where he carved out his living and made the money to donate to build the rink carrying his name here.

So beginning on Thursday, UND will take on the Badgers in one semifinal with Denver and Michigan battling in the other.

The winners meet for the national title on Saturday. Wouldn't it be wonderful if UND, in a roundabout way, could thank Ralph once again by claiming its 9th NCAA title in the city that Engelstad called home?

I like UND's chances in Las Vegas. Because of its great depth, it is a very difficult team for an opponent to match up against.

I will go this far -- I do think UND will be playing for the national title come Saturday.

Virg Foss has written about UND since 1969, either for the Grand Forks Herald or for UND. He can be contacted at virgfoss@yahoo.com.