ANN ARBOR -- Since the Big Ten hockey conference was created in 2014, no league team has won the national championship.
That could change this year.
Three Big Ten teams -- Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State -- are in the 2018 Frozen Four at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The 10th-ranked Wolverines (22-14-3) face the second-ranked Irish at 9:30 p.m. on April 5, while the fifth-ranked Buckeyes (26-9-5) play Minnesota-Duluth (23-16-3) from the National Collegiate Hockey Conference at 5 p.m.
"I think this is what everyone envisioned when the new leagues started to form, that the Big Ten would be a pretty darn good hockey league, if not the best league in college hockey," Michigan first-year head coach Mel Pearson said in a Frozen Four teleconference on Tuesday.