ESPN College Sports

It's been 32 years since hockey's chosen four have traveled to Denver to finish a season, but thanks to all of the early tournaments at the old Broadmoor World Arena in Colorado Springs, Saturday night will mark the 15th championship game in the state of Colorado.

The city of Denver has hosted three championships (1961, 1964 and 1976), all of which were played in the old University of Denver Arena. And in the final stupid, useless fact of the day, this will be the third consecutive beer town (Milwaukee, St. Louis, Denver) to host the Frozen Four (sure, nobody planned it that way).

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Icon SMIMichigan's Kevin Porter is the Hobey Baker favorite.

With the "amaze your friends with useless trivia" portion of the program out of the way, let's turn our attention to five key questions heading into Thursday's national semifinals (ESPN2, 6 and 9 p.m. ET).

1. Will Denver's elevation be a factor for the Frozen Four teams?
Jeff Jackson says no, well, probably not. The Notre Dame coach is smarter than me, so for now I'm buying it. Remember, Jackson was the coach and senior director of the U.S. National Team Development Program for four years. Yes, the team was based in Ann Arbor, but Jackson worked closely with USA Hockey and the U.S. Olympic Committee, both based in Colorado Springs, during his tenure running the USNTDP.

"The elevation issue is really overblown," Jackson said. "There are studies that have been done on elevation and how it impacts performance, and it has more of an impact the longer you are there. And the area that it has the biggest impact [on] is fatigue away from the rink.

"It creates restless sleep, and there's some nutritional things that you need to be aware of, some hydration things that you have to be aware of, and as long as you prepare for the process of playing in a higher elevation, generally the players don't feel the effects of it until they get to that five-day period, and then it wears off after that."

Let's see, the teams arrived on Tuesday, so five days would be time to go home for everyone. Case closed -- until someone tries to use it as an excuse for what went wrong in the Mile High City.

2. Can Michigan's first line be stopped?
Good luck … first to Notre Dame and then to Boston College or North Dakota, if the Wolverines advance to Saturday's title game. Quite simply, the Max Pacioretty-Kevin Porter-Chad Kolarik line has been virtually unstoppable so far.

That trio has combined for 154 points (76 goals, 78 assists) in Michigan's 42 games -- including six goals and nine assists in the two games at the East Regional. Porter is the leader of the group with a nation-leading 33 goals and 62 points. Kolarik, his Phoenix Coyotes draft mate, isn't far behind with 28 goals and 54 points -- including a nation's best seven game-winning goals. And the freshman Pacioretty, a first-round pick of the Canadiens last summer, has 15 goals and 38 points to his credit.

In the two games the Fighting Irish played against Michigan this season -- a pair of losses in mid-January -- Porter had two goals and Kolarik registered one. A repeat of that performance by Notre Dame may (or may not) be enough to slow down the Wolverines, but Jackson's club should certainly focus on keeping that line below its nearly four-points-a-night output.

3. Which goaltender gives his team the biggest edge?
It gets harped on all the time, but in a single-elimination tournament, goaltending and special teams win games. And a goalie can single-handedly steal a win in this format. Look no further than Michigan State's Jeff Lerg last April in St. Louis. Or Denver's Peter Mannino, who made 44 saves in winning the 2005 title. Or Pioneer Adam Berkhoel, who pitched a 24-save shutout and with withstood a 6-on-3 onslaught in the closing minute of the 2004 championship game. Need more examples? Didn't think so.

This year's conventional wisdom candidate would be North Dakota's J.P. Lamoureux. This will be his third trip to and second start at the Frozen Four, and while he's yet to win a game on this stage, the senior has been the best goaltender in the nation this season. He leads the country in goals-against average (1.64) and save percentage (.936), and his 26-10-4 record in the rugged WCHA means he won't be fazed by the magnitude of the moment or by seeing a lot of shots.

At the Midwest Regional in Madison, Lamoureux combined for 79 saves while giving up only three goals (.963 save percentage) in posting wins over Princeton and Wisconsin. And at last year's Frozen Four, he made 39 saves in the loss to Boston College.

"I'm very comfortable facing whatever amount of shots a team throws at me," Lamoureux said. "It's not something that's in my control. I've had games this season where I've faced under 15 and I've had games where I've faced over 40. I just look at my role on this team, and that's to make timely saves and to give our team an opportunity to win."

4. Which is more likely to happen: North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol wins his first title or Notre Dame wins its first title? This is the Irish's first trip to a Frozen Four, so very little is expected from the Irish. Then again, nobody expected Michigan State to make it to St. Louis last year and the Spartans walked out of the Scottrade Center with the plaque. And with Jackson, who won two national titles while coaching Lake Superior State in the early '90s, behind the bench, don't underestimate his ability to get the most out of Notre Dame's trip to Colorado -- just like he did two weekends ago in winning the West Regional as the No. 4 seed and last at-large selected to the tournament.

But the edge has to go to Hakstol, who has been North Dakota's head coach for four seasons and this is his fourth trip to the Frozen Four. He never made it this far as a player with the Sioux, but you have to wonder if he thinks this April trip is just part of the regular schedule each year. He'll be matching lines and strategies against Boston College's Jerry York, who owns a pair of national titles from Bowling Green (1984) and BC (2001). If Hakstol advances to the title game, he'll face either Jackson (two titles) or Red Berenson, who also has two national championships to his credit at Michigan (1996, '98).

Suffice it to say, Hakstol knows he's facing college hockey coaching royalty this weekend.

"That's very much an understatement. They're all legends," Hakstol said. "It's not only the success these gentlemen have had on the ice with wins, it's much greater than that. The success that they've had with their programs year after year, being part of developing great young men, I have nothing but respect for those gentlemen.

"This particular weekend that we're going into, all four of us are going in with our teams with a single mind-set, and I look forward to the opportunity."

5. Who is going to win the Hobey Baker Memorial Award?
The award will be given out Friday night (ESPNU, 6:30 p.m. ET) and there are three very good choices in Boston College's Nathan Gerbe, Miami's Ryan Jones and Porter. Jones exemplified everything a hockey captain should be over the past two seasons for the RedHawks. He was a force on the ice (31 goals, 49 points) this year and did many good things to promote the sport and support the community off of it.

Gerbe (30 goals, 60 points) is electrifying on the ice and he's a threat to score every time the puck is on his stick. It may be an illusion but he seems to skate faster with the puck than without it, and his spin-o-rama on a penalty shot against Providence in the Hockey East quarterfinals has been making the rounds on the video sharing sites.

But the favorite has to be Porter. He's the leading scorer and captain on the No. 1 team in the nation and the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament. And his leadership helped mold a Michigan club that skates nine freshmen into a team that has dominated the sport for most of the season.

And here's guessing that Porter and Gerbe would trade a shot at the Hobey right now for a chance to skate around the Pepsi Center ice on Saturday night holding the NCAA championship plaque above their head.

In a few short days, we'll find out whether either leaves Denver with any hardware on the plane ride home.

David Albright is the senior deputy editor for college sports at ESPN.com. He can be reached at david.albright@espn3.com.