ST. LOUIS − The game was played here at Enterprise Center on Saturday night, but if you closed your eyes and only listened to the crowd, you would have thought it was in Kalamazoo. Western Michigan Broncos fans were about 10 times louder than Boston University’s traveling partisans on the decibel meter.

Western Michigan hockey has never been on the NCAA national championship stage –– it’s the program’s first-ever Frozen Four in a season full of firsts. The Broncos’ hockey program hasn’t won a national title ever and are looking for their first athletic national championship since 1965, when the men’s cross country team won it all.