It’s the middle of summer in Traverse City, Michigan, and Dallas Drake is entertaining a media visit on short notice. 

He lives in a modern castle on top of a hill, filled with big dogs and big kids, with a backyard that is a sports fantasy: a near regulation-size multi-sport hockey rink, leading out to a dock rigged for waterskiing. His basement is the ultimate man cave, with a massive screen and luxury recliners for viewing the Stanley Cup playoffs. A few steps away is a bar for entertaining, surrounded by pictures and trophies honoring his 16-year NHL career.

Although the 50-year-old Drake is a native of British Columbia, he adopted Northern Michigan as his home after playing NCAA hockey in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for four years, graduating in 1992 from Northern Michigan with a diploma and a national championship ring. The robust hockey community in Traverse City knows him as the devoted youth hockey coach who started and finished his pro career with the Red Wings, hoisting the Stanley Cup as his last act in "The Show." But if you study his man cave, you’ll see special attention paid to that 1991 squad of Wildcats from Marquette, a group that will forever march shoulder-to-shoulder.

“I’ve said this a million times,” Drake said from the man-cave, “up until I won a Stanley Cup in 2008, winning [an NCAA] national championship was the highlight of my career. I told people that even when I played in the NHL, until I win something big, the ’91 national championship was the top of my list.”

The title game in 1991 against Boston University was actually many games in one, a four-act classic that tops the NCAA pantheon of overtime title games. Today, college playoff games are played by supreme athletes devoted to defense, games that have the offense suffocated out of them by designing coaches. 

The 1991 title game had no such restrictions. It opened with BU running off to a three-goal lead, and then Northern Michigan storming back to take their own three-goal. Act 3 was BU’s desperate comeback to force overtime, which paved the way for three overtime sessions, nail-biting drama in which several pucks banged loudly off posts. Northern finally ended the drama late in triple overtime, leading to a green and yellow dogpile for the ages in the St. Paul Civic Center.

“I’ve had several people who watched that game that were NHL players that I played with, saying that was one of the greatest college hockey games they’ve ever seen,” Drake said. “Ray Ferraro, TSN analyst, he said, ‘that was the greatest college hockey game I’ve ever seen.’” 

Not only did it provide Drake a college memory for a lifetime, but it shaped him as both a player and a man.

“From a mindset, you realize that you’re good enough to win a championship,” Drake explained. “You learn a lot of different ways of what you’re about as a hockey player. I learned a lot about myself, how to play both ends of the rink, what you can do to help a team win a championship.”

Dallas Drake recalls the 1991 NCAA Title from his Traverse City man cave. pic.twitter.com/hprYAarpbe

— Tim Rappleye (@teeraps) July 23, 2019

Drake now devotes himself to raising a new generation of champions, coaching and working with his four children. His daughter Delaney, now a junior at Wisconsin, won the women’s NCAA title last spring with the Badgers. 

Despite being a kid who grew up surrounded by the culture of junior hockey in western Canada, Drake is part of the NCAA community, a guy with his own national championship trophy who keeps in close touch with his alma mater, a Wildcat team on the cusp of the NCAA Tournament the past two seasons under dynamic coach Grant Potulny.

“Every now and then I talk to Grant,” Drake said. “He’s been gracious enough to reach out to me and ask me questions sometimes, so that’s been fun. I enjoy trying to help any way I can. He’s been really good. I’m really excited about the direction the team is going right now.”

Despite coaching multiple youth teams in Traverse City every winter, Drake always knows how Northern Michigan is playing, and where they are headed. His college hockey experience left a brand on him that 16 years in the NHL could never wash off. Playing, and winning, the greatest national championship game of them all is a big reason.

“It’s something I’ll never forget, and something I’ll cherish forever.”