ST PAUL, Minn. — The Edina Hornets High School Pep Band have played many events and games together.
"Definitely hockey," senior Malhaar Jain said.
"I like hockey, but I play football, so I would say football as well," senior Cole Edam said.
Thursday night, though, they played an event bigger than they've ever been on.
"No, we've never been asked to provide a pep band for anything like this," band director Andy Richter said.
Many of these band members thought their last time playing for hockey was at the State Hockey Tournament – until a university out west came calling.
"When I got to thinking about it more, I thought, 'Yeah, we could do that,'" Richter said. "That would be a lot of fun."
"We're a good band, we've been practicing for awhile," Edam added. "We learned the fight song pretty easily."
The Frozen Four features the best four teams in college hockey, and this year features Boston University, Boston College, Michigan and the University of Denver. Other programs have a band of their own – not Denver.
So, thanks to old connections between coaches and athletic directors at the University, Edina became the University of Denver pep band for their matchup Thursday night.
"I mean, this is crazy!" senior Sophie Sannes Eckhoff said. "This is a college event, and we're high schoolers playing at it!"
The band only had about a week and a half to learn the fight song – but you wouldn't know that. They even got into school spirit, chanting 'Let's go Denver,' alongside the cheerleaders.
"My parents and their friends would be like, 'Hey, I've always wanted to go to a Final Four game," senior Rachel Bond said. "I'm like, 'I'm going to one for free and I'm playing for one of the teams!'"
In fact, the team played so well that the Boston University band had to come let them know.
"They sound so good!" Lily Browall with the BU band said. "Having that short of an amount of time to not only learn it but get it to sound good and coherent is fantastic."
The Pioneers beat Boston University 2-1 and will play for the championship on Saturday.
Because of that, the Edina students will once again reprise their roles and fill in as the pep band this weekend.
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