In a town like Boston, with a past filled with legendary sports moments, it's hard for a local team to do something that hasn't already been done.
But on Saturday, the Northeastern women's hockey team will make history when it plays an NCAA tournament game on home ice at Matthews Arena for the first time ever.
The team will be taking on the Cornell Big Red with a ticket to the Frozen Four — hockey's version of the Final Four — on the line.
"I think it's unbelievable," said senior forward Kasidy Anderson.
Northeastern has been to the national tournament in three of the past four seasons, but the team has never won a tournament game in the 18 years since the NCAA started a women's hockey national championship.
Anderson, who has played in two tournament games on the road with Northeastern, says having a game at home will make the experience that much better for the Huskies, ranked No. 3 in the nation.
"Just realizing how much confidence it gives you to be able to play that game at your home ice and to understand that this one game will determine whether you can go to the Frozen Four or not," she said. "And it was kind of a milestone that we were reaching for and to be able to reach it is incredible."
This season, the Huskies have won 27 games, one of the best records in program history. But the road wasn't easy. The team went up against a nationally ranked opponent 11 times throughout the year.
Senior Tori Sullivan said Head Coach Dave Flint wanted the team to have a tough schedule.
"He'd rather play a lot of good teams and maybe come out with a loss or a tie or just a tough game where we can learn a lot rather than not as strong teams where we don't really learn as much," she said. "It's been great having the competition that we've had, and I think it's really prepared us for Saturday."
But the team faced a bit of a low point during the Beanpot in February, the annual tournament against crosstown rivals Boston College, Boston University and Harvard.
For the second year in a row, the Huskies went winless in the Beanpot. Since then, however, they've only lost once.
Sullivan said the playoff atmosphere was a learning experience.
"We were pretty disappointed, but we knew that it was a good test for us [to] learn from it," she said. "And then moving forward ... we were gonna perform at our best and come together and learn from those mistakes that we made in Beanpot."
Now, the Huskies have their eyes on Cornell, who currently sits as the sixth-ranked team in the nation.
Associate Head Coach Nick Carpenito and the rest of the coaching staff have been busy scouring through the Big Red's film to get ready for the match-up.
Carpenito, who attended Northeastern and got his start coaching the women's club team, says the squad understands the historic nature of the game and what pressures it can bring.
"For us as a staff, a big thing that we've been preaching to them all week is making sure that we're playing it like any other game," he said. "We don't have to win a national championship on Saturday, we've gotta beat Cornell."
At practice this week, the mood was light but focused as the Huskies glided through drills. More than anything, it looked like players were having fun.
Anderson and her teammates are trying to take everything in stride. They know the success they've had so far means nothing once the puck drops.
"We cannot go into this game thinking its just going to be handed to us, because its not," she said.
Still, it's hard not to think about what's possible for the Huskies.
"To even be in the running to win it all is gonna be really amazing for this program and it's gonna be very special," she said. "And it's 100 percent doable, and I think that's what even more exciting about the whole thing."
Northeastern's Matthews Arena has seen its fair share of memorable moments in its 100-plus-years of use. But if everything goes the Huskies' way, there may be one more historic win to add to the list.
