How Michigan's Michael Hage used hockey to help overcome tragedy - ESPN

Editor's note: This story, which was originally published March 26 before the start of the NCAA tournament, has been updated.

AS A BLUE-BLOOD college hockey power stacked with high-end talent, Michigan's expectations never waver. It's a program built on nine national championships, where the postseason isn't about participation, but what happens next.

For star sophomore Michael Hage, the fact the path to a national title runs through Las Vegas this year — the site of the Frozen Four — includes an element of karmic fate.

It was in Las Vegas where one of the most significant moments of Hage's hockey career occurred. The 19-year-old center doesn't remember everything about his NHL draft night at the Sphere in June 2024: not the exact sequence, not every name called before him.

But he can still describe the unmistakable energy of his friends and family sitting alongside him, a traveling party of nearly 60. He remembers the way his heart sped up when the Montreal Canadiens were on the clock at No. 21. And a moment, right before the pick, when he leaned toward his mom.

«Do you think it's going to be me?» he asked.

«I was hoping,» Rania Saba says now.

Then it happened.

«Surreal,» she said. «There's no way you could've scripted it any better.»

Few things in Hage's life have gone according to script. But there's one throughline in his journey, and it's a mantra from his mother: «Don't move on, just move forward.» That was on full display this season, as Hage emerged as one of the top playmakers in the country for the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament.

Michigan will face Denver in a Frozen Four semifinal Thursday night (8:30 ET, ESPN2), and while Hage was limited in the first two games because of a lower-body injury,