Michigan’s Seamus Casey, Gavin Brindley Return To Florida For Frozen Four

There will be a few hundred family members, relatives, friends and friends of friends in the stands at Amalie Arena cheering on Seamus Casey and Gavin Brindley at the Frozen Four, which gets underway Thursday evening.

Close friends since they were five, the Michigan freshmen grew up about two hours south of Tampa where they skated and competed at a rink in Estero. There are the only Floridians in the Frozen Four. As such, they find it surreal that they are back in the Sunshine State, and in the home of the Tampa Bay Lightning, with a chance to win a national championship.

“It means everything,” said Casey, following the Wolverines’ practice Wednesday afternoon. “Just being back here and all the family and friends that are going to be here for support. Gavin and I were skating around at the end of practice it was kind of like, ‘Dude, we can point pretty much anywhere in the crowd and find somebody we know. It’s pretty special.”

Tampa previously hosted the Frozen Four in 2012 when Boston College defeated Ferris State to win the national title, and in 2016 when North Dakota was crowned champion after besting Quinnipiac, who the Wolverines meet in Thursday evening’s semifinal. This year makes it a hat trick of sorts with the city hosting the event for a third time, the only times the Frozen Four has been played in the south.

“It’s pretty exciting,” said Brindley. “It doesn’t happen too often where you get to play in a Frozen Four in your home state, especially Florida. Definitely excited to be back and can’t wait to play (Thursday).”

A win over Quinnipiac would send the Wolverines to Saturday evening’s championship game against the winner between Boston University and Minnesota, who face off in Thursday’s first seminal matchup. (The Wolverines also have a Tampa connection in forward Dylan Duke, who the Lightning selected in the fourth round of the 2021 NHL draft.)

“Coming here and breathing in this Florida air has been really nice, and it’s a beautiful rink,” added Brindley, a forward who has played in all of Big Blue’s 40 games and has 12 goals and 26 assists. “I have seen a ton of games here growing up. It’s awesome to be back and we’re jacked up.”

It never took much for Casey, a second-round selection of the Devils in 2022, to get jacked up when it came to the Lightning. His allegiance was set in stone as a youth when his father bought him a certain jersey.

“The first jersey I ever had was a Stamkos jersey,” he said, of Lightning captain Steven Stamkos. “He was always one of my favorite players growing up.”

Brindley likes the Lightning as well. However, his allegiance is spread around a bit thanks to the name that was on the back of his first jersey.

“I always rooted for the Lightning and Panthers growing up,” he said of the Florida Panthers, about two hours east of Estero in Sunrise. “My favorite player growing up was Sidney Crosby. His was the first jersey I had. So, I’m a big Penguins fan. But I always pull for the Florida teams and hopefully they go deep so we can go see some playoff games toward the end of the year.”

Casey, a defenseman with seven goals and 21 assists in 36 games, and Brindley lived in the same neighborhood and played on the same youth teams with the AA Florida Everblades and AAA Florida Alliance travel team among them.

Florida Alliance was coached by Brindley’s father, Ryan, a Thunder Bay, Ontario native who was a three-time all-star for the East Coast Hockey League’s Florida Everblades, which plays in Estero. Florida Alliance was the state’s only travel team, which made for a unique situation.

“It’s pretty tough with all the guys from all over the state,” said Brindley, who is eligible for this year’s NHL draft. “We had a couple kids from outside the state as well coming to play. So, we didn’t practice together during the week. We’d only practice together on the weekends and you train in your own rink during the week, locally, and kind of work on your own skills.”

Weekends were also when Florida Alliance traveled to tournaments in the U.S. and Canada. They made it work.

Travel is something Casey and Brindley did quite a bit of as their teenage years went along, including playing on the international stage. They competed for Team USA in the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Switzerland in 2020, the Under-18 Five Nations tournament in 2021, which was also in Switzerland. The best friends also wore the red, white and blue in Germany at the 2022 International Ice Hockey Federation Under-18 World Championships.

“To see those countries together was kind of special,” said Casey. “We hadn’t played together for about a year at one point and we got back together for those tournaments. It was so much fun. They were definitely growing experiences, traveling the world together.”

Roommates in Ann Arbor, the two enjoy getting, or at least attempting to get, under each other’s skin.

“Oh, yeah,” said Casey, grinning from ear to ear. “On the ice (at practice Wednesday) we were going against each other and trying to piss each other off. We room together at Michigan, so we are always with each other. We wouldn’t have it any other way, but we are definitely always at each other’s throats.”

They may also hoist a national championship trophy together in their home state come late Saturday evening.