Quick: Name the plucky, upstart scrapers who upset UConn on the way to the Final Four in 2006. If you named George Mason, you are correct. If you named some other team, you are dumb, because it says “George Mason” in the title of this post. If you named Bemidji State, you are even dumber, because they don’t play Division I basketball. Now that I’ve belittled you, my audience, I would like to direct you to the great Dan Steinberg at the D.C. Sports Bog:

“Wanted to give you a heads up that the Green Machine will be playing as Bemidji State’s pep band at the Frozen Four this week,” George Mason’s iconic band leader, Doc Nix, wrote to me this week. Can you say “perfect storyline for every D.C. media outlet trying to figure out how to cover college hockey?”

“There are a lot of connections there, aren’t there?” Bemidji AD Rick Goeb told me this afternoon with a laugh.

At first glance, you might go: “Whoa, cool! This is so fitting. Like George Mason, Bemidji State is the underdog playing with the big-name teams in the finals. Speaking of dogs, I need to go walk mine now. Jonah gets antsy when I’m on the Internet.”

But, that’s really not true. As Dan notes, Bemidji State has plenty of hockey championships, just not in Division I. Also, the only reason Mason’s Green Machine is playing for Bemidji State is because its own band had a scheduling conflict and a Capitals employee and Bemidji state fan — the games are being played in the Verizon Center — knew some people at George Mason.

This seemed a lot cooler when I first read about it.