Saturday night will signal the end of the latest chapter in a long-running story for Minnesota Gophers men’s hockey. Tyler Nanne will step onto the ice at 3M Arena at Mariucci for senior night wearing the No. 2 that his grandpa once wore while playing for the program from 1960 to 1963. Joining him out there will be his mother and father, Marty, who played for the Gophers from 1985 to 1988. And there will be even more Nannes in the stands.

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It’ll seem storybook that night — another Nanne generation nearing the end of its run with Gopher hockey — but how it got to this point took more than just a little serendipity.

Tyler’s grandpa, Lou Nanne, is a native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, but he has made his mark as a man in Minnesota. First by playing college hockey for the Gophers — where he also was a captain — then playing for USA Hockey in the Olympics after Congress passed a bill that made him an American citizen, becoming a rare NHL free agent signing to play for the NHL expansion team North Stars, later transitioning to general manager and coaching for the local pro team and now serving as a godfather to the game in the State of Hockey, still monitoring all levels of the game to this day, maintaining a constant voice on sports talk radio with weekly appearances on KFAN and continuing to call the state high school tournament on television — something he’s done since 1964.

The Nanne name easily could have landed somewhere else back in 1959 if he would have just given into the Chicago Blackhawks’ demands for him to play juniors for a franchise-affiliated team, St. Catherine’s, but Lou Nanne wanted to continue his education and pursue dentistry. One problem with the Blackhawks plan was the local university, McMaster, didn’t have a dental program. So the kid from The Soo told the Blackhawks to leave him be, he wouldn’t play anywhere without getting to pursue dentistry, and that stubbornness left him having to find his own spot in the United States to keep playing hockey.

Locating his next hockey team and fulfilling his dental school requirement wasn’t a simple process as the schools pursuing him, North Dakota and RPI, saw him as a fit for their programs, but Nanne didn’t see one on their campus without a dental program. Eventually, John Mariucci got word about Nanne, had him down during the summer to Minnesota where, Lou’s relatives told him, there was a strong dental school. A cab driver allayed fears of snowfall, dismissing them as an insignificant concern. Heck, Minneapolis even had plenty of movie theater options that Nanne enjoyed. He was sold.

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While he might have been hoodwinked about the snow, and he eventually gave up on his dental school dream after a failed frog dissection, the college hockey part was a great fit for Nanne who was named league MVP and All-American as an offensive defenseman who also won the league scoring championship.

Pursuing his next step in hockey by turning professional, he again ran into issues with the Blackhawks. Nanne felt like he wasn’t being given a fair contract offer and he decided that he could make more money using his business administration degree instead. He went to work first in sales for agribusiness firm Archer Daniels Midland and then with Harvey Mackay’s Mackay Envelope Co. while playing weekend hockey in Rochester and living in a duplex over on Minnehaha Avenue. Nanne found himself settling down and taking care of a quickly expanding family.

“After I finished at the university, I was working here, decided to stay here. We had a daughter, and then my wife got pregnant right away again, so 11 months later we had twins. We only had a two-bedroom place — so we had to go buy a house,” Lou Nanne told The Athletic. “I looked around and they were building Braemar (Arena), so … we came to Edina.”

While his hockey career took him all over the world, the family roots deepened in Edina at that moment — and all because of the new indoor hockey rink. It turned out to be a rink where Marty Nanne developed into a player with his own eyes set on college hockey and hoped to continue playing for the local university.

“For me,” Marty Nanne said, “I knew I wanted to be a Gopher, but at the same time, I’d be fooling myself if I didn’t say I had an average career coming up through peewee and bantams. Then I had a very good junior year and state high school tournament. I knew that I wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps, but I also wanted to explore my options.”

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Having an exceptional state hockey tournament playing for the Hornets opened opportunities for Marty Nanne at Providence, Michigan State, Michigan, Miami-Ohio and Maine. He was looking forward to taking advantage of official visits being offered to see Red Berenson in Ann Arbor and Lou Lamoriello in Providence. He thought that he might take all five visits and weigh his options. However, when Minnesota’s then-head coach Brad Buetow called and said he wanted Marty to commit for a recently opened spot in the program, he was definitely interested. There was a catch though — Marty couldn’t take any other visits and had to make up his mind quickly. It was a high-pressure recruiting tactic, but in this case, it was a no-brainer.

As Tyler Nanne navigated his own recruitment, he didn’t just have the pull of his father and grandfather’s connections to the Gophers, but also another current tie with his cousin Vinni Lettieri headed there and brother Louis Nanne, who was originally committed to Minnesota, but later de-committed to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“When I came to my sophomore year (in high school), Minnesota was looking at me, but they never officially offered — I was pretty average my sophomore year,” Tyler Nanne said. “Then I fractured my back, so I was out six months. I missed the elite league, which is a big recruitment process, and then my junior year state tournament I started getting a few looks. Like my dad, I was a late bloomer and then I had five or six offers. I decided since Louis de-committed, I wanted to go somewhere else, so I went to Ohio State. Deep down I wanted to be a Gopher too, but the chips didn’t fall right.”

Tyler Nanne saw his brother spending a year away from home year playing for Penticton in the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL), getting away from the Nanne brand, and thought maybe that was the best for him too. Marty Nanne said Louis Nanne got a refreshing experience playing where nobody cared who Lou Nanne was, and while Marty hoped the family cycle of Gophers could continue with his sons, he was also very proud of him for saying he didn’t want to go to Minnesota and live in his grandpa’s shadow.

It was a bit of a challenge for the family with mixed feelings since they wanted their family close to home, but they all understood the decision. When push came to shove, happiness came first and that meant having two kids playing away from home at RPI and Ohio State.

Well, at least that seemed like the end of the cycle, until Tyler Nanne was diagnosed with myocarditis and wouldn’t be cleared to play for the Buckeyes.

“That’s a scary disease, it is the second biggest killer of kids. It is a serious thing, but it’s a virus. And you can’t just heal it with medication, it’s got to run its course, which it did,” Lou Nanne said. “(The doctors) don’t allow them to do anything for that whole first year … he couldn’t skate, he couldn’t do anything.”

The disease isn’t very common, and research on the best path forwards was pretty limited at Ohio State. The Nanne family felt that the school wasn’t keen on moving forward training an athlete who had real risks of death due to heart failure, a stroke or sudden cardiac arrest. If Tyler Nanne was interested in playing Division-I hockey, then he’d have to find a different institution.

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And it just happened that Lou Nanne knew one. His ties to Minnesota exposed him to the case of former offensive lineman Brian Bobek, who transferred from the Buckeyes to the Gophers and dealt with the same virus.

“Bobek was at Ohio State, he got myocarditis like Tyler had, and the doctors wouldn’t let him play there — and those doctors didn’t know as much as the doctors at Mayo Clinic did. Mayo was where the papers were written, where the research was done and everything,” Lou Nanne said. “The university allowed Bobek to play, and of course, my son and my daughter-in-law, they wanted to make sure everything was OK with their son first, but when he went through the kind of checks he had to go through, for as long as he did … there is nobody else that I know that ever played the game who has been through as many checks as he’s been through, you feel better when you hear that.”

As with Bobek, doctors did clear Tyler Nanne to play for the Gophers and as Tyler put it, “when Don Lucia called and said there was a spot on the team for me, it was kind of a no-brainer.’ Getting back on the ice took some adjusting after sitting a year not being cleared by Ohio State and then sitting out a year as a transfer. His play on the ice didn’t really start to match his own expectations until after winter break last year. By the end of the season, he led the team in blocked shots, played heavy minutes as the coaching staff showed they trusted him by rolling as one of four defenders they counted on to play heavy minutes down the stretch. Things seemed to be back on track and the family got to enjoy seeing him on the ice.

The steadying influence he displayed the previous year carried over into the summer training, and as his senior season approached, his teammates named him as a captain near the end of September. It was an honor he shared with a text to his father and a quick phone call to his grandpa.

“(Grandpa Lou) was excited obviously, it’s an honor, but that lasted about 10 seconds and he just asked me about my practice habits and worried about the first game,” Tyler Nanne said. “It’s just a little thing. I think being a senior here, more importantly, is just enjoying the time and winning some games.”

While a college student might be able to stay in the moment and focus on what’s ahead, the honor is something his elders are more ready to reflect on as part of the bigger picture.

“I just know that he’s a great leader, he always has been,” Marty Nanne said. “I am a very proud father. You look at peewees — he won the state tournament. Up through high school state tournaments, he won, and he’s always been a captain on teams — he’s a great leader. It’s not about wearing the ‘C,’ it’s about what that represents for him. From a young age, he’s always had his team together — curling, bowling, video arcades, movies, all about bonding. To see him get a captaincy of the Gophers, it’s phenomenal.”

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The Nanne family was optimistic about the season for the Gophers even back in October when the team was predicted to finish fifth in the seven-team Big Ten Conference by the coaches poll. They talked about a group that had “exciting goaltenders,” “amazingly skilled young freshmen coming into the program,” “a coach that has won wherever he’s been and capable of bringing a team up and exceeding what people expect out of them.”

You could certainly say that the program exceeded expectations set for them for this season. The Gophers had a rocky first half being swept by old rivals North Dakota and Minnesota Duluth, and swept by new rival Penn State. Minnesota started 5-9-3 and hit the holiday break ranked No. 37 in the PairWise Ranking and last in the Big Ten Conference. Now after a second half where they’ve only lost four games, they’re headed into the final weekend of the season to face Michigan while sitting at No. 14 in the PairWise Ranking, seeking an NCAA tournament berth, and have a chance to win their league. But first, they’ll have a senior night celebration in front of their fans, family and friends.

“Just being close to home, I’m fortunate to have a lot of cousins and relatives in town,” Tyler Nanne said. “After a big win you look up in the stands and you see my parents, my grandparents, and it’s pretty cool my brother and his wife had a kid, so just seeing another generation in the stands is awesome. It wasn’t too long ago when I was sitting in the stands watching these games. Time flies, but it’s pretty cool to be on the ice representing Minnesota.

“It’s going to be an emotional weekend obviously, the guys will be ready. My relatives are in town and it’s not just for the seniors — we’re playing as a team, that’s the most important thing. If we can get a couple wins it’s a 2-for-1.”

Playing his last weekend of regular-season games at home, Tyler Nanne knows he’s put in the work to make the most of this season. He’s seen two seasons end without NCAA tournament berths on undesirable terms, being bested by Minnesota Duluth by .0001 of a PairWise point two years ago and falling in overtime to a Notre Dame power-play goal in a Big Ten Tournament game last season. The weekend offers one more chance where he’ll get to play at home and he’s looking straight ahead controlling what is in his hands.

“I feel like the pressure days are over, now it’s just kind of up to me,” Tyler said. “Obviously having these two guys (Marty and Lou), it’s a blessing to have them pave the way, but my life is just to the point where it’s my last year and I’ve got to leave my mark because they left their mark. They did remarkable things, that’s cool, but it’s my time selfishly.”

(Top photo of Lou, Marty and Tyler Nanne: Brian Deutsch / University of Minnesota athletics)