Alaska Nanooks hockey coach Erik Largen poses after practice at Mariucci Arena in Minneapolis, the day before his team played Minnesota on Jan. 13. (AP photo)

Playing college hockey in the nation’s northernmost state comes with an education in patience, positive attitudes — and efficient packing.

The Alaska Nanooks are all about making the most of what they have.

“We’re allowed a duffel bag, a hockey bag and a backpack. I usually stuff like an extra 20 pounds in my hockey bag,” said freshman forward Brady Risk, the team’s leading scorer.

The last round of conference realignment left them without a league home, so the Nanooks are playing as an independent. This, of course, is so much better than not playing at all, a deprivation they endured last season due to the pandemic.

Intrastate rival Alaska Anchorage is on hiatus for a second straight year, a university budget-cut casualty before private fundraising restored that program for 2022-23. The Alaska state budget, closely tied to oil prices, took such a hit in the last decade that all varsity sports at the Anchorage and Fairbanks campuses were at one point in danger of being dropped.

“We’re not at that point where we’re looking at it and saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get in the national tournament,'” Nanooks coach Erik Largen said. “We’re just at the point of growing and getting better as a program, and the guys have embraced it. They just want to play.”

The Nanooks wrapped up a 22-night road trip on Jan. 15. They left campus in Fairbanks on Christmas night, when a simple stop in Seattle became a four-day stay as virus-related airline staff shortages and wintry weather in the region grounded flight after flight.

After a red-eye and a single practice, Alaska lost the opener at fifth-ranked Denver before tying the second game of the series. The Nanooks then split a pair of games at Maine and did the same at 10th-ranked Minnesota. They are 6-15-1 with a roster that’s almost two-thirds freshmen, with 20 scheduled games against teams currently ranked in the top 25.

The pandemic-driven evolution of online learning has actually been a benefit, making it easier to be on the road so much and still keep up with schoolwork. Only 14 of the 34 scheduled games this season are at home in Fairbanks, where on the winter solstice there was 3 hours and 42 minutes of daylight and the average January high is 2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-17 Celsius).