Air Force players will never forget the taste of victory on March 12, 2022.

The Falcons huddled around Parker Brown after he scored the game-winning goal in game two of the AHA Quarterfinals against Army. Not only did the Falcons advance to the conference semifinals, they secured bragging rights over a rival service academy.

It was a moment of pride for every player on the roster.

“It was a special moment for the whole team,” senior Willie Reim said. “It was a wild experience.”

Moments like that happen far too infrequently.

Air Force and Army are the only service academies that play NCAA Division I hockey, and they happen to be in the same conference. Despite that, they don’t play as often as they should.

This year, Air Force’s road series against Army, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, is the only meeting between the academies. The last time Air Force and Army played two regular-season series was 2018-19, and the teams did the same for a few years prior to that season.

Although Air Force repeats several of its conference opponents — like AIC, RIT and Holy Cross — the Falcons have only played one regular-season series against Army per year in recent memory.

Why is that?

Most of it revolves around league scheduling, according to a source close to Air Force’s hockey team.

Even so, it would be advantageous for the league to pair the teams multiple times every season, possibly as travel partners.

With every team in the AHA other than Air Force located near the east coast, it’s not like West Point, New York, is much farther from Colorado than any of the league’s other teams.

“When there’s an even number of teams, you should have a rival,” Air Force coach Frank Serratore said. “It would be two full houses for them and two full houses for us. From a competitive and entertainment standpoint, it all makes sense.”

Every time the Air Force and Army hockey teams play, it’s among the most anticipated games on both teams’ schedules.

Air Force’s Friday game against Army last year had more than 3,000 fans, the highest of any game at Cadet Ice Arena that season. And game two was still several hundred fans over Air Force’s average attendance of 1,700.

The last time Army hosted Air Force during the regular season was the 2019-20 season, and those games saw similarly high attendance. Both games exceeded 2,600 fans — the most for Army the entire season and roughly 400 spectators more than the next-closest games.

A reason for this is the notoriety of the rival academies on both campuses.

Reim said people at the Academy, family members and friends have reached out with words of encouragement before the series. He also said the first thing he saw on West Point’s campus when arriving was a giant banner on a building that read “Beat Air Force.”

“Even people who don’t follow the hockey team have been saying, ‘Beat Army,’” Reim said. “They know the opponent and how special the rivalry is.”

Because Air Force isn’t a Mountain West Conference member in hockey, the Falcons’ only shared opponent with the academy’s football team is Army, which the Falcons battle every year in their non-conference football slate.

And they’re not just opponents in football, they’re rivals. Those two programs, along with Navy, compete for the Commander-in-chief’s Trophy, given to the service academy with the best records in games against one another.

It’s evident that the service academy rivalry is more than just a football rivalry. It carries over to all of the academies’ sponsored sports.

The schools are so similar, even in the ways they run their athletic departments.

“They’re the only opponent we play where it’s an apples-to-apples comparison, between the ground rules, recruiting and what the players go through every day,” Serratore said. “Our institution is so much different from the traditional schools we play.”

A senior, Reim is disappointed that he doesn’t get to battle Army at Cadet Ice Arena one last time.

But that’s fueling him even more for the series at West Point — the winner of the road series will take home all the glory.

“I’d say it’s definitely a bummer that we won’t get to play them at home during my senior year,” Reim said. “But at the same time, it would be just as fun to silence their crowd.”