Photos by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

DogHouse members Michael Downie and Ashley Demirali left Boston at 11 p.m. Thursday night for the long drive to Cincinnati in Demirali’s Honda Civic. I caught up with them by phone around 10:30 a.m. as they passed through Columbus, Ohio.

“This is unbelievable,” said Demirali, who has been going to Huskies’ games since childhood. Her father is a Northeastern alumnus, and at Friday’s game she’ll be sporting a special piece of Northeastern apparel: Her father’s 1982 Frozen Four Northeastern T-shirt, which is now faded from black to gray, and has shrunk from large to small.

As these Northeastern students made their way to Cincinnati, alumni from generations new and old convened at the Yard House Cincinnati – The Banks for the pre-game gathering hosted by the Huskies Club and Alumni Relations. Among them were four members of the Class of 2013 reuniting for the game: David Markham, Eric Jacobson, Dylan Nichols, and Conor Murphy. Markham flew in from Orlando, while Murphy and Nichols flew to Chicago to meet Jacobson and then the trio drove to Cincinnati this morning.

Their travel plans started taking shape after the Huskies won the Hockey East championship. “It took 24 hours to realize this was all really happening,” Markham said.