Inside a Stadium Village apartment overflowing with hockey jerseys, including a customized Connor McDavid Minnesota Wild sweater, lie four hockey fanatics. Three from Rogers, Minnesota, and one from Pico Rivera, California. The west coast kid is the most famous of the foursome.

Andrew Mercado, aka “Big Merc” on Twitter, is one of the most well-known figures in the student section for Gophers men’s hockey games.

In fact, last Saturday he was approached by hockey players Brock Faber, Carl Fish, Mike Koster and Mason Nevers after their Frozen Four prep-practice to ask how he was doing. This is a common occurrence for Mercado; one of the first people he met at a Minnesota bar in fall 2021 was former Gophers forward Blake McGlaughlin, who kindly bought him a drink.

“He was a Ducks prospect as well, so I started fanboying over him,” Mercado said. “I got to meet him and he then introduced me to the rest of the team.”

Much of Mercado’s love for the game comes from following the Anaheim Ducks and the Long Beach Ice Dogs ECHL team before they disbanded in 2008.

Back home in Southern California, many of his friends did not watch hockey. Mercado makes sure to tell his roommates how much he loves them because back home, the only people who he can chat puck with are his father and older brother.

“The first time I met LaCombe I told him, ‘you’re going to win me a Stanley Cup one day,’” said Mercado, who is all in on the 39th overall pick in 2019 by Anaheim and the Gophers’ highest scoring defenseman. “One of the best players on the team is going to be a future Duck; it’s great to see that.”

A game presence that’s hard to miss

Easy to spot at Mariucci Arena, Mercado’s maroon and gold Pit Viper sunglasses combined with his bleached mullet make him stand out in the sea of students.

His love for the Gophers goes back to the early 2010s, when his dad traveled to Minnesota for a business conference. Knowing his son was a huge hockey fan, he bought Mercado some Gopher merchandise, and the rest is history.

“Last year was a dream come true. Going to the Frozen Four my first year here, I had a big smile on my face,” Mercado said. “Mariucci alone this year has been amazing. Last year, the games toward the end had been selling out, but this year it seems like every one is sold out.”

Having never sat front row at a hockey game, Mercado’s dream quickly became reality after enrolling at the University of Minnesota.

During the first home hockey series against Mercyhurst in 2021, his mullet (at the time at a longer length) was featured on Bally Sports North, and people started to call him “the mullet guy.” Soon after that, he was front row at a plethora of Minnesota’s home matches leading up to this season where other fans can’t miss him.

In October 2019, “the mullet guy” actually got a buzzcut. Mercado made a bet against his father, a Los Angeles Kings fan, to see which one could last longest without a haircut. Big Merc is at year four with the mullet. His dad lasted two weeks.

“In January 2020, I nearly retired the mullet, but Teddy Gallagher, football player from California, had a blonde mullet, and I saw it and I thought ‘what if I bleach my hair,’ Mercado said. “If I ruined it, I would’ve shaved it, but I loved the way it turned out.”

Following Mercyhurst, at the next Gopher home game against St. Cloud, two of Mercado’s current roommates met him by recognizing him as the “mullet guy” on TV.

“I had no friends at the time other than my roommate,” Mercado said. “They were like, ‘hey do you want to sit with us?’ and I agreed. They’re a bunch of goofballs, and we started hanging out every weekend.”

Big Merc’s optimistic Frozen Four predictions

Matthew Knies’ game-winning overtime goal against North Dakota earlier this season was Mercado’s favorite Gopher hockey memory.

On Thursday, and possibly Saturday, in Tampa Florida, that experience could be beat out.

Big Merc predicts the Gophers will secure their first national championship in 20 years with a 3-2 win over the Michigan Wolverines after they defeat the Boston Terriers 4-2 and Michigan beats the Quinnipiac Bobcats 4-1.

The Gophers will play Boston Thursday at 4 p.m. CT. Michigan and Quinnipiac are scheduled to play Thursday at 7:30 p.m. CT. The winners of these matches will play for the national title on Saturday at 7 p.m. CT.