ST. PAUL, Minn. — As DU hockey fans put champagne on ice in giddy anticipation of the Pioneers becoming the first college program to win 10 national championships, coach David Carle brought a sobering message to the party.

If Carle were a stock, we’d all be buying. He’s the hottest coaching commodity in the college ranks, if not the entire sport. Only 34 years old, he’s already a crimson and 14-karat old legend on the University of Denver campus. But long ago, Carle learned there’s only one certainty about this crazy business.

“We’re all replaceable. None of us are invincible,” Carle said Friday.

On the eve of DU facing top-ranked Boston College at the Xcel Energy Center, where a shiny trophy will be awarded to a group of fresh-faced players celebrating in a pile of adolescent exuberance, Carle’s bluntly honest evaluation hit me with the force of a crosscheck.

Although he has guided the Pios to 147 victories in six seasons, Carle has long known that job security for hockey coaches is a fairy tale only believed by fools.

“I think you’re seeing that more and more, obviously at the NHL level. NHL coaches are fired at a much higher rate than the other three major sports,” Carle said. “I think you’re seeing more turnover with college hockey coaches, as expectations and money pours into the sport at different rates than it has in the last 20 years.”

One of the things I love most about this quest for the natty in college hockey is that this isn’t the Final Four, a corporate money-grab disguised as a basketball tourney that keeps the NCAA rolling in dough in the face of athletes demanding a greater piece of the pie.

By comparison, the Frozen Four feels like a family picnic where everybody not only knows your name, but the ages of your children.

But how long will hockey programs of all shapes and sizes, from the mighty monolith that is the University of Michigan to those plucky underdogs at Bemidji State, be able to peacefully coexist at the same table?

“You look at what’s happened in basketball and football over the years, how the concentration of elite programs has aligned with resources. That hasn’t happened as quickly in hockey. I think a lot of us are paying close attention to see if hockey is going to go in that direction as well,” Vermont athletic director and NCAA hockey committee chair Jeff Schulman said.

“It’s one of the beautiful things about college hockey: Institutions with very different profiles and resource levels have been able to compete with each other. I don’t know if it’s a level playing field, but they’ve been able to compete with each other. I think a lot of us hope that it remains the case. Whether it will, I guess, has yet to be seen.”

A sea change has hit college sports like a tsunami of money that has erased the cute but antiquated idea of student athletes playing solely for the glory of dear old alma mater. Disruption caused by the transfer portal increasingly makes loyalty seem hopelessly naive. The lure of riches from name, image and likeness has replaced the team-centric ideal of “We got next” with the every-dude-for-himself temptation of “Where’s my money?”

When a heart condition stole his chance to play at the tender age of 18, Carle got the coaching itch after joining the staff of George Gwozdecky in 2008, while still a student at DU. Five years later, his mentor was abruptly and shockingly fired, despite leading the Pioneers to two championships in 19 seasons.

“College hockey changed on April 1st, 2013,” Carle said.

It was April Fools’ Day, but no joke, a harsh reminder that even great coaches aren’t immune from a pink slip.

“I think everyone looked at that and said, ‘How could you fire that guy?’” Steve Miller, a DU assistant for nearly two decades, said in a recent interview with USCHO.com.

“If “Gwoz’ is getting fired, then any of us can get fired.”

The Pioneers unflinchingly embrace a championship-or-bust mentality. It’s a laudable lofty standard with little margin for error or forgiveness.

If you’re asking me, Carle has the right stuff to win 400 games at DU or become the next hot candidate to take over on an NHL bench.

But let this run of success go to his head? Not a chance, because Carle learned long ago a hockey coach that doesn’t keep grinding out victories can get the ax.

“We all know what we’re signing up for,” Carle said, “and are very aware of the realities.”

Carle has created a monster he must wrestle every day.