The ice rink on stilts sitting over second base at Coors Field acted like a time portal. Nolan Zajac zapped back to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Suddenly it was 1997 and he was a toddler, with tiny blades on his feet.

“It’s taking me back right now,” the University of Denver senior said. “The first memory I have is learning how to skate, with my dad trying to hold me up, teaching me what to do. This is how we played the game — outdoors.”

Sam Rothstein flashed back to 1998. The Colorado College junior captain was a 5-year-old mini-Mario Lemieux, flopping around a frozen patch in Minnetonka, Minn.

“I fell in love with the game on that pond,” he said.

If cutthroat college hockey ever jaded Zajac and Rothstein to the game that gave them so much glee growing up, it didn’t show Saturday night. They played like kids again.

The University of Denver and Colorado College staked a new peg in their 66-year-old rivalry. They played outdoors, in a baseball stadium, for the first time.

They called it “The Battle on Blake.” The Blake Street Bombers on ice.

No. 10-ranked DU flashed two goals within 15 seconds in the third period, from top-line forwards Danton Heinen and Dylan Gambrell, and zipped past Colorado College 4-1 with a crowd of 35,144 watching.

Even the crusty coaches melted at the idea of playing hockey outdoors in a cold breeze.

“There aren’t a lot of times in my life I feel like a kid anymore,” DU’s Jim Montgomery said. “But I felt like a kindergartner at the first day of school.”

The teams climbed off their buses Friday for back-to-back practices to test the makeshift ice — a rink the NHL will use this week for two outdoor games between the Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings, the first one an alumni game.

“They were like little kids waiting to get out of the dugout,” said Colorado College coach Mike Haviland.

DU used the hometown clubhouse, where the Rockies will camp again in April. Pioneers senior captain Grant Arnold sat at Troy Tulowitzki’s old locker. “Really? That is so sweet,” he said. And junior Trevor Moore got the locker next to him. “Have you seen the bathroom?” he said. “It’s huge. There are so many products in there.”

Montgomery lined up for television interviews before DU’s practice Friday in front of large photo of a former hockey player in the Rockies’ clubhouse.

“I want to stand by Larry Walker. He’s Canadian,” the DU coach said. “He’s the pride of Canadian baseball.”

The oddity of seeing skaters come out of dugouts to face off where third baseman Nolan Arenado turns double plays drew a sellout crowd to Coors Field, even above the purple row.

The Denver Pioneers and Colorado College during a face-off in the second period at Coors Field.

Fans jammed the party deck in right field. The hand-operated, out-of-town scoreboard next to the bullpens showed CC and DU. The pine trees below the Rockpile stood dormant, with temperatures in the 40s and 50s.

If warm weather made slushies out of the ice, the Pioneers’ top line wasn’t slowed. Heinen got teed up for a slap-shot, power-play goal 2:51 into the third period. Seconds later his linemate, Gambrell, flew down the right side between two CC defenders. Gambrell’s wrist shot was blocked by CC goaltender Jacob Nehama, but Gambrell slipped in a rebound.

DU’s top line, including winger Trevor Moore, has combined for 29 points in the past four games.

“They’re the best line in the country right now,” Haviland said.

The Colorado College Tigers take to the ice Saturday for the "Battle On Blake" at Coors Field.

DU also received first-period goals from Jarid Lukosevicius and Colin Staub, who grew up in Colorado Springs and grew up playing junior hockey in the Tigers program.

Colorado College drew within 2-1 in the second period when Cole McCaskill looped around a DU defender and snapped in a wrist shot past blinded DU goalie Tanner Jaillet.

Some of the players who skated at Coors Field will play in the NHL. Some will graduate soon. They can never go home again. But for a night, they warped back to being kids.

“Back then, it was just about playing outside with my buddies, with no systems or coaches or anyone telling you what to do,” Zajac said. “Just playing the game in the simplest way. That was the most fun growing up.”

Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or @nickgroke