A few years later, State Senator Phil Shea was able to secure $500,000 in funding for renovations of the Forum. The coaching staff became the foreman and applied for federal job training grants in order to bring in tradespeople to help with the work. Soon the Chiefs had a place they could call home and rechristened it as Tully Forum. During the team's formative years in the early 1970s, the Chiefs had no conference affiliation besides a loose one with surrounding schools in the ECAC. By the mid-1970s, Riley had started to assemble the core of players who would lead to ULowell to their first national championship: Tom Jacobs from Hudson, Dean Jenkins from Billerica, and future NHL regular Craig McTavish. However, an envious spat began in the Merrimack Valley between Lowell and Merrimack College, just up the road in North Andover. Merrimack's hockey program was what Lowell had aspired to be: a national contender with a modern home rink on campus. But, up until the 1978–79 season, the Merrimack-ULowell rivalry stood at a very one sided 1–13–1, in Merrimack's favor. With a new post season tournament being sponsored by the NCAA in 1978, Merrimack crushed the competition, including ULowell, in the ECAC tournament and followed it up by going on a tournament run without challenge, defeating both Mankato State and Lake Forest College by a combined score of 18–3. The obsession with Merrimack had grown and festered from the year before. But, with some advance scouting, Coach Riley believed 1979 was the year the Chiefs would jump onto the national stage. With the help of his student section, dubbed the "Wild Men," Riley wanted to crack the Merrimack goalie, Gilles Moffet, as their defensive depth had taken an early season hit. Their first meeting came right before Thanksgiving, and a theme of turkeys became prevalent in the Wild Men's antics toward Merrimack. The leader of the Wild Men went as far as to send super-imposed pictures of a turkey attached to the Merrimack Goalie to his dorm room. Even Coach Riley had a troll up his sleeve and sent the Wild Men's leader up to New Hampshire to purchase a turkey and tie it up in front of the Merrimack goal. Once the turkey was on the ice, a Lowell 'Wild Woman' ran onto the ice to rescue it. However, the pranks and trolling didn't faze the Merrimack goalie.