Living in Bemidji, I never heard a word about NDSU football until I was talking to a buddy and he says, "Man the Gophers suck. Losing to North Dakota State is just fucking sad."
Now on the other hand, I hear about Sioux hockey all the time. Mostly it's negative but that's because I'm surrounded by Gopher fans.
On the whole, college hockey just doesn't get the coverage that football does, but many places from Colorado to the east coast know UND hockey. I think you'd have a tough time finding someone outside of ND, SD or MN that knows who NDSU is.