MafiaMan

LOL...now THAT'S funny. Here's a typical conversation I have had several times over the past 13 years with someone from Mpls/St Paul who hasn't been ever been outside of the city limits: "So you're from North Dakota?" "yep, grew up in Belfield." "I've been to Mount Rushmore...nice place." "Um...that's South Dakota." "Oh. So what's in North Dakota?"

You're welcome, HockeyMom.

I was trying to make you chuckle, chandler23. I don't think UND is alone in playing the underdog role. It's no different than the other schools outside of Michigan State and Michigan in the CCHA (Ferris State, Ohio State, Western Michigan, Northern Michigan, etc.) or the Merrimacks, Providence Colleges, UMass-Lowells, or UMass's of Hockey East. Every year, smaller schools like Colorado College, Lake Superior State, etc., no matter what their record winds up as, end up travelling all over to play teams in hostile environments, namely games in Mpls/St Paul or Detroit. I realize this is the nature of the beast, but this is why I preferred home games for the NCAA playoffs as opposed to "regionals." If a small school has done well in the regular season and conference tournament, why is the reward a death sentence 1,000 miles away for the NCAA tournament? Shouldn't the home fans be entitled to see their team at home against a lesser opponent? If, say, a Northern Michigan wins the CCHA and then wins the post-season title, why should they wind up playing Michigan in Yost or be sent to a regional in Minnesota or worse yet, Boston? Why shouldn't they wind up at home against a lower-seeded team? Just my two cents. I won't get into debates about travel costs, etc. There are pluses and minuses of both the home/away playoffs and regional playoffs.

I'm not sure who complains about "limited resources" or where that quote came from, chandler23. I live in the Twin Cities and I'll tell you why I despise the Gophers (in any sport): #1) Heaven forbid, anyone cheer for someone other than the Gophers here. I've got news for you, folks. In Minnesota, the "U of M" stands for Minnesota. Everywhere else in the world, you mention "U of M" and they know you're talking about Meeee-chigan. #2) Fox Sports North or The Gopher Homer Channel? #3) Doug Woog blowing his stack over a non-call on the Sioux, then chuckling to himself over an obvious Gopher slash that is also not called. #4) maroon and gold? Seriously, it's like poop brown and pee yellow. Who picked those colors anyways? #5) Golden Gophers. Check out that mascot. Is it a ground squirrel, beaver, chipmunk, gopher, or some combination of all of those four? #6) Speaking of Goldy, the "spin your head" thing was old the second time I saw it. #7) The two blatant non-calls against Adam Hauser in OT, followed by a center-ice penalty against Maine. Black Bear fans, you know what I'm talking about. #8) All those fans touting "Minnesota's Pride on Ice," then quickly disassociating themselves from that idea once they won a title with a "foreigner" on the roster. #9) Big Ten football inside the Metrodome? What's next? The Wild playing home games at Richfield Ice Arena? #10) Don Lucia talking about the Xcel Energy Center like it's some sort of hostile environment for his team to play there. Cue the video of him in 2001 saying that he expected a "50/50" fan ratio for the Maine/Minnesota game. I'm sure I could come up with 20 more reasons, but that's a good start. With all due respect to GreyEagle, WPoS, and sagard...let the flaming begin!

I love it when people back up former "heroes" from their home state without knowing the facts. Fact: Phil Jackson couldn't care less about Williston, North Dakota Fact: Phil Jackson views the Sioux nickname as racist Fact: Phil Jackson won't be lobbying the NBA to schedule a game in North Dakota I swear, it's no different than Mike Modano of the Dallas Stars. There are still people here in Mpls/St Paul crying about how Modano loved it here and how he cried when he left. Then I show them the SI issue that came out several years later and he talks about how the players were thrilled to head to Dallas so they could play golf. He even chided the NHL about its decision to put a team back in Minnesota, saying that if it failed once, they should abandon the idea of ever thinking a team in Minnesota could last. Nice guy, just like Mr. Jackson.

I attended the western regional and can honestly say for all the talk I heard about Cornell, I was TERRIBLY disappointed when I saw them. Ohio State skated circles around the Big Red for the better part of the semi-final game. Cornell was big and slow. It took all of five minutes of watching that game for me to comment to my buddy "the only hope of a Minnesota-less Frozen Four is Ohio State." The shots on goal wouldn't have changed a bit had the game been played in upstate New York, Boston, or Berlin, for that matter. Cornell should have been licking their chops at having to face Minnesota coming off a tough OT game against Maine. Instead, Cornell looked like a bunch of high school kids playing the Gophers. They got what they deserved.

Grand Forks hosting the Frozen Four every year just like Omaha does for NCAA baseball? Omaha's population according to the 2000 census was over 390,000 people, slightly larger than that of Grand Forks, my friend. Add another 300,000 to the population of Fargo and you have Omaha. Hardly "small town" by comparison.

That's what happens in larger metropolitan areas, my friends. At the World Cup last September, I ran into several people in downtown St Paul who asked me "who are the Wild playing tonite?" as I walked down the street in my CCCP hockey jersey. In bigger cities, what might seem to be a major event is actually only a major event to a small amount of people. Obviously, pretty much everyone in a town of 44,000 people would know about the World Junior Tournament going on, but if you asked 3,000,000 people about an event that contained about 18,000 fans, most wouldn't have any idea.

Providence held the last of the small Frozen Fours back in 2000. If memory serves me right, you're talking about the difference between 11,000 seats in Providence vs 14,500 or 15,000 elsewhere. Take those 3,000 or 4,000 seats X $150 per Frozen Four ticket package X $300 hotel room (three nights) X all the food and beverages you can consume in three days of staying in the host city and, well, you get the point...

Interesting how the NCAA loves looking at attendance figures, yet the Kohl Center gets a regional? Anybody remember 1998 at the Dane County Coliseum? Yikes.

In a related story, PCM visited St Paul last weekend and returned home minus his 1979 Ford Pinto.

Thanks, Cratter. Dang reruns anyways.

Took the day off from work today and while watching "The Price is Right," I see a contestant called who is wearing a grey "SIOUX HOCKEY" hooded sweatshirt. I wasn't paying attention and really didn't have the volume turned up enough to hear the whole conversation, but I did hear Bob mention the University of North Dakota. The guy ended up being today's big winner...thought it was pretty funny. Did anyone else see today's episode? Anyone know the guy?

I would also venture to say that playing in a big city w/all the goings on has a lot to do with recruits picking Denver over Grand Forks. I wonder how many kids pondering Minnesota gave a second look to Denver because of their recent years' performance.

Nice pics, devsrule, but I'm offended by your nickname here on the board. I'm going to write my congressman and ask him to work to change it.

Take what you can get, greyeagle.

I am quite certain that that's Al Pearson to Babe's left.

I'm just teasing, Five-HoleFrenzy. "Cemetery" is a commonly mis-spelled word. I normally expect St Cloud State fans to make that mistake, not Gopher fans.

NorthDakotaHockey will be around for a while. Probably long enough for you to get thru Spelling 101 at the University of Minnesota and learn to properly spell the word "cemetery".