Here's why the state should and must be involved with a new arena project in Duluth:
UMD is a campus in the University of Minnesota system (along with Crookston, Twin Cities and Morris). In the past decade, the regents of that system have built (using university and state money) state-of-the-art new hockey facilities for men's and women's hockey at the Twin Cities campus, while allowing UMD to continue playing in an off-campus convention center that was built in 1966.
At the same time, they've expected UMD's hockey teams to recruit and compete at the same level, in the same conference, as the Gophers. That's wrong, and a new arena would be a step toward making it right.