Midweek provides a momentary respite for the hockey fan in Minnesota. Last weekend Cretin-Durham Hall proved to be the team that could handle Grand Rapid's size and even dominate it. They take the state high school championship in one of the most lopsided games I can remember, 6-0.
Lou is right about one thing. The quality of state hockey players is definately on the rise.
This Friday the second Gopher season continues. Since it is likely that a WCHA team will again win the NCAA title (WCHA teams have won five of the last six), the WCHA Frozen Five championship this weekend should be a preview of the national champ. The Gophers tune up on Friday against the winner of St. Cloud State vs. UMD, to be played the Thursday prior. They will face the winner of North Dakota vs. Wisconsin on Friday.
They come into tournament season ranked 1st in the nation in no less than three polls.
Next weekend, NCAA regionals start, and the west regional will be in North Dakota. Engelstad arena is a great political story actually. One of the premier hockey venues in the nation if not the world, it was financed by rich alumnus Ralph Engelstad. It was built conditionally though. With the school under great pressure to lose the team name Fighting Sioux, Englstad insisted that the UND keep the traditional team name or lose the money and the arena.
The Sioux are under constant pressure from the NCAA to change their name. The NCAA exercised a ban that could have forced UND to cover all team logo's within the arena for the West Regional; no easy task given Engelstad's insertion of the logo somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 times throughout the arena. That effort failed last fall, but another promised to crescendo a couple of months ago. Pulling a trick from the Democratic Party's magic bag though, the NCAA recently decided not to decide on the issue.
And thus, Englestad Arena has become a $104 million beacon against the forces of political correctness. Certainly exactly what its namesake had in mind.
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