North Dakota Preps

Article on the Grand Forks Herald website
<http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/249487/>

Basically, now that UND and Minnesota are going to separate conferences for hockey, it will become increasingly more difficult to schedule games against each other, and almost impossible to play two series a year. Thus, the most often we will ever see UND vs. MN at the Ralph is once every two years. It makes me want to vomit.

Minnesota Coach Don Lucia: " We have a great rivalry. Sometimes, it gets a little over the top and I’m not sure that is healthy for anybody. So we will continue to play, but I doubt we will continue to play each and every year."

What a joke! We all know the crazy amount of revenue generated from the Gophers coming to Grand Forks for two hockey games every year. Nobody wins in this new scenario. Anybody else disgusted with this whole process?

This falls on Minnesota, they jumped to the Big 10 which I think is going to be a much weaker conference from top to bottom than the WCHA. (Minn, Wisconsin both jumping to the Big 10 for hockey is what led to the demise of the WCHA.) Minnesota needs UND more than UND needs Minnestoa. UND sells out almost every home game, the Gophers don't anymore. The biggest weekend of the season financially for the Gophers was when UND came to town, for UND, every weekend they play at home is very good financially. I hate to see it go because it is such a great rivalry, but it will hurt Minnesota much more than it will UND.