For me, the debate about Minnesota recruiting has little to do with
winning and losing.  On that score, I think it's mostly a wash.  Every
coach has those areas he recruits more heavily than others.  Woog draws
his more narrowly than most, but is more focused within it.  So be it.
 
What bugs me about it is the insularity of Minnesotans.  This is an
attitude that goes far beyond the hockey team or even the university
itself.  Minnesotans are nice, they are polite, but speaking as someone
who came up here to go to the University, they aren't terribly welcoming
of outsiders.  On the whole, I really like it up here (and before I get
another love-it-or-leave-it response, I want to emphasize that), but
this is one of the features that really bothers me.  Interestingly, most
of the really good friends that I have also come from out-of-state.
 
Having thought about it a lot over the last decade, I think there are a
number of reasons behind this.  In the interest of brevity, I won't go
into them here, but a number of them have been under strain for a couple
of decades now.  Thus, a lot of Minnesotans have gotten kind of
defensive about the whole thing.  This leads to much of the attitude
that a lot of the rest of you find so irritating.  I notice it mostly at
work; a lot of my co-workers are immigrants to this country (mostly from
Somalia) and the number of customers who complain about them being here
is really appalling.
 
In sum, what a lot of you are commenting on is only part of a larger
picture.  And I, too, really wish that the Minnesota-only recruiting
policy would change.  But I'm not holding my breath.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.