As some of you know, I've gotten in the habit of making road trips
over the past few years.  It started with a trip to South Bend courtesy
of four free airline tickets (for denied boarding compensation) to
watch Air Force close out the 90-91 season against the irish.  Last
year, a bunch of frequent flier awards allowed me to get back to the
east coast once for the Merrimack series and the Northeastern series,
a second time (with my wife) for the UVM series, and a third time for
the Army series.  This year I'm off in iowa, and had an opportunity to
dovetail a meeting with a former student (to revise a research paper)
with a visit to mariucci arena for the CC - Gopher games.  That brings
my total for the season up into double figures, and that's almost
respectable.
 
I just wanted to PUBLICLY thank the gopher/hockey-l faithful (listed
alphabetically) Carol Erik Pam and Paula and the unnamed waitress
at stub and herb's for cooperating and conspiring to make my visit
most enjoyable and to really make me feel welcome.  Thanks again.
 
Friday night, I found Erik and Paula's seats and sat in them, and they
showed up.  I wasn't certain if it was them or not because there were
LOTS of fans wearing gopher ear hats and they didn't say anything
about this stranger sitting in their seats.  Then Pam showed up, and
when I saw her hard hat and she saw my hat, whe both recognized one
another.  Finally Carol came.  We chatted a bit until the game started
and Pam and i went off to our respective seating areas to watch.  All
3 goals seemed to come from telegraphed mistakes (Minnesota had a
defensive lapse that geve CC to 2 on 1 for their goal, and both gopher
goals came when they caught CC on line changes (getting fresh skeaters
out and keeping the pressure on so CC couldn't get a line change)
After the game, we went to stub and herb's.  Their black russians and
philiadelphia cheese steaks are WONDERFUL, and the conversation was
outstanding.
 
Saturday night was more of the same, though the game wasn't as close.
The folks who sit next to Erik and Paula didn't come, so Pam and I
both stayed there and watched the game from there.  I had the
"privilege" of getting to chat with "Kurt" (who has been described on
this list earlier) and found him to be most knowledgable of the sport
and supportive of "his" gophers and (how to say this politely) an
almost refreshing sense of irreverence towards the opponents.  The
sandwich was sausage and peppers, and that was lovely too.  We all
marvelled at the pictures Erik brought back from Houghton's winter
carnival.
 
The games looked like the skaters were having fun.  R.J. Enga (I have
a colorado springs connection with him) of CC said that he enjoyed the
contests.  It was hard, fast, good checkin, few penalties, no
chippiness, and a credit to both teams.
 
Coach Buetow seemed really "up" when I talked with him, and it appears
he has a good opportunity in hand.  I'll refrain from sharing the
details because I don't have his permission, and I don't have a
good feel for how public Brad wants that information to be at this
point.
 
For keith (and others who understand) the business side of the trip
was successful as well as we developed an argument that something we
thought might be NP complete reduces to showing equivalence of regular
sets. (details soon in a journal near you!)
 
Finally, I'm going to try to get to milwaukee for the ULTIMATE QUARTET
(that doesn't have any PHs in it and it has a nice ring to it) so if
any of you have tickets and decide not to go,  keep me in mind.
 
charlie shub  --  [log in to unmask]  (719) 593-3492
   on leave at the University of Iowa    (319) 335-0739
           [log in to unmask]            (fax) 335-0627