If folks didn't understand the culture of Minnesota hockey before, they
should read last week's SI. A good description of what the HS tournament
means to the state. Not as good as the artice SI did 20 years ago (I still
have my copy) but good enough. Bottom line though is that Albany is not
Minnesota and I dare say, if the Final Five was UND, Denver, CC, Tech and
Anchorage, I kind of doubt that the Thursday play-in game (Tech/Anchorage,
say) would have many. Of course, I'm out here in Boston so what do I know.

Greg Ambrose

> From: "Hampton, Nathan E." <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: "Hampton, Nathan E." <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 19:33:36 -0600
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Holy Cross??
>
> Andy asked:
> "Would the Xcel Enery Center have 19,000 if the final was Alaska-Anchorage
> vs Denver?
> Maybe...."
>
> In the Thursday night "play-in" game (team #4 vs team #5) it was
> Alaska-Anchorage vs Colorado College (the latter team beat Denver to get
> there) and .....<drum roll, please>
> according to the WCHA website:
> Thursday, March 18 (Alaska Anchorage vs Colorado College)       14,123
> attendance.
> So maybe if it was the final, I would suspect it to be a complete sell out.
>
> 14,123 is not quite 19,000 but don't think it was all people from Alaska and
> Colorado in attendance. At least in St. Cloud, the schools
> (elementary/secondary school district) were on spring break allowing families
> to buy tickets to the complete Final Five and to take the kids.
>
> The weekend before the WCHA tournament was the state high school tournament
> (both A (small school) and AA (large school)), and ALL seven games of the AA
> tournament were sold out at the Excel Center. I do not think people outside
> the state understand the importance of amateur hockey in Minnesota. EVERYONE
> plays, and the social-cultural heritage is all-pervasive.
>
> Nathan Hampton
>
>