A couple other hockey articles on the web:
The St. Paul Pioneer Press had a Duluth preview:
http://www/pioneerplanet.com/sports/hockey/docs/021183.htm
 
There was a second hockey article in the Minnesota Daily, but since it's
from the AP, I don't think I'd better post it here.  North Dakota fans
might be interested in looking it up, though:
http://www.daily.umn.edu/~online/daily/1996/01/12/sports/ap12sa.ap/
        Sioux's Wynne Teeders on the brink of brilliance
 
=46rom today's (1/12/96) Minnesota Daily:
 
SPORTS
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Class of '96 has fond memories of Old Mariucci
 
Jeff Sherry - Staff Reporter
                                                                    [Image]
Mention the old Mariucci Arena around those people close to Gophers
hockey and the response is almost automatic. Smiles creep across their
faces, time is suddenly turned back and a distant gaze fills their eyes as
they remember. ...
 
There was Goldy's Perch -- the tiny deck that stuck out of the building's
west wall, where the Gophers' mascot roused up the home crowd and induced
taunts upon the visitors.
 
There was the inclined half-ceiling that hung over the goalie on the east
end of the dark, damp rink. The black marks and smears that speckled across
the wall's gold paint showed the path of countless hockey pucks shot too
high.
 
The memories from the building are both shared and personal. From the
spiders that crept in the corner cobwebs to the crowded fans who learned to
ignore them, the old Mariucci Arena was a special place.
 
A lot has changed in the past three years -- the Gophers now play in a new,
modern arena across the street and their former home has been transformed
into the Sports Pavilion.
 
And though the team's days in the dark, damp building are long gone, there's
still a group of today's Gophers who can consider themselves a primary part
of that history. Minnesota's class of '96 is the school's last group of
skaters that will be able to say they've competed there in the maroon and
gold.
 
Different things stand out to this year's seniors when they reminisce about
their freshman year in the old Mariucci. For Greg Zwakman, a defenseman from
Edina, it was the atmosphere.
 
"We always thought it would be nice to be able to say that we got to play
there," Zwakman said. "There was sort of a feeling in the air. It probably
sounds really weird but it's true."
 
Senior Dave Larson, whose father, Bruce, played for the Gophers from
1964-66, savored the tradition.
 
"I can really remember the first game," Larson said. "Coming up those
stairs, hearing the rouser and the fans and everything -- boy, it gives you
the chills. Just the fact that my father played here and I knew he was there
watching my first game was a great feeling."
 
A set of wooden steps provided the only access to the rink from the locker
rooms. The configuration had the coach's office at the bottom of the stairs,
then a hallway which led to the visitor's locker room and the Gophers'
locker room. This alignment provided the groundwork for many stories that
fans didn't get to see develop on the ice during games.
 
Senior defenseman Dan Trebil said the steps caused problems for him on more
than one occasion.
 
"It was my first intrasquad game and all the kids were at the top of the
stairs waiting for us," Trebil said. "I forgot something in the locker room
and I fell down the stairs going back down to get it. I probably sprained my
ankle 100 times going down and up those stairs."
 
The proximity of the locker rooms used to make for some big
behind-the-scenes fights, said coach Doug Woog, who became an All-American
in 1965 while playing for the Gophers in the old Mariucci.
 
"Some of the best fights ever to happen in that building nobody saw." Woog
said. "There wasn't very good security back then so often it was after the
two guys would get the boot and get sent to the locker rooms that the real
fight would start. They would just bust through the doors and go after each
other."
 
Woog said the building was so run down toward the end of the team's stay
there that coaches developed several running jokes. One was that a pack of
cockroaches lived in their office and all would take off running every fall
when they turned the office lights on for the first time. They also believed
that the rings in the toilets had been there since John Mariucci himself was
coaching.
 
But even though the arena had some problems, it also had its charms that
could not be reproduced when designing the new facility.
 
One of the biggest differences Woog has noticed comes from the lighting. He
said the new arena is bright all over, as compared to the old rink, which
was dark in the stands and bright on the ice.
 
"You lost a lot of the fans' faces, because it was so dark," Woog said. "It
puts the players on more of a stage. You really felt like the game was
something special. It was really a good feeling."
 
Woog said other reasons the new arena can feel less intense are the
theater-style seats and the Olympic-size rink. All the space between the
seats and the larger playing surface put the fans farther away from
center-ice.
 
Woog compared the energy generated at the old Mariucci and its crowded,
bleacher seating to the feeling you get in a crowded bar.
 
"It seems to be more exciting," Woog said. "The people around you are
closer. They're making noise right next to you. So you get caught up in
that. You've got to be a little louder to even be heard in a crowded area. I
think that's what we've lost a little bit is that intimacy. Intimacy causes
confusion, it causes animation.
 
"Maybe we screwed up a little bit. We wanted to give people a lot of room
and a lot of space to be comfortable. But in our belief that we wanted to
have a concave, bowl, amphitheater-type atmosphere, in a way we took the
fans away from the players."
 
But no one on the team is going to take anything away from their new arena,
which is regarded as the best college hockey facility in the country. The
All-American murals, clear sightlines and open concourses have given the new
Mariucci an identity of its own.
 
And the players take pride in carrying on the winning tradition and feel of
Gophers hockey on the other side of Fourth Street.
 
"The building is great and all," Trebil said. "But it's more the feeling
that we've brought from across the street that makes this place great."
 
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=A9The Minnesota Daily
 
Pam Sweeney
Go Gophers!
 
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