Read this on USCHO boards about the conference tournament this weekend in Minneapolis: "The Xcel is far from home ice for the Gophers. Each team has the same "type" of locker room. The ice is smaller at the Xcel Energy Center than Mariucci. No season tickets [ed. for the conference series] include these games as a part of the package. Anyone (including UND and tUMD fans) can buy them in whatever quantity they want. Besides, if this "home ice" was such a great advantage, wouldn't Minnesota have won the title more times than they have? Wouldn't they win it every year?" end of quote First...it got me mad - I was there to see Maine lose the championship game to: THE GOPHERS. No one can deny the place was overwhelmingly pro-Gophers and as "home ice" as you could have gotten. THEN...it got me to thinking. Those same Gophers won back-to-back National Championships on NHL-size sheets of ice (in Minneapolis and then in Buffalo) after their on-campus games on the Olympic ice surface at Mariucci. New Hampshire have played in Frozen Finals after home contests at the Whittemore Center - an Olympic sheet. What's Dick Umile's excuse ? Laughing all the way to the time of the night game on Friday night... Minutemen Shoot Cats !!! (btw the Mullins Center ice in Amherst measures an unusual 95 feet wide, not quite the 100 feet of Olympic sheets but not the 85 feet of NHL rinks either)