And if it happens that the right mix of public and private parties reach critical mass and actually build a Manchester-like replacement to the CCCC in Portland, with one stated goal being to compete for a NC$$ hockey regional with Your State University as host, offering a guaranteed placement there for the Tournament, would some feel then that the new rink would be "too big" to host a Black Bear regular season tilt or three and pooh-pooh these games ? Why wouldn't games held in Portland during semester breaks, when students would be absent from Orono (losing the energy that drives much of the Alfond mystique), be the right timing for the revenue/exposure experience of Black Bear hockey in the southern part of the state ? Why does Maine go to Florida for a holiday tournament - couldn't you stage the same thing at a new rink in Portland ? comic interjection: naming rights to new Portland rink picked up by Stephen King...arena becomes known as "Stephen King House of Horrors" I'm for hockey in Portland, myself. And Nonni, don't despair about the fine people of southern Maine....some of these things take decades. You're trying to win hearts and minds...then their wallets will follow. Just think, though, of how this dicussion would have seemed IMPOSSIBLE and UNTHINKABLE in the mid-eighties, if someone had described it as a "dream". Dan - chose Orono before they HAD a hockey team