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