Lynn Burke writes: > Folks in Minnesota should read Tom Powers' column in Sunday's St. >Paul Pioneer Press. I saw it on the Knight-Ridder newswire at the office. >The title is "Let's Beef Up Scholarship Patrol." > > The substance is a comparison of Minnesota's stay-at-home >recruiting as compared to other WCHA teams, with references to the "North >Dakota Maple Leafs" and the "Northern Michigan Canucks." Here we go again. At this time last year, the local columnists were roasting Coach Woog for NOT recruiting out of state. Now that the Gophers have started the season on a positive note, it must be time to blast the competition instead. Anything to sell a newspaper, I guess. :-( Emphasis on Minnesota-born players is a cornerstone of the hockey program at Minnesota under Coach Doug Woog. This policy has paid off in a consistently successful program, though at the cost of passing up players who might have fit in well with the Maroon and Gold. While the in-state recruitment policy has worked well for the Gophers, it in no way implies that other schools can or should have similar policies. Each school must set its own priorities for recruitment of players. I ask that HOCKEY-Lers not take the words of ill-informed newspaper columnists as being representative of the Minnesota hockey community. -- Erik GO GOPHERS! SKI-U-MAH!