Monday, February 8, 2010

Get the Mavs outside

Another successful outdoor hockey game is in the books. This time it was Wisconsin vs. Michigan (and the Wisco women vs. Bemidji State) in Saturday's Camp Randall Classic in Madison. More than 55,000 people attended the event. In the featured game, the Badgers rallied with two late power-play goals to beat the Wolverines 3-2.

According to the account on Inside College Hockey, representatives from the University of Minnesota were taking notes:

Facilities officials from the University of Minnesota were on hand Saturday getting a first-hand look at how the rink was put together and how to smoothly run an outdoor hockey event. Marc Ryan, one of Minnesota’s associate athletic directors, told INCH this week that the Golden Gophers are in the advanced planning stages of hosting a similar event at the new 50,000-seat TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis next season.

Here's hoping the U decides to bring back some form of the WCHA Minnesota Showcase from a couple of years ago (when MSU took a home game to the Xcel Energy Center) and invites Minnesota State, St. Cloud State and Minnesota Duluth to play, too. Make them league games. Make them count. Sounds like a great day for hockey.

Read more about Saturday's game on Andy Baggot's blog.

(Madison.com photo)

2 comments:

TEAMWORKER said...

YES...

Out door hockey - Pond Fest!!!

It would be good for the game and allow more people to attend at a reasonable cost when you think how many can attend.

Let's GO MS, a four school series.

It's a natural.

WCHA, it's a NO brainer...

Unknown said...

Uh, Shane - you forget that as of next year there will be FIVE Minnesota WCHA teams? What, are you just gonna pick one each year to "leave out" of this magical tourney? Or, are you gonna add in the one that's campus is less than a mile across the boarder?