Introductions Please

This blog has been a long time coming.  Of course you can't tell by the design, but it's been percollating.  Gopher hockey has been a passion of mine since I was 9 years old.  Growing up in Southern Minnesota in the early eighties hockey wasn't very prevalent.  It wasn't offered as a high school or club sport in my hometown.  Yeah I'd  get together with my buddies on the outdoor "skating" rink and mess around a little bit, but it usually ended up being more of a wrestling match than anything else, because that's all we knew.  The North Stars were pretty good back then running out guys like Dino Ciccarelli, Neal Broten and Gordie Roberts.   But the player we all knew was Willi Plett, his curly blond locks flailing as he tried to hammer the other guy with another right, then throw his hands in the air, face bloodied after pummeling some poor sap (hopefully from the Blackhawks); that was hockey to us.  Broten's beautiful passing and Ciccarelli's gritty goals were a sideshow unless of course Dino was swinging his stick at someone. 

     One night on channel 23 a grainy telecast of Golden Gopher Hockey was on.  I couldn't take my eyes off a little guy named Pat Micheletti.  He seemed angry all the time and wasn't afraid to take it out on the other team.  He could score too, the year he had in 1984 is one of the best ever for a Gopher; 48 goals 48 assists and 154 penalty minutes.  Grit and scoring, nothing better.  The Gophers always seemed to run into trouble in the NCAA playoffs, but I was hooked.  I have hardly missed a game since, whether it be on TV or at Mariucci. 

     Simply put, University of Minnesota hockey is like no other.  Some may have a couple more titles, or a newer arena, but for most teams beating the Gophers feels a little bit better.  Lately other teams have had that feeling a lot more than I would like.

     OK that's far too much background on me lets talk about the content of the blog.  I'm gonna try to write every day about the weeks upcoming games, new recruits, indepth stats and breakdowns of past series.  Hopefully as I get used to balancing work and blogging, I can integrate some video and player interviews. Lastly, I hope it's fun and informative, because as passionate as I am, it is truly just a game played by kids, so there will be no cheap shots at other teams..........well maybe just the Sioux or North Dakota whatever they're called now, or Bucky's stupid trap, or Clown's unearned bravado, or UMD's incomplete rink named after dirt.  You get the picture.  Talk to you tomorrow with a preview of the Gopher forwards.

-Grittyguy