Since I came to Grand Forks, ND I have read how UND is slighting and or snubbing the local recruits/players by picking up the recruits from Saskatoon, Regina, Trail, Calgary, Thunder Bay, Manitoba and British Columbia. If you buy into the internet hype and listen to the spin of the Minneapolis media/talking heads you would have thought that UND only recruits 21-25 year old Canadians after they had used up all of their junior hockey eligibility. Well, this couldn’t be further from the truth. If you look at UND’s rosters since 1996-1997 you will see a good mix of Canadians, Minnesotans as well as players from North Dakota.
Not to cloud the issue with facts, however, even with a Fighting Sioux coaching staff made up entirely of Canadians, UND is stealing many prized and highly sought after recruits right out Don Lucia’s back door in "the Metro area." Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Part of the problem is that some have put out this fallacious misconception that there should be a roster full of North Dakotan’s playing for the Fighting Sioux, however, that isn’t a realistic expectation. Frankly, it doesn't take a sociological or a demographer to know there just aren’t enough North Dakotans playing high school hockey in the state of North Dakota; if I recall correctly there are only 16 or 17 high schools in the state of North Dakota that is not a lot compared to the 200+ teams playing high school hockey in the state of Minnesota.
Many of the North Dakota kids playing high school hockey are not going to be making a division one hockey roster let alone a USHL or division three school’s roster. With the exception a few North Dakota high school hockey players; UND gets the majority of the players that are of Division one talent, minus a few notable defections in the early 2000’s. It took a North Dakotan to put Minnesota over the hump in winning a NCAA title.
Lets be realistic shall we, there are just not a lot of hockey players that compare to the likes of Ryan and Grant Potulny, Danny Irman and or Jay and Jeff Panzers. There aren't a vast number of North Dakota high school hockey players lurking in the weeds waiting for UND to sign them to a division one scholarship. If there were UND would have a majority of them on their roster right now.
There are a few these types of players coming up through the high school ranks and we will see them in the future, however, there aren’t a lot of them. That being said, UND will get a good share of these players when they come out after playing two season of juniors. A majority of these players play in hockey in the EDC and are located in the Red River Valley.
Lastly, the state of North Dakota has one of the smallest population bases in the USA. According the 2006 census date the population of North Dakota is roughly 635,867, while the population of Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area is 3,502,891 residents. That means the metro area is roughly 5 ½ times the population of the entire state of Minnesota, so the representation of North Dakotas on the Fighting Sioux roster seems about right.
It is time to get out of the xenophobic John Mariucci way of thinking. I am sick and tired of people complaining about the number of Canadians playing in Division one hockey. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a huge number of the worlds best players come from Canada, UND is a division one school so they are going to recruit the best athletes from where ever they come from. If they come from Saskatoon, Regina, Trail, Calgary, Thunder Bay, Manitoba and British Columbia so be it. To recruit any other way is silly and counter productive.
Happy spewed: My point has always been, one of the major reasons Minnesota high school has developed so well, as compared to Wisconsin, Colorado, and North Dakota, is that Minnesota high school players in the past, when the grassroots were developed, always knew they had a chance to make it to college. The kids in Minnesota knew that if they were one of the top kids to play the game of hockey in Minnesota, they would get a scholarship. On the other hands, the top kids in Colorado, Wisconsin and North Dakota have aways known that their schools would much rather have an older Canadian, who has played semi-pro in the Major Juniors for many years, and that these kids could be the best in their own state, and they probably would be passed over.
of course, the kids, and their parents, in these state said, "screw it" I will just play basketball, or get a job, it is a lot cheaper, and since there will never be a scholarship anyway, they have nothing to lose. This eroded local support, after all, why should people spend money on something without much future payoff? it only really takes one local kid to make it for a town to show a lot of pride for a long time, and that often then leads to parents also supporting the next generation and spending some hockey money. this has built up for a long time in Minnesota, and is one of the reasons why there is such grass roots support now, whereas in other states, no one cares, after all it isn't really their team, and they don't know any body that has ever played for them, anyway.
The grassroots support for hockey, especially in the Southern, and suburban areas, have been greatly helped by the fact that everyone knew, that the local hotdog kid had an outside chance of making it to the U, and making everyone in the local hockey community proud. Minnesota would probably have added a few Championships to it's record if it would have followed other schools paths, but it didn't, it actually did what was better for the State as a whole, and it has payed dividends down the road.
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