Myers: Rivals' building boom means time for Gophers to think rink

The 1993 opening of the new Mariucci Arena could hardly have been timed better, although it certainly wasn't planned that way. The Golden Gophers played their first game in the sparkling 10,000-seat rink (a surprising 5-4 loss to Michigan Tech) less than six months after Norm Green's abrupt move of the North Stars to Dallas left the region without a NHL team.

The new rink had it all for the era, was the envy of the college hockey world, and with Met Center vacant and awaiting demolition, Mariucci was suddenly the only place in Minneapolis/St. Paul where one could see big-time hockey in a big-time rink. Minnesota Duluth's long-time coach Mike Sertich toured the place later that season, before the Bulldogs' first game there and came away impressed, then asked the rhetorical question on the minds of every non-Gophers fan in the WCHA: "Nice," Sertich said. "When do we get ours?"

The correct answer to Sertich's question was Dec. 30, 2010. That's when Duluth's new waterfront sports palace, Amsoil Arena opened. That gala event came two months after the Sanford Center opened on the shore of Lake Bemidji, giving Bemidji State a new home with which to lure prospective recruits. In 2002, the Century Link Center opened for Nebraska Omaha hockey. In 2001, North Dakota's gleaming Ralph Engelstad Arena opened. Before that Denver moved into Magness Arena, Colorado College opened World Arena (while Don Lucia was still coaching the Tigers), Wisconsin hockey moved to the Kohl Center and even Minnesota State opened a new rink in 1995, a long slap shot from the Minnesota River in downtown Mankato.

For all of the gleam and reputation as a hockey cathedral that Mariucci Arena has earned in less than two decades, the recent rink-building boom means that only three of the dozen WCHA schools (St. Cloud State, Alaska Anchorage and Michigan Tech) play in facilities older than the Gophers' home rink. And SCSU has a massive renovation project for their rink (opened in late 1989) set to begin as soon as the Huskies' current season is done.

In other words, Sertich's words all those years ago might have inspired Lucia not only when he looks around other rinks, but when he looks at other new athletic facilities like TCF Bank Stadium on the U campus. "Nice," the coach might be thinking. "When do we get ours?"

While some Minnesotans take time off in the winter to visit Arizona or Florida or Mexico, Lucia used the Gophers recent bye weekend to go to Indiana of all places. On Sunday he went to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis and one day earlier went to his alma mater, Notre Dame, to see a game in the new hockey rink that opened there earlier this season. He came away thinking about improvements he'd like to see at the Gophers' home rink, to bring it in line with what other programs are doing throughout the nation. During his weekly appearance on 1500ESPN this week, Lucia insinuated that Mariucci has fallen behind the rinks of some other recruiting rivals.

"Kids want to see what you have and they're going to compare it from one school to the next," Lucia said in an interview with Wally Shaver and Joe Anderson. "You want to have kids come in and look through your area and have a little bit of that 'wow' factor. I think that's important."

The coach rattled off a laundry list of "wants" for the rink, including a remodeling of the team areas, improvements to the on-site weight room, hockey office upgrades, a new high definition scoreboard and improvements to the sound system (which has never been very good).

The first three things on that list are least obvious to spectators but likely most important to the future of a hockey program. The look and feel of a rink, and the atmosphere at home games, are vitally important when a recruit comes to visit. But beneath the bleachers, where players, coaches and team staff only do the bulk of their work, is where the real recruiting battles take place, and where amenities, or lack thereof, can determine the course of a commitment.

North Dakota's rink is famed for a hot tub big enough to hold the entire team, and a weight room so large that Kevin Allen of USA Today once joked that the free weights alone should be enough to trigger a NCAA investigation. In Duluth, players can relax and study, or play Xbox, on a handful of maroon leather chairs and couches in the team lounge, while checking out the walls adorned with a photo of every Bulldog who has skated in the NHL. In Bemidji, to get from the locker room to the ice, the Beavers walk down a "Hall of Champions" styled after similar effects inside Lambeau Field, where 13 banners commemorate the national titles won by BSU prior to the school's move up to D-I hockey.

As much as schools sell recruits on academic opportunities and a life after athletics (and the U of M has much to offer in that regard) nearly every 18-year-old player on his official visit to a college hockey program has only one career in mind: the National Hockey League. Talk all you want about the Carlson School of Business and the number of Fortune 500 companies in Minnesota and the world of high-paying opportunity that waits once the skates are hung up. Kids want to see the rink, and know that the place where they'll spend most of their time during their four (or if they're really talented on the ice, two) years of college has that "wow" factor.

"For a lot of kids, that's probably more important than anything they'll see academically on their visit," Lucia said.

There's a certain brand of talented Minnesota kid that simply wants to be a Gopher someday at all costs. They grew up following the team, dreaming of wearing the maroon and gold, idolizing Paul Martin and Thomas Vanek and Phil Kessel. The Gophers could move their program to Parade Ice Garden in Minneapolis tomorrow, and still get a good chunk of the best in-state talent based solely on their program's history and reputation. The team's ability to recruit and win titles while playing in the old historic but woefully out-dated and fan-unfriendly Williams/Mariucci Arena until the 1992-93 season is proof positive of that.

But the building boom in college hockey in the last two decades means that the Gophers have work to do, facility-wise, to compete in the WCHA today, and in the Big Ten just 18 months from now. Penn State will have a new rink to lure recruits. Wisconsin is building a new practice facility. Michigan is planning more improvements at historic Yost Ice Arena. Ohio State plays in one of the newest and largest facilities in college hockey (although with the Buckeyes playing in a 17,500-seat rink and drawing fewer than 5,000 ticket buyers on many nights, the atmosphere is not one to envy).

With a three-point lead in the WCHA race and just four more weekends of conference play to go, the Gophers have worked themselves into a good position to add at least one, and perhaps three, new banners to the Mariucci rafters by the start of next season. That, a new scoreboard and a new sound system would be nice little amenities for the 7,000 or so intensely loyal Gophers hockey fans, as well as for the 3,000 more frontrunners who show up in droves in years like this one, when Lucia has the Gophers contending for league and national titles.

But the most important improvements to the rink, which could help the Gophers recruit the next generation of banner-hangers, are amenities that the ticket buyers will never see.