Thoughts on the 2011 Frozen Four

Another Frozen Four is in the books and congratulations to the University of Minnesota Duluth; the 2011 Champions in College Hockey.

As my friend SiouxFanInBoston and I spent the last four days in St. Paul, we experienced some likes and dislikes about this year’s Frozen Four.

Here they are in no particular order.

LIKES

St Paul - Liked - Overall a great venue for College Hockey. This town knows how to put on a great tournament and make sure fans are having a great time. This should be the template for other future Frozen Fours.

Xcel Energy Center – Liked – this is a great place to watch a hockey game; I don’t think there was a bad seat in the house.

Hobey – Liked – Sioux Fans gave Andy Miele a standing ovation after he won the Hobey. Also the Sioux faithful gave the UND Team a standing ovation when they filed into their seats for the Hobey and when they were leaving the Hobey as well.

Hobey -- Liked #2 -- the fact that the Sioux team stayed in St. Paul to attend the Hobey ceremony to support Matt Frattin.

Fan Fest – Liked – Closed down the street and had a party for all – Just the best!

Meeting New & Old Friends – LIKED – As usual we met new and old friends at the Frozen Four; from the plane ride to the FF to last call Saturday night.

Listening to Al Pearson-Liked- It was fun sitting at Tim Reid’s listening to Al tell us different Sioux stories. He kept us in good spirits and had us laughing most of the time. True Sioux legend!

DISLIKED:

North Dakota Losing – Disliked – Enough Said.

Michigan Fight Song – Disliked - We stopped counting the number of times the Michigan Band played the fight song Saturday night – FYI we stopped counting at 14 times.

Sick – Big Disliked – I had not been sick all year until this week. I think I spent more money at Walgreens than I did at the Bar.

Booing TAMPA 2012 –Disliked – I did not like it when the fans booed the announcement of next year’s Frozen Four in Tampa. For me I will hold my judgment until next year.

Hotel – Disliked –We stayed at the same hotel as the Michigan team. Not fun after Thursday night... but a little better after Saturday :) This Hotel also booked another convention at the same time and it was crammed full of non hockey people all over the place and the elevators took forever, etc. I felt bad for the Michigan fans --not only did they have to deal with losing Saturday night they had to deal with this when they came back to the Hotel.

Food Xcel Energy Center – Disliked – Not much of a selection; rules of thumb eat beforehand.

Ticket scalpers - Disliked – If one more scalper came up to me and asked if I had tickets, I would have gone crazy – I should have hung a sign around my neck that said I have no tickets. They even were walking through the Hotels asking if anyone had tickets.

Brock Nelson getting hurt- Disliked – Get well and we will see you next season.

Matt Frattin not winning Hobey – Disliked – enough said.

Looking forward to the Ice Breaker in October at the Ralph! Love to hear about your experiences at this year's Frozen Four, feel free to comment. Let's Go Sioux!