College Hockey

I just want to point folks to a nice story in the PD: College hockey is gaining fans, fervor

Blues rookie David Backes was a high school senior in Minneapolis when the NCAA Division I hockey championships came to the Twin Cities in 2002. All four schools brought their pep bands and legions of loyal supporters, creating a boisterous, fever-pitched environment. The play brimmed with passion and fire.

"I got to go," Backes said, "and the atmosphere in the building was unbelievable."

The semifinals and championship game — known since the mid-'90s as the Frozen Four — drew nearly 40,000 spectators to Excel Center in St. Paul. Minnesota beat Maine 4-3 in overtime for the title, and Backes was hooked.

The following August, he enrolled at Minnesota State-Mankato, choosing college over the major junior leagues in Canada that traditionally produced most of the NHL prospects.

Backes' experience is not unusual anymore; college hockey has been on a steady rise.

Some 59 schools field Division I teams (up from 40 in 1990), and nearly 25 percent of the current 900-plus NHL players came out of college hockey programs, according to figures compiled by the Elias Sports Bureau.

Former Blues star Red Berenson, Michigan's coach since 1984, said college hockey "was a grass-roots sport when I came down here; now, it's big-time. It's been dramatic."

When I lived in Washington DC there was a small Public Television station in Northern Virginia that used to show a ton of the NCAA hockey tournament as their spring pledge drive programming. It was just great to watch, and that station became the first one I ever sent money to. Since then I've been a big fan of college hockey, although I have not developed a rooting interest as such, except for pulling for schools that have Blues prospects on their current roster.

It's a good game. As Webb Wilder would say, "Pick up on it."