Re: Ice Breaker (@Notre Dame, Minnesota, UMD, RPI) 10/10 & 10/12
I wanted to make a few comments about the Minnesota audio broadcast of Sunday's game. First, I greatly appreciate the fact that Minnesota did broadcast the game since WRPI wasn't able to broadcast it, and at Notre Dame, hockey takes a back seat to football -- probably several hundred rows back.
I felt that although the Minnesota announcers were biased toward UMN, they weren't to the extent that one couldn't listen to them, like SLU's announcers have been. Since I have never listened to them before, there banter seemed inane and unconnected to anything, but listenable. It also was apparent that they did not do their homework before the game. Minnesota fans might not care, but they knew very little about RPI. I was a bit surprised that there was no mention of previous meetings between RPI and UMN besides for the one last season.
If it wasn't for the fact that two RPI players (Zach Schroeder and Lou Nanne) have UMN connections, one would say they knew nothing about RPI (including how to pronounce Rensselaer, although they were close). Actually even for Nanne they must have lost track since they knew that he spent a year in the BCHL after Edina, but did not mention that he was in the USHL last year after recovering from injuries. Because it was a radio broadcast and it wasn't synched to ND's audioless video, I can't comment upon how often they misidentified RPI players.