What do you guys consider "Duluth background" when it comes to recruiting? Obviously the Mountain Range, and I'd think up north to Canada. Do you guys figure Moorhead to be in your top recruiting market? I'm not originally from Minnesota, so I don't know what everyone considers "Northern MN" but this year SCSU's got 3 kids from Moorhead, Marvin's from Warroad, Raboin's from Detroit Lakes and LeBlanc's from Duluth. Hardy may be from Hermantown, but he's a 3rd string goalie who may never see the ice, and obviously we didn't outrecruit you guys for Mitch Ryan.
You know I hate to come to tb's defense, but he didn't say SCSU's new building will be better than everyone else but UND's, he said that you could make the argument they're on par with all of them. Everyone has their own opinion of what they're looking for in an ice rink, but right now you could not be taken seriously if you said the NHC was as good as the building that MN, UW and UNO have. However, after the renovations I'll bet some fans from teams other than SCSU will say they like it better than Mariucci or the Kohl Center. And some will say they prefer Mariucci. And from what I hear, I think some might vault the DECC into the top couple rinks.
Then again, its not built, so we'll see how it turns out, but if its anything like the depictions, then its a helluva lot more than I was expecting when I heard the NHC was getting a touchup. For those who haven't seen it, here's a YouTube link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP6SEHXpeqM
Not even from MN, and just jumps in and starts spitting out the Gopher arrogance. You'll fit in, sir!
The knock on Mariucci isn't structurally. The building is really nice, though not exceptional (I waited too long to go, and when I first saw it was kinda disappointed) and there's not a bad seat in the house. Problem isn't really MN's fault either... they're very popular, they get a lot of fans in there, and the average age is quite a bit older than the average crowd at SCSU, MTU, MSU-M etc. where a large percentage of the fans are students or former students, and not just people showing up to hockey games cause its something to do. The end result is more of an NHL crowd (actually, I'd say the crowds are more lively at Wild games than Gopher games), which there's nothing wrong with, but when you're expecting and wanting loud and rowdy crowds like you'll find in other WCHA arenas, its a bit of a letdown.
But it's easy to fill an arena when you got upwards of 60,000 people going to your school, or your school is the closest thing to a professional program your state has. Not taking anything away from the programs. P.S. I didn't say the Kohl Center because that would involve me caring about that state. 
