National Sports Center Blog

Hockey webcasting

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

NSC Webcast, the NSC's new year-around webcasting service started the season by broadcasting two soccer tournaments -- NSC Cup on Memorial Day weekend and the Wal-Mart All-America Cup tournament on June 13-14. The past three weeks our crew has moved indoors to webcast three weekends of the USA International Hockey Cup from the Schwan Super Rink.

Below: Geoff Discher (left) on play-by-play and Taylor Kruse, on camera, bring fans all the action of the Wausaw (Wisc.) Warriors vs MTS Renegades (Colo.) 91/92 game from the Schwan Super Rink on the 4th of July.

This is the view the NSCwebcast producer gets from behind the control panel. A camera-feed view of the game, plus a great view of Taylor and Geoff's backs.

Following our hockey work, NSC Webcast will head back outdoors to broadcast all the games from U1 (Stadium Field) and U2 (Exhibition Field) during the Schwan's USA CUP, July 11-19. We will also present the Schwan's USA CUP Opening Ceremony on Monday, June 14 at 7:20 pm.

Watching NSCwebcast is easy. Just do to www.nscwebcast.tv and select your game or event from the menu. Each is $6.95. Games are available live or on an archived basis. Archived games can be watched muliple times; live games can only be watched while they are live.

We're excited to offer webcasting to our fans and customers. It's just another service that separates the NSC's events from other youth sports events around the world.

Stick It to Cancer hockey tournament goes pink

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

Last night, in the dark of the night, the Schwan Super Rink went pink.

Thanks to a generous sponsorship from Farmers Insurance, the Schwan Super Rink's maintenance crew applied pink paint to the six sheets of ice that will be used for this weekend's Stick It to Cancer hockey tournament. The Stick It tournament, which starts tonight, April 18 and runs through Sunday April 20, is a women's and girls' tournament. It benefits breast cancer research by donating proceeds to the University of Minnesota Cancer Research Center.

Last year's tournament donated $45,000 to the cause, and organizers Jackie Olson and Sanya Sandahl expect to break the record this year -- with a boost from the pink ice.

Headed up by SSR Ice Operations Manager Brandon Radeke and Arena Director Pete Carlson, our dedicated crew started at 11pm and worked straight through the night. They put the finishing touches on the final sheet at about 6am.

Here are some technical details about how they did it.

The paint spraying machine was borrowed from the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul. You may not know this, but ice can be painted just like any surface. After mixing red and white paint to make a pink tint, Radeke drove the sprayer around the ice, and laid down a pink tint on top of the regular ice surface. The paint takes only a couple minutes to dry. Once the paint was dry, workers sprayed water on top of the pink paint to build up about 1/8-inch of ice to protect the paint from the Zamboni shaving.

What's produced is a striking visual. The pink ice surface is stunning; the tint reflects off the arena ceiling and the air seems to glow pink. Photos don't do it justice. And if you see it first hand you'll notice that the pink shade varies slightly from rink to rink, the result of the SSR crew applying some artistic license. Either that or lack of sleep!

There are 96 teams playing in the Stick It Tournament. Most of the players know about the pink ice, but we're guessing many spectators will be caught by surprise. We're expecting more than a few gasps.

And on Sunday night, after the last championship trophy is awarded, the Zambonis will take the ice, shave off that top 1/8-inch, and the Schwan Super Rink will fade back to white.

PAL visit highlights mission of the Herb Brooks Training Center

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

Last week, 29 kids from the Police Athletic League in North Minneapolis ran through a one-hour training session at the Herb Books Training Center (HBTC) at the Schwan Super Rink. HBTC coaches led the drills, suppported by five Minneapolis police officer coaches.

Janet Marvin was in charge of the delegation.

"We skate outside with them 3-4 days a week on the park ice rinks," she said. "We got an invitation to come out here. We'll be here for 10 weeks, until May 29."

The delegation from the Police Athletic League in North Minneapolis takes a break for a team photo during their training session at the Herb Brooks Training Center. (photo by Ron Guild)

Marvin knows her hockey. She grew up as a member of the famous Marvin hockey family in Warroad, Minn. (Her father is Cal ; Gophers' star Gigi Marvin her neice and St. Cloud State forward Aaron her nephew.)

"I don't know if the kids knew what to expect when they came out," Marvin said. "None of them have ever been to this facility. We have a couple kids who have been to the Super Rink itself, but not inside the dry-land training facility. They're having a great time just shooting pucks at the net. I think the end results will help them out as a player, and probably as a person too."

The HBTC hopes the spring program for the PAL is just the first of many community groups that utilize the state-of-the-art facility.

"Part of our mission is to find funding for people who don't have the income to pursue hockey," said Larry Hendrickson, HBTC Program Director. "That was one of Herbie's dreams."

Alaska hockey team coming to USA International Cup at the NSC masters the art of long-distance connections

By Barclay Kruse, NSC Chief Communications Officer

When you live and play hockey in the largest, and most-sparsely populated state in the U.S., and you want to build a strong AAA program that can compete in national-caliber summer tournaments, you can’t get discouraged over long-distance travel and a pool of players a small fraction of the size playing in Minnesota. For the Alaska Arctic Stars, made up of the best 1995-born players in Alaska, that means bridging a 375-mile gap between the Alaska’s two largest cities, Anchorage and Fairbanks, to find enough high-enough players to compete in tournaments like the USA International Cup at the Schwan Super Rink.

In just their second year of existence, the Arctic Stars will return to the USA International Cup for the second year, when they will be one of the teams playing in the 1995 division this June. “Last year we came to the International Cup and placed fourth in the Invitational division,” said Stars coach Mark Ellingrud. “This year we are stronger. We have added the state’s top player, Mason Anderson from Anchorage, and also Erik Shulte, a huge defenseman from Anchorage.”

The Stars finished with a 2-1 record in pool-play, before losing twice in the championship division playoffs. They fell to the MN Lightning Blue 5-2 in the bronze medal game. Alaska boasts only four squirt “A” teams, three in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks. At the “B” level there are ten teams. Juneau, the only other community with a significant amount of hockey activity, has “C” teams, and hopes to grow in the future. With numbers like that, playing hockey in Alaskameans lots of traveling. Players routinely fly to league games and practices. Hockey in Alaskacan be very expensive.

“The best thing that happened during the Arctic Stars’ first year was that the players built friendships they will savor,” said Ellingrud. “They battle against each other all season, and then shake hands and do stuff together as friends. That’s because of playing together on this team. One of the purposes of this team was to bring the kids of  Alaska together. And in a state as large as ours, that is a monumental achievement.”

Announcing the '07 Schwan Cup roster

By Barclay Kruse

NSC Media Director

On March 5, we announced the teams that will be playing in the 2007 Schwan Cup boys' high school hockey tournament, a tournament that is run by the National Sports Center. (Click here to read the news release and see the teams in each bracket.)

We know this information will touch off some spirited debate, and no small amount of second-guessing. In a state with such a passionate interest in high school hockey, no matter what we do, we'll get toasted and roasted by fans who think they can do it better. More likely, many just wonder how we pick the teams, and who gets placed in each bracket.

The man on the hot seat is Pete Carlson, our Schwan Cup boys' tournament director. It's a tough job, but I think if you look at long-term quality, Pete does an excellent job of assembling a powerful field of teams year in and year out.

Our goal, simply put, is the invite the best 24 boys' teams in the state, regardless of class. Some teams pass on our invitation; the most common reason is that they run their own holiday tournament (Roseau being a good example), or they have a long-standing tradition of playing in another holiday tournament (such as the Rochester teams.) And with only 24 spots open, and only eight in the top blue division, good teams will obviously miss out.

But the teams who've become Schwan Cup staples -- Duluth East, Moorhead, Holy Angels, Centennial, Hill-Murray, Edina, to name a few -- are indisputably among the traditional powerhouses.

Once a team is in the tournament, we invite them back if they play well in Schwan Cup and have a solid roster of returning players. Even if a team plays poorly one year, they may remain in the tournament, but may get bumped down a division. Teams that win the red or white divisions are nearly always offered a spot in a higher division. The reality however, is that we can't clean house every year, nor would we want to. Athletic directors and coaches need to know they have a place in a holiday tournament long-term. That's why our roster of 24 teams is more the same than different, year-to-year. From 2006 to 2007, 22 of the 24 teams stayed the same. (New additions this year are Eastview and Stillwater.)

Another major factor is timing. Teams need to know their status by mid-February. We'd love to wait until the results of the MSHSL State Tournament, or even section championships, to slot in our teams, but it's not possible. In case you're wondering, yes, we had already locked things in before three of our 2007 Schwan Cup teams (Holy Angels, Moorhead and Cretin-Derham Hall) were upset in the section finals March 3. Sometimes that happens.

Once the dust settled, seven of our Schwan Cup teams made the State Tournament (Hill-Murray, Blaine, Edina, St. Thomas Academy, Blake, Burnsville, and Orono), and four others lost in their section final. Not bad.

A final variable is coaches' preferences. Coaches with young talent returning often lobby to move up a bracket, and we definitely look closely at those requests, because we want the best teams in the blue division. It happens less often, but sometimes coaches will request a move down, or to stand pat when our preference would be a move up. Suffice it to say, coaches have their own strategies for their teams, and what Pete wants isn't always what they want.

So feel free to debate, just as long as you keep watching. 

What happens at the NSC doesn't stay at the NSC

By Barclay Kruse
NSC Media Director

I just finished a long, hard, but very fun, week managing press operations at the NSC's Schwan Cup hockey tournament. This tournament is arguably the top prep holiday-season tournament in Minnesota, in any sport, and probably one of the most prominent high school tournaments in the U.S.

With the visibility comes intensive media coverage. In addition to having lots of reporters and photographers at the Xcel Energy Center, Ridder Arena and the Schwan Super Rink, our major venues, we get hundreds of write ups in newspapers all over the state, especially from communities with teams in the tournament -- places like Fargo-Moorhead, Duluth, Rochester, Mankato, Eveleth, Warroad, Brainerd, Silver Bay, and even out-of-state cities like Madison, Wisconsin and Bismarck, North Dakota. Fox Sports North televised the four games from the Xcel Energy Center on championship day all over the state. And in places like Moorhead and Brainerd, local listeners followed their teams' games on their hometown radio stations. And with Crystal Clear Sports webcasting boys' and girls' games all week long, over 5,000 hockey fans, many ex-Minnesotans who've moved away,  got their Christmas hockey fix on their home computer.

I mention this because everyone knows that pro sports have a statewide reach. But a lot of people don't grasp the extent of the regional reach of the amateur events held at the NSC. They think everything that happens at the National Sports Center stays on our campus. But Schwan Cup is just an example that amateur sports is bigger than that. We have way more clout than that.

This is happy news, of course. It's a happy sitution when media too often focused on the pro sports, covers amateur events with gusto. It's a happy situation when political leaders read about events at the NSC and realize the financial investment was worth it.

And it's a happy situation when sports fans up on the Iron Range can open up their morning edition of the Mesabi Daily News last Friday and read -- dateline Blaine -- that Caitlin Korpi, Amanda Arbogast, Kate Matanich scored goals for the Eveleth-Gilbert Golden Bears and the hometown team will be playing for the championship later that day.

To twist Las Vegas' new marketing slogan, what happens at the National Sports Center does not stay at the NSC.