My wife Bridget and I have traveled all over this fine country on hockey road trips.
Well north of 40 trips — including three NCAA regionals and one Frozen Four.
We run a site for UNO Hockey fans called MavPuck.com. We’ve made many friends via the site — along with the Twitter and Facebook offerings we have for MavPuck. We’ve even organized nine MavPuck.com Bus Trips.
College hockey fans are a unique fraternity. There are only 60 hockey teams at the Division 1 level. As such, there exists a fiercely niche following that comprises what I consider to be the best fans in all of sports fandom.
Our niece Lauren is in her first year as a student at St. Cloud State University. SCSU is a conference rival for our beloved University of Nebraska at Omaha Hockey team. She also loves college hockey.
Bridget and I circled this series on our calendar the moment the 2017-18 schedule was released.
ROAD TRIP DAY 1
Our adventure started on Feb. 1 — to make the 6-1/2 hour drive from Omaha to St. Cloud. We didn’t leave “bright and early” (we ain’t morning people), but we did manage to escape O-Town before noon.
It was a nice drive up. The weather was calm and clear. My favorite thing on the “Des Moines Route to St. Cloud” is the profusion of wind turbines in eastern Iowa. Absolutely love ‘em:
I read Gary Vaynerchuk’s new business self-help book “Crushing It” out loud in the car (because I am the human version of Audible). The tome will be featured in a future blog post:
(This wasn’t our first trip to St. Cloud. We visited in Dec. 2016. That 2016 trip included all of Lauren’s favorite things: Minnesota, shopping at the Mall of America, and ice hockey. She ultimately decided to go to school at SCSU — a quaint school nestled in a bucolic town that sits 65 miles northwest of the Twin Cities.)
We made sure to arrive in St. Cloud in time to take Lauren out to dinner. She drove down to our hotel from campus to meet us.
There was a crisp-looking “ST. CLOUD” water tower next to our hotel — with a color scheme firmly planted on the “BIV” side of the Roy G. Biv spectrum. Lauren and I took this selfie with the tower in the background:
We ate dinner at the local Granite City (trivia: St. Cloud is referred to as “Granite City"). I know the restaurant isn’t a character-filled place oozing with local flavor. But we ate there during the 2016 trip, and spent much of that meal discussing Lauren’s desire to attend St. Cloud State University (and we even perused scholarship opportunties online during that lunch).
Also dining this time out at Granite City was the UNO Hockey team. That’s always kind of awkward. UNO Head Coach Mike Gabinet came over to say hi. It was Lauren’s first time meeting our coach, and she took a picture with him:
ROAD TRIP DAY 2
This trip was the first time we would be seeing Lauren’s dorm accommodations at St. Cloud State University. I know she wasn’t exactly thrilled that I took pictures, but I pulled the “I’m doing this for my blog” card.
Her dorm represents fairly typical 1960s- and 70s-era student housing construction: bunk beds lofted, desks, restrooms down the hall, and cinder-block everything.
Lauren and her roommate have pet shrimp (that have multiplied since the start of the school year).
She demonstrated how she has to open her window so she can get fresh air in the room when it becomes overly stuffy and hot:
This pic of Lauren is her looking completely “embarrassed” by the fact I was documenting her crib:
The good news (for Lauren) is that we were soon off and out of the dorm. I didn’t live in a dorm when I attended UNO (they didn’t build student housing until after we graduated in the mid 1990s), so in instances like this I try to imagine myself living in a dorm (I don’t know if I could have abandoned my creature comforts, but "dorm life" seems like it would be fun).
We ate lunch at Pepperjax. Yes, I know, we went to another chain joint, but that was how we rolled on this particular trip.
Once our bellies were full, we trekked 30 minutes south of St. Cloud to visit a very nice outlet mall we’d seen on the way up.
We didn’t get many pictures at the mall (I did get a new pair of Nikes), but we did snap this pic at the Skechers store (where Bridget was trying on shoes):
Lauren had to work later in the afternoon, so we didn’t stay at the mall too long. On the way back, Lauren pointed out where the Tesla charging station was located. Being a fan of the innovative Elon Musk-led company, I had to stop and take some pics:
Bridget and I had a few hours to kill until the 7:37 p.m. start of hockey game. Our time was spent visiting Walmart, and dropping in on Lauren at work:
Then it was game time! The UNO Hockey team had already been swept by the Huskies in their two-game series in Omaha back in December, so most of our fans had fairly “sober” predictions for the outcome of the games.
This fence is on the “main drag” to the St. Cloud State campus. We have driven by it many times, and it adds a certain “school spirit” flavor to the neighborhood that sits west of the campus:
Lauren planned to arrive a bit late to the game because of her work schedule, but Bridget and I landed at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center about 30 minutes prior to face off:
Our friend Bill Pickett (who is Director of UNO Student Involvement and the Milo Bail Student Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha) led a bus trip of students to St. Cloud for the series. Having the Maverick Maniacs in attendance made the games much more fun and entertaining. We ended up standing with them for the duration.
We cheered, made noise, and even threw torn newspaper “confetti” during the series:
As I mentioned earlier, Bridget and I led several hockey bus trips from 2005 through 2012. It takes a considerable amount of time to set them up, wrangle passengers, collect payment, and arrange the various logistics. I’m really glad Bill provides these sorts of opportunities for the UNO students (something that was lacking back when we were students).
Lauren sat with the SCSU students for most of the game, but did come and visit during the intermissions. We had the chance to meet her friend Rachel at the game:
UNO ultimately lost to the Huskies 5-3. It was an entertaining game, though, and we had a good time despite the final outcome.
After the game we went out to eat at the local Old Chicago (chain restaurant #3) with Lauren and Rachel. It was nice to get to meet one of Lo’s college friends, and the food hit the spot after a long day.
ROAD TRIP DAY 3
Saturday saw snow in St. Cloud. More snow than was forecast, and the streets were a bit of a mess.
We ate lunch at Panera (chain eatery #4). This is a picture Lauren took walking into the place:
Our post-lunch activities involved Bridget’s makeup run to Ulta and a visit to Old Navy to get Lo a new pair of jeans.
As was the case on Friday, Lauren had to “clock time for the man” on Saturday afternoon, so we dropped her back at campus to get ready for work. She joined us in the UNO section once she arrived at the game, though.
The second game in the series was worse for the Mavs than Friday — UNO lost 6-2. Saturday hasn’t been their night this season — especially on the road.
But the students had fun during the game. A St. Cloud fan sitting below us decided to heckle and taunt our students. They had a good attitude about it, but the guy was kind of a tool (in my opinion). He posted this pic on his Instagram account... Stay Classy, St. Cloud:
After the game, we made a return trip to Old Chicago with Lauren:
ROAD TRIP DAY 4
Sunday, the next day, we headed back to Omaha. We would have typically traveled down through the Twin Cities for the return trip. However, because Super Bowl LII was being held at U.S. Bank Stadium that night, we went down through central Minnesota to avoid game day traffic.
While we had to traverse a mix of highways, county roads, and byways, we did get to see a number of interesting communities on the journey.
Our trip to see Lauren wasn’t nearly long enough.
When you are a college hockey fan, you have opportunities to visit a variety of quirky places that are “off the beaten path.” You might have to deal with sub-zero temperatures, blizzards, and a variety of less-than-idyllic conditions.
The experience is a unique one — one that I look forward to for six months each season.
Until we meet again, St. Cloud...
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