fanlogs.com: Sioux from afar Destination: Milwaukee

This is a rambling report of my experiences as a fan at the Frozen Four. I never feel that I have much to add in the way of serious game analysis, and these games are among the few that get serious extensive media coverage. If you're looking for news and analysis of UND's game, try SiouxSports.com's hockey news links.

Milwaukee... the Frozen Four I'm definitely not going to

Though I've frequently gone to Frozen Fours as vacations, this was another year that I pledged not to go (as successful as my same pledge last year). I didn't particularly need another vacation in Milwaukee (I lived in Madison for many years).

I was out at the local Sports Pub when Holy Cross scored an overtime goal to defeat Minnesota and advance to the second round of the playoffs. At that moment I briefly realized that if North Dakota beat Michigan, the Sioux would likely advance to Milwaukee, yet again forcing an unplanned Frozen Four trip upon me.

While Columbus was an easy last minute trip, being just a 6 hour drive from home, Milwaukee is a more formidable 800 miles. Fast-forward two days and I've booked three rooms at a Doubletree on the edge of town and have a miserable 6:30am flight on Thursday morning. I noticed when booking that it didn't let me choose seats for a couple of my flights, which I considered somewhat ominous.

Thursday, the 21 hour day

6:00am ET Though I did not yet realize it, I wasn't the only Milwaukee-bound hockey fan on my first leg to Detroit. Upon arriving at the gate at Detroit for my second leg, there was little question I was among hockey fans. The waiting area was a sea of hockey fans from same teams you see every year, regardless of Frozen Four participants -- North Dakota, Maine, Minnesota. The rules of engagement were the uneasy truce that exists between college hockey fans on a Frozen Four pilgrimage -- I was genuinely happy to see Maine fans, and wished B.C. fans well, though I only meant it in a "I hope none of your players get maimed" sort of way. As predicted by my inability to reserve a seat, the flight was overbooked and NWA tried several times to secure volunteers by offering free tickets and vouchers. No one in the crowd seemed interested in the 3pm alternate flight at any price; if only they had offered a 12pm flight, I think they could have saved a lot of money.

11:00am CTThanks to proximity to Grand Forks, the Thursday pregame party at The Buckhead Saloon was the largest I've ever seen. Ryan Bakken, of the G.F. Herald, agreed.

"They told me that UND traveled well and that's obviously not a joke," Buckhead Manager Victoria Moran said. "They also told me that they drink well and that's not a joke, either.

"They told me to expect 600 and be prepared for more. We were prepared, thank God."

The band played, O'Keefe spoke, Buning spoke. As usual, O'Keefe managed to find a former Sioux athlete celebrity to call up to the stage, UND's only Hobey Baker award winner, Tony Hrkac. I had met one friend at the Milwaukee airport, but was at least a little worried because our tickets were en route from Minneapolis with my brother, who had left just that morning. Given the dire warnings about I-94 construction, and having seen the Milwaukee construction myself, we were somewhat concerened about the travel time. My brother came through and arrived in plenty of time for the game.

<rant>Milwaukee is a fine traditional city to host the Frozen Four, but no major tournament should ever be hosted in a city with such a ridiculous amount of construction underway. The Bradley Center was inaccessible from the West, few river crossings were available, and getting around would have been a downright disaster if not for NeverLost.</rant>

2:00pm CT At the end of the 1st, I thought the Sioux could still do it after outplaying B.C. for a period but being down 0-3 to show for it. I really thought the Sioux had this when they came out hitting in the 2nd. A disappointing outcome to say the least -- the Eagles just managed to capitalize and score on each Sioux mistake.

Rest of day Between games we drowned our sorrows at BW-3 on Water Street. Despite the weekend having just begun, they were mysteriously out of every beer we ordered. I ordered a Miller Lite and suggested that if they were out of that, they could just run down the street to get some more; the waitress wasn't amused.

As we were heading back for the 2nd game, it became obvious that most Sioux fans weren't. I can't really blame UND fans, especially students, for converting their in-demand Wisconsin tickets to cash, but the Sioux population dramatically thinned for the remainder of the weekend. This was the most disappointing part of a first game elimination -- I felt like I met 1/10 the Sioux fans that I did in Columbus. Because Columbus had a slightly smaller Sioux fan contingent, because there were fewer places close to the arena to drink, and because the fans were still around and excited on Friday, I met a ton of Sioux fans and felt like part of a close Sioux community. I missed that on this trip where everything seemed spread out and there were just a handful of Sioux fans scattered about.

The Maine-Wisconsin game was either a snoozer or I was still in a funk; the red tide of the crowd was certainly into it. My brother and I left right after the game and drove out to our hotel. A quirk of flying in Thursday morning is that, despite staying at the hotel for 3 nights, the Sioux had already been eliminated by the time we checked in. A quick nightcap at the local T.G.I.Friday's pushed my awake counter past the 21 hour mark.

Friday -- hope you weren't planning on popping in at the brewery

I felt almost sorry for the poor guy behind the desk at the Miller Brewery. Stories of expensive cab rides to get there, complaints about how Miller had promised that no reservations were needed, and pleas for "sneaking just us in" only seemed to anger the desk guy. I think he was having a very long day. I overheard one employee explaining to some turned away tourists that if only Miller had known it would be so busy that day, they would have had more employees around. Apparently they didn't get the memo that a hockey tournament was in town. We also stopped by the Sprecher Brewery, which I've visited in the past, and they reported that their tours were booked for the day but that a 3:00pm reservation was available for Saturday.

Having failed miserably at finding any way to fill the day (baseball game at 7pm or leaving town weren't really options because one of our group had actually managed to get there on a work trip, so had to work during the day Friday), we stopped at the Water Street Brewery to regroup and plot. A few more Wisconsin beers later, my brain came up with the perfect Wisconsin activity -- bowling. The waiter pointed me toward what proved to be an ideal dive bowling alley / pool hall / video game hall / bar. Pure Midwest, pure fun, great way to blow a few hours. I played pinball, I bowled, I played pool, I even tried the Dance Dance game. Did I mention that beers were $2.

Expecting our friend soon, we made our way back to the Bradley Center neighborhood and camped at Lucille's Rockin' Pianos. I've only been to a couple similar places (one in Jamaica, and then that piano bar in New York, New York in Las Vegas), and it was an awesome time. My friend showed up, we kept hanging out, had a nice chat with the tournament's chief official (BTW -- I have absolutely no complaints about the weekend's officiating), and pretty soon realized we had made to about midnight without yet having eaten. We rolled back toward the hotel but Friday's kitchen closes at midnight. We rolled on to Perkins and I definitely felt like I was home again.

Saturday -- brewery reservations pay off

Made the Miller and Sprecher tours. Both were awesome. I love small, craft breweries, and have always had a lot of respect for Sprecher and love their tasting room. We stuck around long after they had kicked everyone out of the tasting room and chatted with the employees about beer. I had never been on the Miller tour before, and left quite impressed with the attention to quality they actually pay to the massive amounts of beer they ship and the heritage of the product and brand. The tasting room was a little funny, because unlike at most brewery tours, sampling Miller Lite, MGD, and Miller High Life isn't a bold exploration. Miller's tour's opening video was fun instead of serious. It opens with a historic seeming landscape and booming voice announcing, "Since the dawn of time, man has longed for..."; which we all expected to be followed with a suitably somber "refreshment", or perhaps even "beer", but laughed out loud when the voice ripped, "Miller Time!" and the party began. Pretty girls were in bars, guys were moving couches, and it was always Miller Time.

Went to Mader's German restaurant by the Bradley Center for lunch. The gentleman talking to the Maitre'd in front of me expressed how impressed he was with the menu, noting that he lives in Germany and it was identical to those he saw locally. Knowing we had to make Sprecher at 3:00pm, just 2 short hours aways, we opted to sit at the bar. Surprisingly, we needed the entire two hours as the bartender explained, "we don't have enough staff, we had no idea it would be this busy". Apparently they didn't get the memo about the hockey tournament, either. At least he bought me a drink.

I did stop by the Cheese Mart and picked up a 9-year cheddar. It's been great. Unfortunately, the long wait at Mader' interfered with my attempt to pick up some great Usinger's sausage, another Wisconsin staple.

Badgers won, woohoo. Our first stop wasn't quite crowded enough, so we rolled on and celebrated with Badger fans. Opponents' fans are always happy to party with you when they've just won.

Sunday -- Jim eats dirt

Our flights weren't actually until 5pm so we went to the Jelly Belly factory. The tour consists of riding a train around the outside walkways of a storage room. I understand the train was supposed to be kid friendly, but that goal is inconsistent with the long videos and how many kids are really interested in your box inventory?