Population 1,778
NHL players 5
Olympians 7
D1 players 80+

They do hockey. Right.

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Warroad is a seven hour drive from Minneapolis, including a stretch from Grand Rapids to Baudette that is as remote as any drive through the Nevada desert. There is an area up there in the Beltrami State Forest that rumors say the USA tested a small atomic bomb (was probably just a really really big regular bomb.)

Roseau (pronounced Ro-Zo) to the west of Warroad is another very famous hockey town. Though Warroad and Roseau are nice little towns you might as well be on the other side of the moon up in that part of the state...

HGH in the water.

More like: really no different than many small towns across Canada. IE, each of those communities respectively got together at one point and decided to invest in a rink for the town and youth development programs starting from the littlest kids you can imagine (with basically "strollers" to learn how to skate) all the way up to Juniors feeder programs.

That's just a way of life, up there.

Warroad, Roseau, and Thief RIver Falls might be remote to Minneapolis, but not Grand Forks. UND owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to those communities. What's amazing about those three towns is the tremendous amount of jobs and innovation created.

Warroad and the Marvins created Marvin Windows Corp, which has many plants that produce windows that are better in cold weather than almost any.
Roseau was the birthplace of Polaris Industries, which helped create the snowmobile and later the 4-wheel drive utility vehicles and off-road cycles and even recreational watercraft.
Thief River Falls gave a start to Arctic Cat, which has been a traditional Polaris rival, and more recently, Digi-Key, which is one the foremost electronic distributors in the world only made possible by Federal Express.

If you need a job, those three communities almost certainly have an opening. If it wasn't for the economic impact of those companies, those towns would be dried up ghost towns like much of rural Minnesota. It seems where the forests meet the prairies, the carpentry skills of the logger set and the creativity of the farmer set meet and create something magical. The flying car will be next.

When I make it back to UND for a hockey game, often run into youth in uniform from those towns watching the game too and workers from those companies at the airport.

(02-28-2017 12:37 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  More like: really no different than many small towns across Canada. IE, each of those communities respectively got together at one point and decided to invest in a rink for the town and youth development programs starting from the littlest kids you can imagine (with basically "strollers" to learn how to skate) all the way up to Juniors feeder programs.

That's just a way of life, up there.

Even in Canada, youth hockey is declining except for wealthier suburbs, or where corporate entities have a vested interest in the youth and support more community opportunities, including recreation. Most kids now just want video games.

That area introduced power skating to the world, which is now used by most pro leagues. Its a refined skating technique with conditioning drills that have developed into a world standard for hockey.

http://www.burggrafskating.com

(02-28-2017 12:12 PM)HuskyU Wrote:  HGH in the water.

Pure bloodlines. Lots of inbreeding in small isolated towns with weather like siberia where there's nothing better to do than get drunk, go ice fishing, play hockey, and boink your 2nd cousin.

(03-01-2017 12:24 AM)p23570 Wrote:  

(02-28-2017 12:12 PM)HuskyU Wrote:  HGH in the water.

Pure bloodlines. Lots of inbreeding in small isolated towns with weather like siberia where there's nothing better to do than get drunk, go ice fishing, play hockey, and boink your 2nd cousin.

That area is heavily Norwegian heritage. So bloodlInes were intermingled for millennium in the rural villages even before. But the bloodlines spread during the Vikings raids on Scotland, England and further south.

(02-28-2017 04:35 PM)NoDak Wrote:  That area introduced power skating to the world, which is now used by most pro leagues. Its a refined skating technique with conditioning drills that have developed into a world standard for hockey.

http://www.burggrafskating.com

I miss Nancy Burggraf. She could take the biggest baddest meanest nastiest hockey goon you've ever met and make them a quivering puddle of electrolytes in mere minutes in terms of endurance; plus, she'd out-skate NHLers (speed or agility) ... just because she could.

I remember Mike Commodore as a freshman at UND. He was a horrible, horrible skater. He stood on the inside of his ankles and couldn't turn. After meeting Nancy, his name is on the Stanley Cup.