Hey, Where’s Mark C.N. Sullivan on this?

The Frozen Four (college hockey’s championship) is upon us! This year the semi-final games are Denver University (the school down the street where my dad did graduate work) versus Colorado College (DU’s pre-eminent rival and neighbor to the fabulous Broadmoor) and, in the other game, University of Minnesota (Mom’s alma mater) versus University of North Dakota (alma mater of many cousins).

The Fighting Sioux have some of the best looking uniforms in any sport and, of course, the most unusual fans. Imagine a few hundred folks like James Lileks and ”Five-Second” Mitch Berg* with passion for hockey rather than for items domestic and radio, respectively. I’m not kidding. I’ve been to DU/NoDak games and there’s nothing in sport like them. Sioux fans are pretty much the antithesis of the stereotypical Yankee fan. They can polite you to within an inch of your life. They can hold their liquor at altitude better than other flatlanders too.

DU once had a mascot created by Walt Disney – a sort of cowboy-leprechaun named Denver Boone (tiny copy at bottom left of page). Political correctness killed him off in the late nineties in favor of the Pioneer Hawk (that looks more like a turkey). It could be a near-perfect season for the Pioneers including (1) winning the Gold Pan trophy for the season series against CC; (2) winning the regular season conference championship; (3) winning the conference tournament (BTW said conference, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, has supplied all four national finalists this year); and (4) successfully defending a national championship. Downside is that tickets to the lovely Magness Arena at Ritchie Center will become that much harder to obtain. I would be remiss if I failed to mention that DU’s coach does quite a bit for the Archdiocese.

So of course I hope for a DU victory over NoDak come Saturday’s big game.

* Those two gentlemen are the best reasons to listen to Hugh Hewitt’s radio show.