Duluth blogger Tim Bouvine offers a possible solution to the continuing Vikings stadium debate, here.

Notebook

. Duluth East opens the 2011-12 high school hockey season tonight at Cambridge-Isanti without top returning scorer and best player Trevor Olson. "I tore the ACL in my right knee during a preseason scrimmage against Lakeville South, and I hope to be back in the lineup right after the Schwan Cup," Olson said in an eMail message today.

. Good Read: Governor Dayton's statement on the November 2011 budget forecast, here.

Letters

I've been receiving your blog and enjoy it very much. I'm Chico Anderson, one of those teachers at Marshall who is retiring at the end of the year (with Dave Homstad) you wrote about a while back.

I've really enjoyed reading about Judd Peterson, one of my students. I've taught Judd since he came to Marshall and cannot tell you how impressed I am with him as a student and a hockey player. I think Judd came to Marshall to enhance his hockey skills, which are considerable. In the process he's also decided to become a better student, which he has. He comes into my classroom to study and prepare for tests. He asks insightful questions. He also stops by my class to discuss life, what Robert Bellah calls: 'the habits of the heart.' I am impressed at how much Judd has grown as a student and as a human being.

There is something else that speaks volumes about Judd that I'd like to share with you. Judd is one of the best athletes in our school … perhaps one of the better athletes in the city. But he has become a real role model for our younger students, one worth emulating. It would be easy for someone with Judd's athletic prowess to 'get a bit full of himself,' but this is not the case with Judd. Just the other day I saw Judd sitting in a quiet spot with a undersized ninth grader who is a bit of lonesome fellow. The little fellow was wearing a walking cast and seemed downcast. Judd was speaking to him with real concern and compassion. He was buoying up this lad. It was a thing of beauty.

As a longtime teacher of religion and ethics seeing things like this always gives me hope that our young people are our future and our future is in good hands.

I just wanted to share this with you. Judd Peterson will go a long way … not only in hockey, but in life.

With every good wish,

Chico Anderson

Marshall School chaplain