One of the things you hear from time to time is how Minnesota kids have some kind of obligation to play for State U, or that it's the dream of dreams for all of our high school athletes to wear the U of M's maroon-and-gold.
A few Wisconsin hockey players from the Twin Cities, who will be coming to Minneapolis this weekend for a series at Mariucci Arena, say that being a Gopher never held any special attraction.
(See, it's not only the Wisconsin basketball team, where three of the top six players are from Minnesota.)
Badgers sophomore defenseman Joe Faust, a two-year captain at Bloomington Jefferson, told Wisconsin's student newspaper, the Badger Herald: "I always watched them and it was exciting when they won the national championships and stuff. I was kind of a fan, but I never had that calling that some kids talk about, how they always wanted to grow up and be a Gopher. I followed them, but [they were] never really my passion. I just wanted to play college hockey."
A couple of other Badgers also talked about leaving Minnesota in the Badger Herald story. Read it here.
For this season, anyway, it looks like their loss.
