From the Facebook page of Gov. Mark Dayton: "I just watched the University of Minnesota Women's Hockey Team lose a heartbreaker to Clarkston, 5-4, in the National Championship game. My eyes are still cross-eyed from trying to follow the puck on a 4"x6" screen, via an NCAA computer link. It's disgraceful that no national or local television station televised the game for the National Championship."
Sure, the governor could have saved himself the eyestrain by connecting his tablet into a big-screen TV to watch the game Sunday afternoon. But that's not his point.
You couldn't find the Gophers-Clarkson game for the NCAA women's title game on TV. No cable network or Twin Cities media outlet chose to show the game. (By comparison, Comcast picked up some St. Cloud State and Minnesota State men's hockey games this season and showed them on a channel that was otherwise unused.)
Only one Gopher women's game was showed on TV this season, a game against Ohio State on the Big Ten Network.
The lack of a telecast wasn't lost on coach Brad Frost, who told the Star Tribune's Joe Christensen: "It's definitely frustrating, and God bless Fox Sports North and some of these other stations, but [March 16] I was watching some intense dodge ball -- trampoline dodge ball at the Sky Zone, where I had my son's eighth birthday. And so there's a lot of stations out there now that are looking for some footage, and I just think these players deserve it."
The same was the case in 2013, when the Gophers won the national title in Minneapolis. There was no live TV of that game, either. For a while on Sunday afternoon, the most clicked link at startribune.com was one that took users to the NCAA's webcast of the 5-4 loss to Clarkson.
Frost looked ahead to 2015, when the Frozen Four will be held at Ridder Arena on the university's campus: "It's a great product, and you saw our crowd here on [March 15 for the NCAA quarterfinal]," he told Christensen. "It was fantastic, and people do care about it. And hopefully by next year, when we are hosting again, it can be on TV."
That would make the governor and a few other people happy.
