In one of the best rivalries in all of college sports, the University of Minnesota will clash with the University of North Dakota this weekend in a two game hockey series. Both teams - perennial contenders for the NCAA national championship - have less love for each other than Cain did for Abel. So a bitter, hard-fought series with vicious hits and spectacularly memorable moments will be a certainty. Such is the tradition of Golden Gopher hockey, which I always try to enjoy in person on my winter visits back to Minnesota.

A friend of mine was lucky enough to get in on season tickets this year. That is not an easy task, since there is an impossibly long waiting list that makes one wonder if your name will be called for tickets before you turn to dust. So, I jumped at the chance to take a pair of tickets off his hands when he offered them for a game when I was visiting Minnesota. Accompanying me was my brother, a fellow Minnesota alum.

It wasn't an epic battle against the hated North Dakota Fighting Sioux, but instead versus visiting Niagara University. They were in Minneapolis to face off against the Gophers - who got their school nickname from an old Minnesota political joke - in the Mariucci Classic. Sadly, these are two hockey traditions that will soon be at an end when Minnesota moves to the newly created Big Ten hockey conference in the 2013-13 season.
The rivalry, to me the most important tradition of the two, will end when Minnesota switches conferences, since there is a school ban on any university team playing a non-conference opponent with what is considered an offensive nickname - as in the Fighting Sioux. So, when we are no longer in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association with North Dakota, it will no longer be possible to play them if they keep their current name. It is in the works to be changed, but there could be a few years where the fire in the rivalry cools, if not entirely goes out.
The Mariucci Classic, a small holiday weekend tournament, will also likely come to an end once the conference shift is made by Minnesota. This is because we will be more interested in keep our in-state rivalries with the likes of St. Cloud, Mankato, Duluth, or Bemidji State going in a different tournament rather than inviting out of state teams like Niagara in to play. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but only if the name of Mariucci lives on in the new tournament.

John Mariucci, for who the University of Minnesota arena is also named, is one of the state's favorite hockey sons. As a coach, for which Mariucci will likely best be remembered, he built on and continued the tradition of keeping only Minnesota-born players on the squad. It is a tradition that has recently been broken, actually to no huge protest, but one for which the state has taken pride in for decades. We still do, as the squad remains predominantly Minnesotan.
Regardless of the shift in conferences, the games will go on, as will the deep tradition of the University of Minnesota hockey program. Gold medal Olympians, national champions, All-Americans, and the tangible smell and touch of something as intangible as tradition will always continue with Minnesota hockey just as it did when the team moved from the Old Mariucci Arena to the new one, now just known as the Mariucci Arena.
The University of Minnesota will continue to win, just as they beat Niagara 5-1 the night I was there, and they will continue to proudly move forward while always remembering a heralded past that includes five national championships. Sure, we'll have occasional down years, I've suffered through them just as any fan has in the past. But I am happy to be a part of it all, having earned my degree from the school I love and support each year as I attempt to make it back home and cheer:

Minnesota, hats off to thee!
To thy colors true we shall ever be,
Firm and strong, united are we.
Rah, rah, rah, for Ski-U-Mah,
Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Rah for the U of M.

M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A!
Minnesota, Minnesota!
Yay, Gophers! RAH!