Been through both towns more times than I remember. My grandparents lived in Fort Francis Ontario, just across the river from International Falls. The quickest way to drive from Winnipeg to Fort Francis was to go through Warroad on Hwy 11.
Towns in that part of the continent are hockey crazy to say the least. Kids would crawl over a mile of ground glass to play. Hockey was probably the only thing to do there during the winter. Some of the best games were between teams from Kenora or Ft Francis in Ontario and the Warroad teams. Unless things have changed, Roseau, Warroad, Baudette and International Falls did not have indoor hockey rinks. But it didn't matter, you'd be up at 5 am and hit the rink for a couple of hours of practice before school. You'd never notice the cold. Then if you couldn't get ice time after school, you'd end up at someone's backyard rink for a pickup game. In that area, hockey is the real religion. Everyone wanted to be another Bobby Orr. >> TheCrow wrote: >> What do you mean about "almost no money"? > >A school like Warroad would play with 15 year old hand me down >equipment and have to practice on outdoor ice. > >Edina would have the latest equip like cooperalls and CF sticks and >practice year-round in arenas. > >It was/is a tax base thing as well as a population thing; if your >class has 50 boys in it, that's not a big pool for a team compared to >classes with 600 people. Nevertheless, these little schools have >always remained competitive. How these towns put out such huge hockey >stars, I dunno. > >Here's Roseau: >----------------------- >Roseau is a city in Roseau County, Minnesota, USA. The population was >2,756 at the 2000 census. > >Roseau has a strong high school hockey tradition and has competed in >and won the state tournament more than any other team in the state >(most recently in 2007), a manufacturing and plastic molding injection >facility of snowmobile and ATV manufacturer Polaris and the home of >retired NHL and Olympic hockey players Neal Broten, Aaron Broten, Paul >Broten, Blane Comstock, Rube Bjorkman, Don Ross, and Bryan "Butsy" >Erickson. Roseau is also the hometown of John Harris who currently >competes on the PGA Seniors Tour. > >Although they're losing right now to Hill Murray. > >Warroad, btw, was known as "hockeytown, USA" for 4 decades until >Detroit stole the name via a trademark filing in the mid-nineties. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:255967 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
