Skate With The Gophers

Happy Birthday to A.J. Michaelson, a sophomore on the Gopher Hockey team, he's the big 2-0 today!

Kyle Rau (7)

The Gophers hosted the annual Skate With The Gophers event today, and as always it was a great opportunity and a fun time. It was fun meeting the players, skating with them, and also watching them interact with the kids and fans that were there. Hope Jake Bischoff (@jakebischoff22) feels better after taking a hit to the head against Wisconsin this weekend. He was the only Gopher player unable to be present at Skate With The Gophers.

Vinni Lettieri (19)

The players were great with the kids and were very willing to talk to the fans that came out for the event. It was fun watching the players play little chasing games with the kids on the ice and watching them just skate around with the kids. Vinni Lettieri (@19Lettieri95) had about four kids attached to him towards the end of the day.

Mike Reilly (@mreilly93) decided to provoke Goldy (@GoldytheGopher) by pulling his tail while they were on the ice, which then resulted in Mikey getting snow down the back of his jersey.

Goldy, Mikey Reilly (5)

One of my favorite parts of the day was watching the awe in the kids' eyes as they talked to the players and asked for their autographs. A lot of kids were shy to begin with, but once the players started asking about their day and if they skated yet the kids opened up and were a lot more talkative. While other kids had an endless amount of courage and had no problem approaching the Gophers.

Sometimes we forget what it's like to be a kid with big dreams. We still have dreams as we grow up, but our priorities change. So many of the kids that were there today hope and dream to become a Gopher someday, just like the current Gopher players did at some point in their lives. To the kids that look up to them and see them as role models, meeting the players is like meeting their heroes.

Along with forgetting what it's like to be a kid, I think we forget that even the Gopher Hockey players are just normal kids. Yes, someday a lot of them will make it in the NHL and be playing professional hockey. But for now, they're just kids taking classes at the University of Minnesota while playing their favorite sport. Being 'starstruck' is understandable, but at the same time, they're just like us. Having class with some of the players this semester has made me realize this a lot more, but it's still hard to not think of where they will be in the next 5 years.

There were other activities going on up on the concourse aside from the skating. They had a shooting skills competition, which even Ben Marshall and Tom Serratore (@Serratore1489) couldn't perfect. The kids were ecstatic to see the Gophers shoot at the targets in the net. Ben mentioned that he couldn't "shoot the pucks right" (they were plastic), but in the end, he completely knocked out a target.

Ben Marshall (10), Tom Serratore (14)

They also had a basketball game on the concourse and the opportunity to take pictures with the NCAA trophies and the North Star College Cup. There were cardboard cutouts of Kyle Rau (@KyleRau) and Adam Wilicox that kids could take pictures with too. 

Defending The Blue Line (@DefTheBlueLine) had a fundraiser going on where you could buy signed pucks by former Gopher Hockey players and current NHL players like Nick Bjugstad (@NBjugstad72) and Blake Wheeler. The Gopher Hockey cheerleaders (@GopherHkyCheer) were also raising money for the Polar Plunge that they are taking part in.

Gabe Guertler (27), Mike Reilly (5)

It was great meeting the players and being able to talk to them. I wanted a picture with Mikey, and Gabe (@gabeguerts8) felt left out so he decided to jump in the picture! It's interesting to see how the players act just because they all have such different personalities and interact with people differently.

It's amazing thinking that some, if not all, of these players will be playing in the NHL someday. One thing that the Gophers have been known for in the past are the players opting to leave the program early. One fan today struck up a conversation with me about the Gophers from last year that are playing in the NHL like Nick Bjugstad (he just had his 13th goal of the season Friday night), Erik Haula (@EHaula), Nate Schmidt (@nateschmidt29), and the other players in the minor leagues right now. He mentioned how tempting it can be when these organizations dangle money in front of these 20-year-old kids, and it definitely is a hard decision making process that they need to go through. These players play at such a high caliber that many of them have been drafted to the NHL already. It's great seeing these players move on to the next level, but it's also sad to see them go. They're class acts and phenomenal athletes. The Gopher Hockey players have so much potential that it'll be fun to continue to watch them grow into even greater athletes and role models than they are today. 

Hudson Fasching (22)

A huge thank you goes out to both the Gopher Hockey and Gopher Sports Marketing programs for taking the time and effort to put together this great event. It's definitely tough coming back from two losses and not getting back in to the cities until 3:30 in the morning, so a huge thanks also goes out to the players for taking the time out of their busy schedules to interact with their fans. It's awesome to see the little kids excited to skate on the ice at Mariucci, meet the Gopher Hockey players, and the Gopher Hockey cheerleaders. I'm sure there were a lot of the future Gophers there today!

Remember, always take the time to dream as if you were a kid again.