On The Road With Kurt Haider

We're graced with another excellent and unsolicited contribution this afternoon from the man with the best play by play call and voice in the WCHA, the inimitable Kurt Haider.  Thank you Kurt for the update about the goings on.  

I encourage everyone to read the submission below with Kurt's voice inside your head.  I did and it' was wonderfully eerie.

Hi Donald-
Thought I'd toss you a quick note from Minneapolis since I'm killin' and chillin' before we head to St. Paul tomorrow.  Like the team, I stayed outside too because of the unbelievably expensive airline ticket prices.  Did I hear 1,800 bucks RT?  Got my ticket to Mpls just before the Mankato series and it was already 1,200.  My son is in Europe this week...his RT was 650 dollars.  Just sayin'...

Just got back from watching practice over at the Ridder Arena (next to and attached to the Mariucci) and the boys look good...lots of focus, lots of intensity, lots of fun.  The coaches are fine-tuning for the weekend, and they've got a captive audience.  Bailey is here and practiced today...I don't know if he'll be in the lineup Thursday.

Absolutely no fluke that UAA is in the Final Five (games, that is...six teams).  The Seawolves in those two first-round games against Minnesota were well-prepared and the better team.  Down the stretch, the 'Wolves have played great hockey.

Should be a great game Thursday with Colorado College.

Speaking of that game, a reminder that 550 KTZN the Zone will be broadcasting the game live from the Xcel Center.  I say that because Doyle has blogged that the game will be available on live TV, but made no mention of radio.  I'll be on with the pre-game show around 3:45pm or so...puck drops at 4:07pm AK time.

Nice to hear you today on the conference call...you sounded like a real journalist!  :)

That's it for now-
Kurt Haider

I obviously misinterpreted Coach Shyiak's reference to practicing on campus as skating at Mariucci so I don't think any "real journalists" are in any danger of me usurping their vaunted profession any time soon.  

I know I don't appreciate Kurt's efforts here on the blog enough nor do I get the chance to listen to his call of the game as frequently as I should.  That's just my laziness at being so willing to accept whatever the TV is spewing at me.  It's also just plain dumb for me to sit there and listen to some of the grotesquely homeristic announcing from some of these other WCHA cities.

Looks like I'll be having to retire my ancient Motorola Flip Phone in the next week or so.  So I'll look into the "radio" feature that some of them have and endeavor to maximize my exposure to Kurt in the future.

Now for a word about my picture selection with this post.  I did this post back in 2007 here which was an email Q & A with Kurt.  I couldn't find a pic of him on the Internet or at the radio station website; so I just used that one since I had it and was waiting for any excuse to use it.  Now, if you go to Google and use the image search feature and type "Kurt Haider" ... this is the very first image returned.

I doubt Mrs. Haider finds that humorous but with apologies to her, I'm finding it quite funny.  I have relabeled the picture this time though in an effort to dissuade the Google search engine.  It is now titled "Not Kurt Haider.jpg" instead of "hockey04.jpg".