Forget the recent articles about hyped up kids checking the legs out from other kids on Minnesota rinks. Not everyone is a hockey fan.
I didn’t read the two large opinion pieces on hockey in the DNT over the weekend. I started but then I realized I had a ton of snow shoveling ahead of me.
I do recall a very knowledgeable neighbor explaining to me a couple years ago how hockey had gotten so expensive that West Duluth youth hockey was going extinct.
Here’s another critic who emailed me on the subject this morning:
The two hockey booster articles were perfect metaphors for what is happening in Duluth.
Over sold projects based on the old-timers view of the world.That Heritage Center was supposed to be an $11mil project but they kept adding on to make it $19 mil.
All kids want is a good rink. They don’t need the inlaid floors and murals and bricks.
Peterson should have been rebuilt.A better facility yes, but along those lines. Remember the Kroc? That would have been a huge community asset. And when the community was polled for what they would like to have available there, hockey came in last.
Hockey is a dwindling sport. The numbers have dropped continuously since 2000. There have been over 100 youth games less this year than last.
He skips over the financials,doesn’t he?
City and school district each gave over a million dollars. They got insurance money from Peterson.And as far as the savior of West Duluth, Guilliani, he sold a pretty plan and never did any of it except his restaurant. Can’t forget he needed a “bridge” loan from DEDA to stay afloat. And when he has events, he has free use of that city parking lot.
The Heritage is in debt. They built for the “wow” factor instead of building something that Duluth could support and sustain. And it really falls shy of being a good hockey facility, many design flaws.
So Wheeler can live off his glory days but that is not reality for people now. Youth hockey should be seen as any another sport. Fun, discipline, teamwork but not as a way to get a Triumph Spitfire while playing in Europe.
