The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Sid Hartman, the legendary Star Tribune sports writer, loomed over me as I patiently waited for the private media elevator to arrive at the Minnesota Wild home opener. Hartman casually glanced at the press pass hanging from my neck and shrugged. He could've cared less. It was my very first time on assignment as a sports journalist, though, and I was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I was so amped (and dorky) that I proudly displayed my shiny red press pass on the front of my shirt like a 4-H Club prize winning ribbon.

Just when I was about to launch my ski team's website this "Hockey Mom" thing blows up. Well, well, the truth is, the buzz surrounding the sport (and the phrase) will only help us attract converts.

Still I have aborted further attempts at uncovering the culinary habits of Hockey Moms and Dads versus those of Skiing families till the buzz cools down. For a look at this superior winter sport and lifestyle click the link at the bottom of this page.

Elitist?

I sat in a lawn chair in the middle of frozen Lake Nokomis, nibbling on chicken kabobs and sipping a tequila slushy, thinking, How serious can this pond-hockey thing be?

If Minnesota hockey were a religion (and many, of course, would contend it is), Steve Mars would be a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher whose sermons carry an apocalyptic message: Something must be done to save the faith, because the temple is melting.

Warm winters of late have cut the outdoor-skating season nearly in half, and as outdoor ice goes, Mars says, so goes the status of our state as a puck mecca.

You could be forgiven for believing that Minnesotans had something to do with inventing the Zamboni. But the celebrated Dr. Seussian vehicle wasn’t invented in the back of an Iron Range machine shop, nor in a Twin Cities garage. Your second guess—somewhere in Canada, right?—would be wrong, too. The home of this icon of winter sports isn’t in the frozen northland at all. To see where Frank Zamboni dreamed up his world-famous ice resurfacer, you’d want to put on some shorts and sunglasses and fly to sunny Paramount, California, just south of Los Angeles.

The other night, two-dozen hockey fans milled around the Iron Range Grill. They were biding their time. Across the corridor, in a half hour, the puck would drop on the big sheet of ice at the Xcel Energy Center. The Wild, enjoying a hot streak early in the season, would be facing the Vancouver Canucks, a flourishing new rivalry.