The flooding in Western Minnesota and North Dakota are National news. The 2009 IIHF World Under-18 tournament in Fargo, Moorhead starting April 9 is not. If the Red River’s crest is as high as the predictions, this tournament could be delayed or moved. This would be a shame for Fargo who have been planning this thing for years, won the bid and built a 6,000 seat rink (Urban Plains Center, home of Fargo Force of the USHL). USA Hockey is monitoring the situation and will “adapt accordingly.”
One option could be the Excel Energy Center in St. Paul, that’s of course if the Wild don’t sneak in the playoffs (edit; lost to the Rangers, chances fading). Another option could be to move the tournament 70 miles north to my home town of Grand Forks. That is if or town isn’t under water as well. The community could definitely handle the tournament in the 11,400 seat Ralph Engelstad Arena (home of the University of North Dakota) and has hosted the larger IIHF World Jr. tournament in 2005. Grand Forks went through a similar flood to what Fargo, Moorehead is fearing twelve years ago and has build a massive dyke system. This could be Grand Forks’ first major test of this dyke system so we are keeping our fingers crossed.
With the logistics of planning an event, and team from countries all over the world, I’m not sure that delaying the event would be an option.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with these IIHF events, they are a pretty impressive show of the worlds talent and are full of future NHL stars. Players from the World Jr. in 2005 that have played in the NHL in 2009:
Belerus: Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn
Canada: Brent Seabrook, Dion Phaneuf, Shea Weber, Jeff Carter, Sidney Crosby, Colin Fraser, Anthony Stewart, Ryan Getzlaf, Clarke MacArthur, Mike Richards, Andrew Ladd, Danny Syvret, Jeremy Colliton, Corey Perry, Cam Barker, Nigel Dawes, Braydon Coburn, and Patrice Bergeron (Thats four guys who aren’t in the NHL this year!)
Czech Republic: David Krejci, Michael Frolik, Roman Polak, Ladislav Smid, Petr Vrana, Rostislav Olesz, Jakub Petruzalek, and Marek Schwarz.
Finland: Petteri Nokelainen, Jesse Joensuu, Lauri Korpikoski, and Tuukka Rask.
Germany: Jesse Joensuu and Lauri Korpikoski.
Russia: Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Nikulin, Alexander Radulov (Err, scratch that he defected back home), and Enver Lisin.
Slovakia: Peter Olvecky, Andrej Meszaros, Andrej Sekera
Switzerland: none
Sweden: Loui Eriksson, Nicklas Bergfors, and Robert Nilsson.
USA: Cory Schneider, Casey Borer, Alex Goligoski, Matt Hunwick, Brian Lee, Ryan Suter, Chris Bourque, Mike Brown, Ryan Callahan, Dan Fritsche, T.J. Hensick, Phil Kessel, Patrick O’Sullivan, Kevin Porter, Rob Schremp, and Drew Stafford.
Let me know if I’m missing any…
I’ve always wanted to do that to see just how many players from the Canada team are in the NHL (I’d love to see Canada’s line chart). I planed on making the trip more than once to Fargo for the games, now I may be going to sandbag and cleanup the mess.