Awesome Inc. on campus again

After receiving a lot of love for last fall's "On Campus" blog, where I recapped my trip to Northwestern's Evanston campus for the Iowa/NW football game, I've decided to do another installment of "On Campus". This time I drove up to Madison, Wisconsin for the much anticipated hockey game between #2 Wisconsin and #4 Minnesota. I had already experienced a Badger hockey game before, so I knew it was a great time, but this game had more meaning for me. Gopher star Ryan Potulny used to play in Lincoln for the junior team there and lived with Awesome Inc.'s JT's parents, so I know him a little bit and was looking forward to seeing him play in person.
This was a solo trip, which is a very common occurance for me now that I've moved, but it was still a great time. I got to Madison around 5 pm and found a pretty good parking spot right on campus within walking distance of both State Street and the Kohl Center. I'd already experienced the greatness that is the UW campus on two prior trips to Madison, so I did not have to check it out on this trip. I headed straight for State Street looking for some grub. For those who've never been to Madison, State Street is the bar/restaurant area of town and connects the campus with the Wisconsin Capital building. It is one of the best setups for any college town with Austin's Sixth Street, Arizona State's Mill Street, and UCLA's entire Westwood area being a few other examples of great college areas.
If you didn't know, Wisconsin loves its brats, so what better place to grab some dinner than State Street Brats. It's a very cool sports bar that was packed when I walked in. I managed to find a solo seat upstairs and ordered up a burger and brat. That is not two seperate orders, but a burger with a sliced brat on top! It was quite unusual, but very tasty. I highly recommend this place if you're in Madison and looking for a casual place to eat before a hockey, football, or basketball game. There were lots of Gopher fans in town, so that made it even more fun with their Minnesota chants going on all the time.
I moved on to the Kohl Center as game time was approaching. I made sure to get my ticket in the section right next to the student section, so I could take in all their craziness. The arena is amazing and has to be one of the top college hockey facilities in the nation. The crowd was a bit late arriving, but I'm sure it was because they needed to down that last beer or eight before getting there. The game was a sellout, so lots of energy for the big matchup. Like the football game I went to last fall, the Badger students love their dancing and singing. Before the puck drops the whole student section looks like this:


Along with many renditions of "On Wisconsin" and other songs like "Time Warp" and the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey", there is so much coordinated dancing that you can't help but have a good time at Badger hockey games. They also have a great celebration for when a power play is coming up for Wisconsin. They say "Power...Plaaaaay" twice and then just start jumping up and down. Take a look:


As for the game itself, the Gophers jumped out to a 5-1 lead after two periods, so the crowd was kind of out of it by then, but the Badgers stormed back with three goals in the first six minutes of the 3rd period to make things very interesting. The crowd was going crazy and it was a fun finish, but Minnesota was able to hang on 5-4. I didn't really know who to go for since I knew Ryan, but love the Badger atmosphere. This worked out pretty well b/c Ryan had a career high four assists and the game ended up close enough to keep the fans into it until the end, which is want I really wanted. All in all a great time! Would be nice to experience the Madison nightlife a bit more on another trip, but heading to the bars by myself didn't sound too appealing. Until next time....

"When you say Wisconsin! You've said it all!"

BBL