Aquarium steals the show
Aquarium opens to display wet reality — virtual and otherwise
Up North Newspaper Network
DULUTH, MN.—Ready or not, the Great Lakes Aquarium opened for business Saturday on the Duluth bayfront as one of the most hotly anticipated Up North tourist attraction.{IMG1}
The people were ready; some of them lined up at about 8 a.m. to be at the front of the line, awaiting morning-long media previews for the noon ribbon-cutting and official opening of the doors.
The creatures inside were ready, featuring all 70 known fresh-water species of fish — dozens of some, hundreds of others — in various glass-walled tanks, some of which rose from floor to the second level, while an unnamed scamp of an otter in a private habitat stole the show from its finned fellow-attractions.
The staff and assembled dignitaries, including the always-enthusiastic Duluth Mayor Gary Doty, also were ready, joining Aquarium staff membes to meet the media throughout the morning.
Clearly the most enthused official was David Lonsdale, the executive director, who spent his last 17 years running a huge salt-water aquarium in Chicago. “I’m a marine biologist,” Lonsdale said. “And I’ve been waiting for the chance to have an aquarium that does something to celebrate fresh water.”
As for the facility itself, it was MOSTLY ready, and it got readier as the day went on.
The facility itself absolutely qualifies as a stunning conversation piece, sitting there less than a stone’s throw from the harbor itself, and across the avenue from the DECC. In its basic blue, green and red splendor, the building resembles a chunk of modern art, with various angles, bulges and decks. It might be a thing of beauty to some and range to being an eyesore to others, but its unusual shape and position undoubtedly will help attract customers.
By noon, estimates were that the Aquarium was about 65 percent ready, but was opening nonetheless. Workers scurried about, trying to finish off some details as the doors opened to ticket buyers. Some crewmen worked on hands and knees to fine-tune things, while media and the first gang of customers crowded past them.
The huge and impressive wall of water was turned on, and the water flowed down its facings. It also splashed, unexpectedly, to either side and had to be switched off. Either that, or Aquarium officials could have added a kiddie wading pool to take advantage of the widening strip of overspilled water.
Turns out, workers caulked the bottom three rows of glass, but not the upper three rows, and the smoothly spilling water caught the uncaulked ridges and splashed unpredictably, according to Lonsdale. No major problem. Just a few delinquent gallons from among the 170,000 gallons required to keep the place going.
By midafternoon, diligent workers had gotten the place closer to 90 percent ready, and the crowd seemed impressed with all that it found.
It found impressive booths and scenarios on different levels, interwoven in a series of displays that could keep anyone fascinated for hours at a time.{IMG2}
Separate areas displayed Great Lakes fish the way they were 150 years ago, mostly whitefish, long before various other breeds, such as salmon, were introduced, and displayed in an adjacent booth. Another booth showed smaller, schooling fish, saved by glass walls from being devoured as lunch by the larger fish next door.
A display simulated a river cascading into Lake Superior, and all kinds of rainbow trout and other fish cavorting bout within easy view. Another showed duck habitat, complete with ducks, and similar layouts for other fresh-water creatures. A virtual-reality submarine presentation joined other large and small presentations of creatures, weather and other specifics.
Other displays allow ticket-buyers to experiment by making waves — literally. A long glass case is sectioned, and sends tiny waves along from right to left, but operating a series of hand controls can raise or lower different sections, and gives a graphic depiction of how waves can increase and change angles and depth.
Still another allows you to take the wheel of a huge lake freightor, and a virtual reality screen allows you to gaze over the bow as you turn the wheel. Other areas offer explanations and experiments to show the different Great Lakes and their connecting locks, and all sorts of historical-perspective displays.
By far the most popular item was the otter display, which will soon become home for four otters.
“This otter is a loaner,” said Lonsdale. “We’ve got her until Aug. 22, when it will go to the state fair. But we are going to be getting four otters for this display.”
Visitors can only hope some of the four are as rambunctious as the as-yet unnamed opening-day otter, which cavorted in a couple of small pools of water, ran up on the banking, disappeared into either of two little caves in the rock wall, and generally stayed in perpetual motion, to the delight of spectators of all ages.
Another highlight came when, after viewers had been impressed by the Lake Superior fish in their two-story, vertical glass-walled tank, were joined by a Scuba diver, who returned the gaze of visitors from inside the tank, while salmon, lake trout and some huge and prehistoric-looking sturgeons mostly ignored him.
Judging by the awed expressions on the faces of kids at the dry-side of the glass wall, the ticket-buyers won’t be able to ignore him, or the numerous other displays and presentations.
Menard’s race team gains support of IRL rivals for pole
John Menard is the reigning heavyweight of the Indy Racing League (IRL). It’s not that his IRL foes hate him, but he’s the New York Yankees of the IRL — the owner of the dominant team everybody wants to beat. Until last weekend, that is.
“I’ve never been congratulated so much by out opponents,” said Menard. “We were pretty gratified to have that kind of support. We’ve now won three of the last four pole positions for IRL races, and I’m sure our competitors are sick of us being first. But even A.J. Foyt came up to me before Greg Ray went out to qualify and said, ‘You gotta do it.'”
With that, Ray did what nobody else among the IRL regulars could do, turning a four-lap average speed of 223.471 miles per hour to snatch the pole for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 away from Juan Montoya of the rival CART Target-Chip Ganassi team.
It was a big accomplishment for the IRL to withstand the two-pronged invasion by the superb Ganassi drivers. It didn’t, of course, mean that John Menard could sit back and relax or celebrate. He was back home in Eau Claire Monday, in the home office of the Wisconsin-based home-improvement Menard’s chain of stores that he operates with the same hands-on effort as his race team. “We’ve got 150 stores in nine states in the Upper Midwest,” said Menard. “But it’s true, I’ve got to come back and run the store Monday morning.”
Today inventory, tomorrow Indy
This is a short work week for him, however, because he gets to knock off after Wednesday and head back to Indianapolis for Thursday’s final test session, and he’ll be staying there through the weekend for the 500.
“We welcome Ganassi’s participation,” said Menard. “And it came down to be quite a duel, because you’ve got Ray, the season champion in the IRL last year, against Montoya, the season champion in CART last year. It was really interesting, because the IRL and CART were going head-to-head like never before. And the difference wound up being something like a tenth of a second over 10 miles.”
Five years ago, Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, announced that the Indy 500 no longer would allow the new and expensive CART race cars. For the 1996 race, all entries had to run 1995 or older cars. The reason given was an attempt to lower the exorbitant cost of racing, to return the Indy 500 to the hard-core oval-track U. S. racers and throw a barricade up in front of the influx of talented foreign drivers infiltrating CART. But in reality, the move eliminated the CART teams from participating, unless they would agree to run their “old” cars.
When the CART teams predictably went their own way, the Indy folks declared that CART was boycotting the 500. One year later, the IRL went to specific cars with specific 4-liter naturally aspirated engines, which further distanced the CART teams from the 500, eliminating any chance of them racing in the Indy 500 unless they would cast aside their high-powered sponsorship arrangements with engine and race car manufacturers and buy into the spec-race cars of the IRL for one race.
Now, in 2000, it appeared the two might get back together on some form of compromise, but it fell through. Still, Chip Ganassi, whose drivers Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi and then Juan Montoya won four straight CART season championships, had the backing of Minnesota-based Target Stores to buy two G-Force-Aurora race cars for both Montoya and Vasser, and to enter the Indy 500. At the time, it was assumed other CART teams might follow, but it didn’t happen. Ganassi, however, never flinched.
When Montoya went out on the storied 2.5-mile Indy oval for Saturday’s attempt at the pole, he drove smoothly and easily, never seeming to strain at all, and averaged 223.372 mph for the four-lap (10-mile) qualifying distance. That speed bumped Eliseo Salazar, Foyt’s top driver, off the pole, and stood up against challenge after challenge from IRL regulars. Vasser clocked 221.976 in the matching Target team car.
Throwing caution to the wind in qualifying
That’s what prompted Foyt to come over to Menard, his arch-rival in the IRL. Greg Ray went out in his No. 1 car, a Dallara-Aurora, and threw the car through all four corners. He had waved off an earlier attempt when he nearly hit the wall, and he came close several more times while hanging it all out on his four-lap run. But he made it, with a 223.471 to take the pole.
This is a big year for the IRL, because rules allowed for the first change in chassis design after a three-year freeze on the previous Dallara or G-Force models. At the same time, the IRL reduced the size of the V8 engines from 4 liters to 3.5.
For the low, low price of …
“The cars are quite a bit better than they used to be,” said Menard. “They’re improved enough that we’ve gained back most of what we lost by going to the smaller engines. It’s a much more forgiving car. But with the new chassis and the new engines, this is an expensive year. A new car, including the engine, costs about $450,000 or $500,000 now.”
With all the hype about Ray beating Montoya for the pole, it’s easy to overlook Robby Gordon in the second Team Menard’s race car. Gordon qualified at 222.885 mph, fourth best, and on the inside of the second row. That gives Team Menard a 1-2 punch, with the inside cars on the first two rows.
Gordon has been a tempestuous force in racing for over a decade, but he and Menard have become close friends as well as racing associates. Gordon raced for Menard, then formed his own team, and now the two are linked together.
“Robby and I are partners in owning a CART team, and a Winston Cup team,” said Menard. “He’s a lot of fun, but he’s matured a lot. He’s 33 years old now, and sometimes it takes guys a few years to settle down. We’re partners now, but he really wanted to run the 500, so I was happy we could put him in a second car. Robby had an equal car to Greg, and he was a threat for the pole, too. But we’ll take what we’ve got. I was on pins and needles until Greg finished getting the pole. It took a tough run, with plenty of drama.”
And plenty of support from all the usual IRL foes who, for once, were happy to have Team Menard on “their” side.
John Gilbert is a sports writer for the Up North Newspaper Network. He can be reached by e-mail at john.gilbert@mx3.com.
Hibbing’s Sandelin named new UMD hockey coach
Hibbing native Scott Sandelin was named Friday night as the new head hockey coach at UMD, where he replaces Mike Sertich to become the 12th coach in UMD history and the sixth since the school became a Division I program.
Sandelin, who is completing his sixth year as an assistant and current associate head coach at the University of North Dakota, drove from Grand Forks to Duluth late Thursday night after being informed that he would be offered the job, and he returned to Grand Forks Friday morning after details were worked out. His timing was an issue because the Fighting Sioux are finishing preparations before playing in the NCAA hockey final four in Providence, R.I., next week.
“I believe in allowing the players creativity,” said Sandelin. “I’m not a big believer in that trap stuff, especially at this level, because I don’t think that’s the best way for players to develop. I’m strong on defense, with everyone being accountable, but offensively, I like to let the kids go. I’ve done a lot of the ‘Xs and Os’ but I think it’s important to not over-coach, and to not force the players to over-think.”
“I want to create an atmosphere of the kids wanting to go to the rink, and they’ve got to enjoy it. Winning, of course, can create more enjoyment.”
Winning, of course, has become second-nature to the Fighting Sioux, which helped make Sandelin an attractive choice for UMD. Under Dean Blais, Sandelin worked with the defense and helped with the power play and penalty kill, and was chief recruiter throughout Minnesota, the USHL and Western Canada. The Fighting Sioux won three straight WCHA championships until slipping to second, behind Wisconsin, this season, but the Sioux are the lone WCHA team to survive the regional playoffs and reach the Frozen Four, where they face defending national champion Maine on Thursday.
Sandelin and his wife, Wendy, have a 15-month-old son, Ryan, and while Sandelin has no prior connection to UMD, he is an Iron Ranger who is totally familiar with the region. He was a star player at Hibbing, and became a second-team All-America defenseman at North Dakota and a Hobey Baker finalist before graduating with a marketing degree.
He was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the second round of the 1982 draft and served as captain of the 1984 U.S. Junior National team. He played for the 1986 U.S. National team in the World Tournament in Moscow, and spent six years in the pro organizations of Montreal, Philadelphia and the Minnesota North Stars, from 1986-92.
He started coaching with the Fargo-Moorhead Express of the American Hockey Association in 1992-93, and coached the Fargo-Moorhead Sugar Kings in the Minnesota Junior Elite League in 1993-94, after which he returned to his alma mater at North Dakota.
Sandelin beat out UMD alumnus John Harrington, who currently coaches St. John’s, as well as former Bulldog Norm Maciver, current Calgary coach Tim Bothwell and Troy Ward, recently fired assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
As the primary recruiter for the Sioux, Sandelin focused on Minnesota, the USHL and Western Canada. The current Sioux team has 11 players from Western Canada on its roster, but Sandelin noted that his current crop of recruits are all U.S. players, including five Minnesotans. “I like the mix, and I think it’s important for our program to have a mix,” Sandelin said. “I’m sure that will be important at UMD, too.”
Sandelin, who is comparatively soft-spoken, described himself as “quietly intense” when he was interviewed by the UMD players. “I learned to be mellow around Blaiser,” Sandelin joked.
Blais said: “Scott is more laid-back, which complements me, because I’m more intense. But Scott can blow, and when he does, it’s a good one.”
“On the ice, Scott worked with defense, power play and penalty kill, and he likes that part of the game. I’m more of an offensive type. But our players all liked him and felt comfortable talking to him about anything.”
“It’s a huge loss for me because not only am I losing a coach, but he’s a good friend. We always hunt and fish together.”
And raise championship trophies.
John Gilbert: NCAA hockey tourney would look good with 16 teams
Great move, to shift the NCAA men’s hockey tournament back a week. That gives the NCAA basketball tournaments time to get over, and college hockey can step into its own media spotlight.
North Dakota (27-8-5) carries the hopes of the West against defending champion Maine (27-7-5) in Thursday’s first semifinal in Providence and on ESPN, while St. Lawrence (25-7-2) goes against Boston College (28-11-1) in the night semi. Winners meet for the title on Saturday.
Hockey’s final four should be a close, wide-open series of games, unlike basketball’s anticlimactic semifinals and final of the Final Four. You’ll notice the difference: Basketball gets to capitalize Final and Four, according to NCAA copyright, but when we mention hockey, we can only say final four as long as we use the lower-case letters. They’ve now started calling the hockey final four the “Frozen Four,” if you so choose, but to me it still seems incredible that the NCAA thinks it can patent such generic terms as Final and Four.
Let’s examine the hockey finalists and how they got there, which leads us directly to what we can hope the NCAA will do next year in expanding and equalizing the fairness of selecting the hockey teams. In hockey, 12 teams are invited to the tournament, with six each at two regional sites. At those regionals, two teams get byes while the remaining four play off, with those winners coming right back the next night — or day — to face a bye team, which is rested and ready. In this year’s case, Maine, North Dakota and St. Lawrence were all teams with byes, while only Boston College came through to knock out one team, Michigan State, then beat a bye team, Wisconsin in this case.
It doesn’t seem fair to go through all the preliminaries and reach the national tournament, then face the steep odds of having to beat another very good team for the right to face a better team, which also is rested. But that’s the way the NCAA does it in men’s hockey. In basketball, where there are so many teams invited that we didn’t even know some were colleges, the NCAA would never consider allowing a team to play one night and come right back to play the next night against a team that had been off for a week.
But there’s hope of change a-comin’. The NCAA has talked about expanding the hockey pool to 16 teams, which would be much more logical and would allow for equal play with no byes for teams that could be divided into four regionals. Because college hockey is mostly grouped into four major leagues, it has made sense to focus on those four — Hockey East, ECAC, CCHA and WCHA. Each year, however, the selection committee struggles with its at-large picks, and with the tradition of the ECAC being considered weaker.
I think the ECAC does very well, considering it starts almost a month later than the other conferences, and therefore absorbs some beatings from teams in those other conferences in the early part of the season. As far as self-fulfilling prophecies go, inviting only two teams from the ECAC greatly lessens the odds of either of them making it to the final four, compared to one of four Hockey East teams advancing. After a couple of years of that, it is traditional to say Hockey East is stronger and the ECAC is weaker.
This year, two new conferences leaped into the picture, and the NCAA committee chose to invite Niagara from College Hockey America, at the expense of a third ECAC team, and it also invited four Hockey East teams, at the expense of a third CCHA team. So we shouldn’t be surprised when two Hockey East teams made it to the final four and no CCHA team. The WCHA got the traditional three berths, and one team advanced. The ECAC got one team to the final four, although St. Lawrence needed four overtimes to subdue Boston University in the quarterfinals.
The best thing about Niagara’s controversial invitation is that Niagara beat New Hampshire in a first-round game, silencing all those who thought no independent had the right to invade the sanctity of the normal four leagues, while also silencing Hockey East zealots and ESPN commentators who actually suggested the likelihood that all four teams at the final four might be Hockey East teams.
At any rate, here’s how all of those wrinkles can be ironed out. Start with four regional sites, and make them somewhat common to each of the four major conferences — Boston as Hockey East’s site, Lake Placid as the ECAC base, Detroit as the CCHA site, and, possibly alternating, St. Paul or Madison/Milwaukee as the WCHA site. The project here is to have a No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 seed at each site, and a team from each of the four conferences (usually) at each site. The No. 1 seed from a particular conference would be the host team at the site assigned to that conference. So in St. Paul, you’d get the No. 1 WCHA seed, with, say, the No. 2 Hockey East, No. 3 CCHA and No. 4 ECAC team. In Detroit, you might have Michigan as the No. 1 CCHA team, then a similar rotation so that all conferences and all ranges of seeds are represented.
With the new conference springing up, it means that the fourth seeds in each conference would be vulnerable to being replaced by anywhere from one to four at-large picks, and those bumps could be accomplished according to the power index concepts now being used. That way, each regional site would see two great games the first night, with a final game the next, and that winner advancing to the national final four.
All of this is not to criticize the NCAA’s operation of the hockey tournament. It used to just bring in four teams for a final four and that was it. Going to eight and then 12 teams made sense. There was a lot of talk about how there are too few schools playing hockey to expand to 16 for the tournament, but that was before it proved it could make money. This year’s regionals at Minneapolis and Lake Placid drew record crowds, with Mariucci Arena doing very well in drawing fans from North Dakota and Wisconsin, mostly, without having the home-team Gophers around. Now that hockey has proven it can be profitable, the NCAA undoubtedly will consider a new format, and the Slippery Sixteen seems destined to be the next step.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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