Sioux alumni take on the 'homers'

Chris Hadland and his buddies were at the Long Haul Saloon, devouring a breakfast of steak and eggs, beer and Bloody Marys, and P.A. and Dubay.

Hadland, Erik Wordelman and John Roehrich are Twin Cities residents and UND graduates from the 1990s. They were on their almost-annual husbands-getaway weekend to Grand Forks to cheer on their alma mater's hockey team against the visiting Minnesota Gophers.

So what brought them to the Long Haul on Friday morning for the counter-intuitive happening of talk radio as a spectator sport?

"This is our excuse to leave on Thursday," Hadland said. "We have to be up here in time for this breakfast. So we get an extra day away."

The threesome was among about 200 fans who came to the truck stop complex for the three-hour morning talk show of Paul Allen and Jeff Dubay, aired locally on The Fan (1440 AM) from 9 a.m. until noon weekdays. Allen, also the radio voice of the Minnesota Vikings, was back in the KFAN flagship station studio in St. Louis Park, Minn., while Dubay was on the Long Haul stage.

The duo is known in the media business as "homers," shameless promoters of the Gophers and Minnesota's four pro teams. And they're unapologetic about it, shown by Dubay wearing his Gophers maroon sweatshirt.

While P.A. and Dubay call themselves "The Love Covenant," they're known by other KFAN personalities as "the duckies and bunnies," a dig at their soft approach. Dubay once was suspended from his sideline television job for ridiculing a referee between periods at Mariucci Arena.

Dubay good-naturedly ribbed Grand Forks and its weather. Citing the need to buy shoes for his television job, he said, "I have a public image to uphold, even in this town." And, referring to the weather, he said, "You people live in hell on Earth."

The crowd mostly was Sioux fans, but others sported Gophers attire, and one even had an old Minnesota North Stars jersey. There only was microscopic interaction between Dubay and crowd members, who seemed content to experience the atmosphere of the ballyhooed weekend series through osmosis.

The hype was shown in the online ticket prices. "Hardest ticket we've had up here," Wordelman said. "I paid $100 for a ticket in the lower bowl."

Added Hadland, "You can tell these teams didn't play each other in Grand Forks last year."

They said the measurement of the rivalry's popularity isn't for them, as UND alumni, to travel 300 miles to see the Sioux. A better example is that they're joined for all Sioux-Gopher series in Grand Forks by three friends who fly in from across the country. One is a Gophers fan from Utah, and the other two are from New Jersey and Chicago, with no ties to either school.

"There's no affiliation, but they come for the friends, the fun, the facility, the hockey and to hate the Gophers," Hadland said.

Kurt Schmelter was the Chicago friend who joined them at the end of the radio show. "I'm a partial Sioux fan, so I'll be wearing a green dickey," he said. "Mostly, I'm here for the drunken ride."

Bakken reports on local news and writes a column. Reach him at (701) 780-1125; (800) 477-6572, ext. 125; or rbakken@gfherald.com .