Weekend Road Trip- North Dakota to Notre Dame (5 of 20)

Today, in St.Paul, Minn., a city we've never been to that is perhaps best known as being the place where most "Prarie Home Companion" broadcasts originate on NPR, is hosting the Frozen Four. Though they will not play each other unless both teams win, we thought we'd make South Bend, Ind., and Grand Forks, ND, where both Notre Dame and the University of North Dakota are respectively located the subject of our distance quiz today.

For the Fighting Irish, Calle Ridderwall, a senior from Sweden, has been among the team's top players. On the other side of the ice, the Fighting Sioux have been lead by the likes of Canadian Matt Fratin and Brett Hextall, who is the son of former Philadelphia Flyers' goalie Ron Hextall. The younger Hextall is the first player from California ever to play for North Dakota.

Notre Dame plays Minn-Duluth in about five minutes at 5:00 p.m., New York time, while the other UND plays Michigan, ironically Notre Dame's main rival in football, at 7:30 p.m.

For this crazy series, we looked at the exact distance between the Trio's Restaurant and Jazz Club in South Bend, where the Tony Mhoon Jazz Quartet performs on Friday night, and Sanders 1907, a fine dinning establishment in Grand Forks.

And, concluded that the places are this far apart:

A) 12 hours, 10 minutes

B) 12 hours 40 minutes

C) 13 hours, 20 minutes

D) 14 hours, 30 minutes

Either way, it is a longer time spent on the road than the amount of time Calle Ridderwall will spend in the air as he flies Scandanavian Airlines (or whicherver airline he chooses) to go back home to Stockholm!

The answer to last week's question was A) as Athens, Georgia, and Morgantown, West Virginia, are nine hours apart when driving.

Special Quote of the Day- Colin Farrell

Today's quote of the day is our final entry for the March quotes dedicated to famous people from Ireland. It was recently revealed that surprisingly Colin Farrell, 34, was close friends with Elizabeth Taylor who died last week.

The relatively young Irish actor is known for his performances in films like "Miami Vice," "Minority Report," "Phone Booth" and "In Bruges."

Here is his quote which hopefully those of you on your lunch break in Burbank, Calif., will have time to read:

"Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me."

SIDEBAR: Well, the whole world literally came to a stand-still in places like Karachi, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India, as the two countries were watching the semi-final game at the World Cricket Championships between the two rival countries.

The game was played in Mumbai, India, and the home team won. India's Sachin Tendulkar made the game-winning score as Pakistan's wicketkeeper (we really know nothing about cricket!) Kamran Akmal looked on in disgust.

India will now play Sri Lanka, the tournament's co-host, in Mumbai on Saturday.

Apparently, no work was done in either India or Pakistan today so everyone could watch the mid-week game.

And, we thought Goodyear executives were presumably horrified that the opening round NCAA men's basketball game between the Akron Zips and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish would result in lost productivity a few weeks back.

Goodyear Tires are based in Akron, Ohio; Notre Dame won that game.

Kudos to Michigan Hockey

We want to take a moment to congratulate the University of Michigan which reached the Frozen Four, to be held in St. Paul, Minn., from April 7-9, by defeating Colorado College 2-1 in St. Louis over the weekend.

The Wolverines join Notre Dame, the University of North Dakota and Minnesota-Duluth in the semi-finals. UND is perhaps most known for having the most politically incorrect nickname in college sports as they are the Fighting Sioux. Minn-Duluth is simply one of many schools, including the University of Georgia (which to our knowledge does not have an official hockey team) with the Bulldogs nickname.

For Michigan, one of my late father's alma maters, the goals came from Scooter Vaughan and Lee Moffie while goalie Shawn Hunwick made 21 saves.

This will mark the 24th Frozen Four for the Wolverines.

Notre Dame, Michigan's traditional football rival (the two will not play each other in first round of the Frozen Four), also won by a 2-1 score as they defeated the University of New Hampshire on the Wilcats' home ice.

The goals for the Fighting Irish who will next face the Bulldogs came from Stephen Johns and Bill Maday. Notre Dame's goalie Mike Johnson made a very impressive 37 saves.

North Dakota beat Denver 6-1 in Green Bay, Wisc.

Minnesota-Duluth won its game over Yale (another team with the Bulldogs nickname) by a 5-3 score in front of many supportive fans for the other team in Bridgeport, Conn.

Jack Connolly, the center for Minn-Duluth, has a blog in which he made the following statement:

"Well Bulldog fans, we went to Bridgeport and accomplished our goal."

We wish he would have added: "No pun intended."