Brock Boeser's reason for not playing for Gophers is a doozy
It's almost been a decade since Brock Boeser decided to attend the University of North Dakota but the reason why he chose Grand Forks over Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota is fresh information.
Boeser, the 26-year-old from Burnsville, Minn. already in his eighth NHL season with the Vancouver Canucks, explained on the Spittin' Chiclets podcast what prevented him from playing for the Gophers in college.
"Because my cousin played at Wisconsin I hated the Gophers. I went on a visit there two different times, I tried to see if I could like it, I just couldn't do it," Boeser said.
His cousin, Dan Boeser, played for Wisconsin from 2000-04 so Brock was just a little boy at the time, but the border battle hate runs deep and it stuck with him from an early age.
"Minnesota? Well, to be honest, my sophomore year of high school we were going on a visit, we were sitting in the parking lot and we called them and we're like 'Hey where are you?' and they were like 'Oh we gotta reschedule' so that was off the bat," Boeser recalled. "That wasn't good."
It's unclear who set up the visit but Boeser was a 10th-grader in high school in 2012-13 so that would've been under ex-Gophers head coach Don Lucia, who guided the Gophers from 1999 to 2018.
"There were some other factors, like they had an Olympic-sized rink," Boeser admitted. "I wanted to go somewhere where I could develop and try and get ready for the NHL."
Boeser, who originally committed to Wisconsin before changing his mind, played at Burnsville High School in the southern Twin Cities metro but never played in the heralded Minnesota state tournament.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.