Howard Cosell at 1979 Minnesota Hockey Tournament

[paulsonj72]

https://hockey-time-machine.tumblr....rd-cosell-standing-next-to-edina-hockey-coach

The backstory to this is that KSTP had obtained the television rights to the Minnesota Hockey tournament beginning with the 1979 event. AFTER KSTP had obtained those rights KSTP had become the ABC affiliate for the Minneapolis/St Paul Market. And the schedule in 1979 had the Hockey Tournament taking place the week after the affiliate switch and station Management brought in a number of ABC stars for the. event including Howard as shown in this picture. Howard helped conduct the interview and supposedly called the event one of the premiere amateur sporting events in the country.

 

[TheBigA]

Howard helped conduct the interview and supposedly called the event one of the premiere amateur sporting events in the country.

Primarily because he was there.

 

[paulsonj72]

Primarily because he was there.

And just for the record this tournament at the time was one class and championship round sessions routinely drew crowds of 17K+ to the old St Paul Civic Center. Now it's a two class event and Class AA(Big Schools) STILL draw crowds in the range of 19K+ to the Xcel Energy Center(home arena of the Minnesota Wild and a larger seating capacity). Class A can draw 10K to championship sessions. The tourney has been compared to Indiana Basketball and Texas football. And for other sports Minnesota is lucky in that we have professional level facilities to use for our State Championships.(US bank Stadium Target Center, Target Field) to name a few