Imagine yourself a local varsity high school hockey player, and you've just been handed the new season's schedule by your coach. You scroll through the opponents and the region's various rink assignments. In middle January you're startled to see the likes of Cabin John, Laurel's Gardens Ice House, and Fort Dupont replaced for your game against DeMatha with: "Potomac River."

The banks of the Potomac undoubtedly would be littered with attorneys for that matchup -- in D.C., the litigation-liability capital of the world, every conceivable skating pond and stream is today garnished by government signs forbidding it, whereas out in America, people simply live and recreate prudently. But assuming Mother Nature somehow could cooperate here, what an amazing postcard backdrop that would be.

Two high schools in the uppermost region of Minnesota will face off in comparable fashion this coming January 20, when Lake of the Woods meets St. Paul Johnson outdoors on Baudette Bay.

The game is perhaps the centerpiece of this week's announced "Hockey Day Minnesota." On Saturday, January 20, 2007, the State of Hockey will formally recognize the game's claim on its residents with a day-long feast of puck. Eleven consecutive hours of hockey will be televised by Fox Sports North then, and joining the high school game on the slate will be the Denver-Minnesota college tilt followed by the Wild and Dallas Stars in the evening.

Speaking of being startled, how about the respective cheerleaders for these two high schools drawing the shivering spirit-boosting duty that day -- literal Ice Girls!

There's little chance Mother Nature won't cooperate in this part of the world in mid-January. Baudette-Lake of the Woods is located more than 300 miles north of Minneapolis. In fact, this community is closer to Winnipeg than Minneapolis.