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North Dakota is college sports' greatest evil.

Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports

Gather round, everyone. It's story time.

Act I: The Benefactor

A lot of major athletic programs, even the most financially flush ones, are basically one person's individual playthings. Michigan Stadium is just the most famous building in Stephen Ross's real estate empire. Oregon football is the best Nike advertising that Phil Knight's money can buy. When Boone Pickens strikes oil, Oklahoma State ends up with a bit more cash in its recruiting budget. It's a little unsettling at times, but according to the rules of the NCAA, there's nothing wrong with it.

The architect of North Dakota's hockey program was a guy named Ralph Engelstad, who turned a modest construction fortune into a full-blown casino fortune. His holdings included the Imperial Palace casinos in Las Vegas and Biloxi, Mississippi, as well as a share, later sold, of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. UND's $100 million arena is named for him, and he put up much of the money behind it.

Now, most of these sugar daddies have enough money and spare time to have multiple hobbies. Ross also owns the Miami Dolphins. Pickens enjoys demolishing popular Canadian hip-hop artists in 140 characters or less. Engelstad's other avocation was collecting World War II memorabilia. More specifically, German World War II memorabilia.

Strictly speaking, this doesn't quite make Engelstad a bad person, either, although it's certainly a red flag. If many perfectly reasonable people didn't find themselves morbidly engrossed by the Nazis on occasion, the History Channel would have gone out of business long before it decided to defy its name and spend most of its time airing vapid reality shows about pawn shops.

The problem is when that collection comes to life. You can collect and preserve as many old military uniforms as you like, as long as you acknowledge that the Nazis were responsible for one of the most vicious crimes against humanity in recorded history. Engelstad, however, took the opposite approach. He threw parties on the occasion of Adolf Hitler's birthday, complete with "Hitler European Tour 1939-45" T-shirts and "Hitler was right" bumper stickers, and was accused of anti-Semitic treatment by several Jewish employees. He wrote to Albert Speer's widow, looking to buy the architectural plans for Hitler's triumphal arch in order to build a scale replica. He even had matching paintings of himself and Hitler, signed with "To Ralphie from Adolph" and "To Adolph from Ralphie". (see p. 59)

Yes, North Dakota hockey was built by a man whose fascination with the Nazis had long left the world of the academic and grown into the disturbingly personal. And he built a program in his own image.

Act II: What's In A Name?

Every college team has a nickname. Good ones are unique, memorable, and thoroughly reflective of the school and community that they represent. Buckeyes and Sooners, Badgers and Volunteers, Buffaloes and Hurricanes - they all provide a sense of place and history to accompany their schools. Even the generic Wildcats and Bulldogs and Tigers at least come with cool mascots, sometimes even live ones. Until recently, however, North Dakota didn't have a nickname at all, and once they got one, their fans immediately wanted to return it.

For most of their history, North Dakota's sports teams were known as the Fighting Sioux. In recent years, as more people have come to realize that perhaps it's not a good idea to caricature entire ethnic groups without their permission, schools with Native American nicknames have often obtained tribal permission, toned down the most cringe-worthy stereotypes, or changed nicknames altogether. North Dakota initially sought permission from local Sioux organizations, but when they were less than receptive and the NCAA refused to grant an exemption, they decided, under Engelstad's leadership, to double down.

The North Dakota Board of Higher Education voted to eliminate the nickname in 2010, but over 17,000 fans signed a petition demanding its restoration, and the leadership eventually acquiesced. However, after the NCAA announced that it would not allow UND to host postseason games while the Sioux name and logo was in use, a state referendum finally struck down the nickname, even as many of the most diehard fans were firmly in favor of keeping the rejected mascot.

From 2012 until earlier this year, then, the University of North Dakota sports teams essentially existed without a nickname. Not that you'd know it from attending a UND hockey game. Anticipating the controversy and making his unsurprising position on it crystal-clear, Ralph Engelstad insisted on incorporating Sioux logos into the smallest details of the new arena, making de-Sioux-ification of Ralph Engelstad Arena a prohibitively costly endeavor. Fans wear Sioux gear to the games, yell "Sioux" whenever possible, and fill in the old team name whenever the school name is mentioned.

Eventually, a fan poll settled on "Fighting Hawks", although the most popular nominee appeared to be the old name or a variant thereof. Every appearance of "Fighting Hawks" in Engelstad Arena is met with boos from fans thinking themselves part of a heroic last stand. Despite the wishes of the NCAA and at least one major Sioux tribe, the Sioux nickname is far from gone, but merely no longer officially acknowledged.

Act III: The Common Enemy

At this point, this story is a pretty familiar one to those familiar with college hockey. Put fans of Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in a room and they'll agree on essentially nothing. Where they will find common ground, though, is here: our Big Ten rivals are awful, but THOSE guys?! They're the worst.

And they're right.

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Michigan plays North Dakota today in the Midwest regional final. It airs on ESPN2 at 6:00.

Go Blue.

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