BleedGopher
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per the Bemidji Pioneer:
In both Norse mythology -- and Marvel Comics -- Thor wields his hammer Mjolnir.
In Minnesota mythology, Paul Bunyan -- and the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team -- commands Paul Bunyan’s Axe.
The legendary college football trophy reunited with the big man himself Saturday as the axe made the latest stop on its statewide tour at Bemidji’s Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues.
“When we thought of doing an axe tour… Paul Bunyan was the first place we thought of,” said Gophers assistant director of marketing Mills Armbruster. “So we kind of scheduled everything else around this stop.”
Fans received an up-close look at the trophy as they posed for photos with the axe in front of Paul and Babe.
The trophy is awarded to the winner of the annual Minnesota/Wisconsin football game, the most-played college rivalry game in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Big Ten rivals have met 128 times since the first game in the series in 1890, and they have played every season since with the exception of 1906.
Last fall, the Gophers ended a 15-year drought in the rivalry by regaining the axe with a 37-15 win over the Badgers in Madison, Wis.
Head coach P.J. Fleck and the athletic department decided the best way to celebrate the axe’s long-awaited return to Minnesota would be to parade it around the state so as many Gopher fans as possible could see the trophy.
“Coach Fleck wants everyone to touch the axe,” Armbruster said. “... We’re getting out here with nine stops in three weeks. We’re reintroducing it to all the Gopher fans from East Grand Forks down to Rochester and anywhere in between.”
Armbruster has been ferrying the axe around the Land of 10,000 Lakes since the tour began earlier this week in Rochester. That makes him Minnesota’s answer to Phil Pritchard -- the so-called “keeper of the Stanley Cup” -- at least for a couple of weeks.
“I don’t have to wear gloves or polish it, so that’s nice,” he said. “But it’s cool. I drove five-and-a-half hours from the Twin Cities up to East Grand Forks yesterday. Even just driving our SUV where it says University of Minnesota on the side in non-elaborate letters, like people recognize it and people get a sense of pride when they show up.”
https://www.bemidjipioneer.com/spor...axe-reunites-namesake-folk-hero-bemidji-visit
Go Gophers!!
In both Norse mythology -- and Marvel Comics -- Thor wields his hammer Mjolnir.
In Minnesota mythology, Paul Bunyan -- and the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team -- commands Paul Bunyan’s Axe.
The legendary college football trophy reunited with the big man himself Saturday as the axe made the latest stop on its statewide tour at Bemidji’s Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues.
“When we thought of doing an axe tour… Paul Bunyan was the first place we thought of,” said Gophers assistant director of marketing Mills Armbruster. “So we kind of scheduled everything else around this stop.”
Fans received an up-close look at the trophy as they posed for photos with the axe in front of Paul and Babe.
The trophy is awarded to the winner of the annual Minnesota/Wisconsin football game, the most-played college rivalry game in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Big Ten rivals have met 128 times since the first game in the series in 1890, and they have played every season since with the exception of 1906.
Last fall, the Gophers ended a 15-year drought in the rivalry by regaining the axe with a 37-15 win over the Badgers in Madison, Wis.
Head coach P.J. Fleck and the athletic department decided the best way to celebrate the axe’s long-awaited return to Minnesota would be to parade it around the state so as many Gopher fans as possible could see the trophy.
“Coach Fleck wants everyone to touch the axe,” Armbruster said. “... We’re getting out here with nine stops in three weeks. We’re reintroducing it to all the Gopher fans from East Grand Forks down to Rochester and anywhere in between.”
Armbruster has been ferrying the axe around the Land of 10,000 Lakes since the tour began earlier this week in Rochester. That makes him Minnesota’s answer to Phil Pritchard -- the so-called “keeper of the Stanley Cup” -- at least for a couple of weeks.
“I don’t have to wear gloves or polish it, so that’s nice,” he said. “But it’s cool. I drove five-and-a-half hours from the Twin Cities up to East Grand Forks yesterday. Even just driving our SUV where it says University of Minnesota on the side in non-elaborate letters, like people recognize it and people get a sense of pride when they show up.”
https://www.bemidjipioneer.com/spor...axe-reunites-namesake-folk-hero-bemidji-visit
Go Gophers!!
