GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- I took in my first UND hockey game during the 1953-54 season, when my Dad, a new pastor in town, brought me as a 13-year-old to a UND-Minnesota hockey game in the old Winter Sports Center.

We had just moved to Grand Forks early the summer of 1953 from Minnesota, so my loyalties were still with Minnesota, not North Dakota.

As I sat in stands next to my father, I began cheering for Minnesota, naturally. He quickly and sternly told me that he was trying to build his church here in Grand Forks, and for his son to be cheering for Minnesota, it would not help his cause.

He gave me the option of joining him in cheering for the then-Fighting Sioux, or having to find another seat in the rink, far away from him. 

So my affection and loyalty took an abrupt turn that night to North Dakota, and it hasn't wavered much at all since then, despite other developments in our family that took me out of North Dakota again for a stretch of years until 1969.

So this has been a sport that I sunk my teeth into early on, and one that I even played at a NCAA Division III college back in Minnesota.

It has been a good run, and one I hope to continue as long as possible. I'm grateful that I can remain connected to UND hockey through the opportunity to write a column for UND during the season.

This is indeed a different one at UND in a lot of ways. The team has likely played itself out of a solid chance to hang another league title banner inside Ralph Engelstad Arena, but there is still much to play for with 12 league games remaining, half of them here in Grand Forks.

UND has a better chance of finishing in the top four and earning home ice for the first round of the league playoffs than it does winning the title. And earning home ice could open the door to winning the league post-season playoffs, and thereby earning an automatic bid into the 16-team NCAA tournament.

UND currently sits in a tie for fourth in the NCHC with Denver. Omaha and Arizona State hold second and third place, 9 and 8 points ahead of UND, but having played two more league games. So that battle is yet to be fought.

It is difficult to get a true read on this team, I find. 

It is a team that wins with a strong overall team game more than it does a player or two carrying the team to victory. 

For example, UND does not have a single player in the top 50 scorers nationally, or goalie who is that range as well. There is no player at the offensive level of a Brock Boeser or Drake Caggiula or a Lee Goren or Jeff Panzer, or a goalie with numbers like Karl Goehring and Cam Johnson when they were key players on the last two NCAA title teams at UND in 2000 and 2016.

Yet this youthful team has shown it can play with the best teams in the country but also been plagued with inconsistent play as well.

So with the balanced schedule of six home games and six road games remaining, the opportunity is there for this team to take that next step and better its positioning for post-season play.

It starts this weekend with a series against a struggling St. Cloud State team, battling its own problems in trying to improve its future. UND did beat the Huskies twice in close games in mid-December in Grand Forks, so a repeat of that this weekend would be a giant step forward for UND.

Virg Foss covered UND hockey for the Grand Forks Herald from 1969 through the 2004-05 season. He now writes a weekly column on Fighting Hawk hockey during the season. He can be reached at virgfoss@yahoo.com.