The touring production of “Hadestown,” originally scheduled for tonight at DECC Symphony Hall, has been postponed because of travel conditions and restrictions tied to the Midwest winter storm.
The Tony Award-winning musical, created by Anaïs Mitchell, intertwines the mythic love stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone, in a journey to the underworld and back.
The performance has been rescheduled for Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. Current tickets will be honored for the new date.
Minnesota Duluth is 5-2 all-time in Frozen Faceoff semifinal games and will play for its fourth NCHC tournament title. Denver and the Bulldogs enter the championship game tied for the most titles in conference tournament history with three.
GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Minnesota Duluth shuffled its lines, struck early and never let No. 2 North Dakota recover Saturday night.
The Bulldogs scored twice in the opening period, got 33 saves from Adam Gajan and rolled past the top-seeded Fighting Hawks 5-1 in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference Frozen Faceoff semifinal at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
The victory sends Minnesota Duluth to Denver on Saturday for the NCHC championship game against second-seeded Denver.
“We’ve done it before, we tried it,” Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin said of breaking up his top line. “It’s great when it works, it’s great a couple of those guys got goals, that we got early goals and this guy (Gajan) was great, and certainly in the first period. He made some key saves, and then we got the next one, which was good. We expected a push in the third period and we got a couple more. Real good road win for us against a good team.”
Minnesota Duluth, which had rallied in each of its previous three games, took control from the start.
Callum Arnott scored just 2:14 into the first period, following a Joey Pierce chance and burying the rebound for a 1-0 lead. The Bulldogs made it 2-0 at 7:16 of the first after killing off a penalty, when Max Plante carried the puck through the neutral zone, maneuvered around a North Dakota defender in the slot and beat Jan Spunar on the blocker side.
That fast start gave Gajan room to settle in, and the sophomore goalie did the rest. North Dakota generated pressure throughout the night and finished with a 34-22 edge in shots, but Gajan repeatedly turned away quality chances and helped the Bulldogs kill all three Fighting Hawks power plays.
Minnesota Duluth stretched the lead to 3-0 just 1:26 into the second period. Jayson Shaugabay, skating away from the Plante brothers for the first time since Jan. 31, cashed in on a rebound off a Ty Hanson drive to the net.
The Bulldogs did not generate much sustained offense in the second, recording only seven shots and going through a six-minute stretch without one, but North Dakota still could not break through.
The Fighting Hawks finally got on the board 1:59 into the third period when Dylan James scored through traffic, with Gajan screened on the play. Any momentum from that goal disappeared midway through the period.
Harper Bentz, elevated to the top line Saturday night, restored the three-goal cushion at 8:09 of the third by redirecting an Adam Kleber shot from the right point for his fifth goal of the season.
Kyle Gaffney put the game away 4:40 later, scoring from a sharp angle above the extended goal line to make it 5-1 and send the Bulldogs into the conference championship game for the first time since 2022.
Minnesota Duluth improved to 23-13-1, while North Dakota fell to 27-9-1.
Spunar finished with 17 saves for the Fighting Hawks, who now wait for their NCAA Tournament seeding.
The Bulldogs will face Denver in the Frozen Faceoff championship game next Saturday in Denver. Game time has not been announced.
Arnott had a goal and an assist for Minnesota Duluth, and Luke Bibby added two assists for his first points as a Bulldog. Zam Plante extended his point streak to four games and has seven points over that span. Hanson also stretched his scoring streak to four games, while Shaugabay pushed his to three.
Minnesota Duluth is 5-2 all-time in Frozen Faceoff semifinal games and will play for its fourth NCHC tournament title. Denver and the Bulldogs enter the championship game tied for the most titles in conference tournament history with three.
In a country where public confidence has eroded in too many places, Hermantown has preserved something that is becoming more valuable all the time: the sense that a city can grow, modernize and prosper without surrendering basic standards of safety and livability.
Howie is a longtime Minnesota journalist, independent columnist and author covering sports, power and civic life. His daily column is sponsored by Lyric Kitchen . Bar of Duluth.
Hermantown did not become one of northeastern Minnesota’s most admired communities through accident, luck or political showmanship. It got there the hard way — through steady planning, public order, careful growth and leadership that understood a city’s first obligation is not to impress people, but to serve them well.
That is what makes Wayne Boucher’s years as mayor worth recognizing. His style has never depended on noise. He has not governed as though the office were a stage, and he has not confused publicity with accomplishment. Instead, his tenure has reflected something more valuable and far less common in modern public life: disciplined civic stewardship.
Under Boucher’s watch, Hermantown has continued to strengthen the traits that set it apart — safety, stability, family appeal, sound public amenities and a growth model that has expanded the city’s opportunities without weakening its character. At a time when many communities lose themselves chasing the next big thing, Hermantown has managed to get bigger while staying recognizably Hermantown. That is not easy to do. It is even harder to sustain.
Community safety remains one of Hermantown’s deepest civic strengths. It is part of the city’s internal structure, part of the trust residents place in daily life there, and part of the reason families continue to see the community as a place where order still matters. In a country where public confidence has eroded in too many places, Hermantown has preserved something that is becoming more valuable all the time: the sense that a city can grow, modernize and prosper without surrendering basic standards of safety and livability.
That kind of confidence does not happen by accident. It is built over years, sometimes decades, by residents who care what kind of place they are creating and by public officials who understand that economic development and public safety are not competing interests. They are partners. Businesses notice when a city is well run. Families notice when a city feels safe. Investors notice when growth appears disciplined instead of chaotic.
That is one reason the proposed Google data center landed as such a significant moment for Hermantown. The project stands as one of the most important economic development opportunities in the community’s history, the kind of proposal that can alter how a city is perceived far beyond its borders. The scale alone commands attention.
But the larger meaning is just as important. A project of that magnitude does not emerge in a place known for weak planning, civic drift or shallow leadership. It emerges where infrastructure is credible, governance is steady and the broader culture has demonstrated it can absorb growth without losing control of itself.
Hermantown has spent years building exactly that reputation.
Its history helps explain why. Hermantown has long prized a careful balance between progress and protection. Residents have wanted investment, but not recklessness. They have wanted new amenities, but not at the cost of identity. They have wanted growth that fits the community rather than growth that overwhelms it. That instinct has shaped Hermantown into something increasingly rare — a city that has continued to evolve while keeping faith with the practical values that made it attractive in the first place.
Those values can be seen all over the community.
The Northstar Ford Arena stands as a visible sign of confidence and civic ambition. The Hermantown Community Schools campus has become one of the great points of pride in the region, reflecting a community willing to invest in young people and in the quality of life that surrounds them. Improvements at Fichtner Field add another layer to that same story, showing that Hermantown’s progress has not been limited to headline-grabbing projects but has extended to the everyday places where community life is actually lived.
That broader pattern matters. It suggests a city not merely chasing growth for its own sake, but adding to itself in thoughtful ways. It suggests public leadership that values substance over performance. It suggests a community still serious about the basics.
That is where Boucher’s leadership deserves real credit. He has represented the sort of mayoralty many communities claim to want but do not always appreciate when they have it. He has not treated the office as a platform for self-promotion. He has not governed with the restless need to be seen at the center of every civic moment. He has instead reflected a quieter and ultimately more useful understanding of public service: that a mayor’s job is not to dominate the city’s story, but to help write conditions in which the city can succeed.
There is more wisdom in that than modern politics often allows.
In local government, the gap between stewardship and showmanship can shape a city’s future. One style chases applause. The other protects culture, sharpens priorities and keeps progress from outrunning judgment. Hermantown looks very much like a city that has benefited from the second kind of leadership.
It is growing. It is safe. It is modernizing. It is drawing serious economic interest. It has added major public assets without appearing to lose its balance or its sense of self. That is a substantial accomplishment. Plenty of communities can get bigger. Fewer know how to get better without becoming less recognizable to the people who already live there.
Hermantown has managed that balancing act unusually well.
No mayor achieves that alone, and no honest column would pretend otherwise. Strong schools, capable city staff, engaged residents, responsible businesses and a civic culture that expects competence all play central roles. But leadership still matters. Tone still matters. The people elected to guide a city still influence whether it drifts toward gimmickry or continues building something solid.
Hermantown chose solidity.
That is why Boucher’s years in office deserve to be viewed as more than quiet. They deserve to be viewed as exemplary. He helped guide a city that has grown stronger without growing careless. He helped protect a community where safety remains a source of inner strength, where development has been approached as a responsibility and where civic progress has been treated as something more serious than branding.
In the end, that may be the best measure of his service. He did not simply preside over Hermantown’s success. He helped preserve the kind of Hermantown worth succeeding.
Howie is a longtime Minnesota journalist, independent columnist and author covering sports, power and civic life. His daily column is sponsored by Lyric Kitchen . Bar of Duluth.
Minnesota Monsters star wide receiver Jamal Couch has spent much of his professional football life carrying a label that sounds flattering on the surface and frustrating once you live inside it long enough.
In NFL scouting language, Couch is what evaluators sometimes call a unicorn — a player with rare physical traits who does not fit cleanly into one of the league’s neat positional boxes. That word can sound like praise, and in part it is.
At 6-foot-6, 220 pounds, with long arms, a broad catch radius, and a 43-inch vertical leap that immediately changes the geometry of a passing game, Couch looks like the kind of athlete scouts are paid to notice. He also looks, on paper anyway, like the kind of receiver the NFL ought to have room for.
And yet football, particularly at its highest level, is not always about admiration. It is about definition. Teams want to know exactly what a player is, exactly where he lines up and exactly how he fits into the weekly math of a 53-man roster. Couch has spent years living in the gray area between admiration and uncertainty, seen by evaluators as a rare body type, but not always as a clean answer.
He does not speak about that reality with bitterness. He speaks about it like a man who has learned how the business works and has decided the only useful response is to keep showing up.
“Pretty much be as available as possible,” Couch said at an event at the Heritage Center on Saturday afternoon, when asked about his mental and physical approach. “I'll do anything coach will ask no matter how big, small, tall, fast, no matter what, just always be available.”
That mindset now brings him back to Duluth, where Couch is preparing to report to training camp later this month with the new Minnesota Monsters at Amsoil Arena. For a first-year Arena Football One franchise looking for instant playmakers, Couch arrives as more than an intriguing name. He arrives as a proven professional talent still trying to force the football world to make a final decision on him.
His path has already taken him close to the league every player in this sport chases. Couch said he came out in 2018 or 2019 and spent “a couple stints with the Seahawks,” eventually moving in and out of Seattle’s practice-squad orbit over three years. More recently, he said, he had a private workout with the Miami Dolphins.
“I'm pretty much just chiming and chopping, trying to get back in the door,” he said.
That is the life of the almost-made-it player, and there are far more of them in professional football than fans ever realize. The public tends to see the stars on Sundays. What it does not always see is the vast middle ground underneath — the players who can absolutely play, who are good enough to stay on the radar, good enough to get workouts, good enough to keep coaches interested, but who for one reason or another never quite lock down the permanent chair.
Couch knows that world well. He said he never got a call-up with Seattle, and when asked why, he did not offer excuses. Timing, injuries and circumstance all seem to live somewhere in his answer. He said a serious hamstring injury changed the course of things.
“I had a stage three hamstring tear, we parted ways and I’ve been playing the arena since,” Couch said.
Even now, years later, there is no self-pity in him. There is some frustration, certainly. There almost has to be. Competitors do not get that close to the NFL without imagining themselves on the field, under the lights, instead of running practice reps and waiting for another conversation about potential.
“It was very frustrating because we’re all competitors,” Couch said. “Just practicing every day, just coming out, giving the look. It gets frustrating because you want to play in the game, you know what you can do, but you really just have to wait on your time. Everything doesn’t always work in your favor, but like I said, it’s exciting just to be there because it’s very few people that get picked for the opportunity.”
That may be the most revealing thing about Couch. He carries both truths at once. He understands how hard the business can be, and he still sounds grateful to have been close enough to touch it. That combination — realism without self-destruction — is part of what makes him interesting.
So is the fact that he still believes the best version of his football story may not have been written yet.
Couch said he has changed his approach physically, trying to become leaner and faster rather than building himself into a more muscular frame. He still sees himself, first and foremost, as a wide receiver, not a tweener and not a converted tight end. He believes that version of himself is still worth betting on.
“I’m trying to do things differently,” Couch said. “I know doing stuff the way I was doing, it got me there, but it’s pretty much something that I was doing wrong that was keeping me out of being on the final 53.”
He believes one of those adjustments has been simple.
“So back then I was trying to have a more muscular build, but now I'm slimmer so I can move faster and better,” he said.
That matters in arena football, where space disappears quickly and receivers have to win in traffic, off the wall and in compressed passing windows. The indoor game has long been a place where unusual athletes can turn traits into production and production into fresh opportunity. A receiver with Couch’s size becomes an obvious red-zone target, but he said that is not the only part of his game drawing attention.
“That was a big thing that came up when I went down in Miami,” Couch said. “I move better in tight spaces than people my size typically do. So that’s been the thing I took pride in. I’ve been pretty much just working on that all summer.”
That line ought to get the attention of Monsters coaches and quarterbacks alike. Big receivers are valuable. Big receivers who can move in confined space are a different problem altogether. In the indoor game, where possessions can feel like rapid-fire exchanges and the field shrinks every decision, those traits can become deadly.
For Couch, the opportunity in Duluth is not just about putting up touchdowns for a new franchise. It is also about producing the kind of film that keeps the phone alive.
“Yeah, waiting for somebody to send the paperwork over so I can get on the plane,” he said, when asked about the possibility of another call.
That is the life, right there. Not dreaming. Not campaigning. Waiting, preparing and trusting that somebody somewhere may still decide there is a place for him after all.
In the meantime, he sounds remarkably grounded for a man still chasing one of the hardest jobs in sports to secure.
“I’m a pretty zen person, so I don’t get too excited, too sad,” Couch said. “I just try to stay in the middle. I don’t show emotion. I could be thinking one thing, but it’ll never show. So basically I’m a person like, I’m not living too far ahead or looking too much in the rear view mirror. I take every day one step at a time.”
That answer may explain why Couch is still here, still relevant and still pushing. The players who survive the long professional middle class of football usually have something more than talent. They have emotional durability. They have the ability to absorb disappointment without letting it turn into identity.
Couch also has a life beyond football. He said he already holds a master’s degree in psychology and eventually hopes to work in player personnel. That, too, feels fitting. He is a player who has spent years being evaluated, discussed and projected. Someday he may be the one doing the evaluating.
For now, though, he remains a receiver with unfinished business.
He called the Monsters “very unique,” and his comments on the realities of pro football carried the same clear-eyed tone that runs through the rest of his story.
“I can be here today and go on the next day,” Couch said. “Nobody should get entitlement or feel like they should be anywhere. It’s a business.”
That is not cynicism. That is a professional talking.
And maybe that is the real scouting report on Mal Couch. Yes, he is long and explosive and physically unusual enough to make evaluators squint a little longer when they watch the film. Yes, he may still be that football unicorn, a player whose body and skill set do not line up as neatly as the league prefers.
But he is also something easier to trust than a label. He is mature. Self-aware. Still hungry. Still waiting. Still working.
The NFL has spent years trying to decide exactly what Couch is.
He seems to know. He is a wide receiver. He is a pro. And in Duluth, with training camp approaching and another season about to put fresh film into circulation, he may get another chance to make somebody else believe it, too.
In the wild, peregrine falcons typically nest on high, open ledges such as rocky cliffs. In modern cities, tall structures — including skyscrapers — serve as stand-ins for those natural cliff faces, and the St. Paul nest box has become a reliable urban nesting site.
Howie is Minnesota’s Columnist, writing about power, money, sports and civic life across the state. His daily column is sponsored by Lyric Kitchen . Bar of Duluth.
Every spring in Minnesota, long before the last snowbank disappears and well before the fishing opener arrives, a quieter seasonal ritual begins high above the streets of downtown St. Paul.
A pair of peregrine falcons returns to a gravel nest box on a skyscraper ledge, settles in for the nesting season, and — thanks to a small camera mounted nearby — thousands of people across the state get a front-row seat.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ FalconCam is now live for the 2026 nesting season, and the annual livestream returns with a notable upgrade. This year’s broadcast uses a new camera that delivers a much sharper view of the birds, and for the first time the DNR FalconCam includes sound.
For viewers, that means the experience is no longer limited to watching one of the fastest birds on Earth glide into the nest box. Now, you may hear the falcons as well.
The FalconCam, now in its 16th year, offers a close-up, high-resolution view of the seasonal behaviors associated with nesting — courtship displays, nest preparation and the quiet moments that unfold before eggs arrive. Viewers may also hear occasional calls by the falcons, adding another layer to what has quietly become one of the most fascinating wildlife livestreams in Minnesota.
One of the adult birds returning to the nest box this year is a familiar resident.
The female falcon, now 14 years old, fledged from St. Cloud and has nested in the downtown St. Paul box since 2016. The Minnesota DNR says it will update the FalconCam webpage if more information becomes available about the male bird currently using the site.
Inside the box, the pair has already begun the work that signals spring in the falcon world. The birds have dug a shallow bowl in the gravel, forming what biologists call a “scrape,” where eggs may soon be laid.
If the nesting timeline follows recent years, viewers could see eggs appear later this month. Last year the pair laid their first egg on March 31. Peregrine falcons typically lay three to four eggs each season, and if the eggs hatch again this spring, FalconCam viewers will be able to watch the chicks grow through the early weeks of life.
For the DNR, the camera serves a larger purpose beyond curiosity.
“We hope the FalconCam inspires appreciation for this fascinating species of special concern — the fastest birds in the world — and helps Minnesotans feel a connection to the incredible wildlife around them,” said DNR Wildlife Engagement Supervisor Jessica Ruthenberg. “We’re grateful for the ongoing support of Sentinel Properties and the Town Square building tenants, who help make the FalconCam possible.”
The camera offers more than entertainment. It also provides educational and research opportunities, allowing wildlife staff and the public to observe peregrine behavior during the nesting season.
In the wild, peregrine falcons typically nest on high, open ledges such as rocky cliffs. In modern cities, tall structures — including skyscrapers — serve as stand-ins for those natural cliff faces, and the St. Paul nest box has become a reliable urban nesting site.
The chance to watch peregrines today is the result of one of the most successful wildlife recoveries in North America.
In the 1970s, peregrine falcons nearly disappeared from the continent, largely because of pesticide use that weakened eggshells and devastated nesting success. In Minnesota, populations rebounded through decades of restoration work involving Minnesota falconers, the Midwest Peregrine Society and the DNR’s Nongame Wildlife Program.
Public support helped fuel that recovery, and the DNR says Minnesotans can still support the work today. Donations to the Nongame Wildlife Fund can be made through state tax returns or through the DNR’s wildlife donation page. Those contributions help fund projects that protect rare and vulnerable wildlife across the state, including the peregrine restoration effort and the FalconCam itself.
For anyone curious about what spring looks like from the edge of a skyscraper, the camera is already rolling.
The FalconCam livestream is available on the DNR website and on the DNR YouTube channel.
Viewers who want updates throughout the nesting season can sign up for alerts on the FalconCam webpage or follow the Minnesota Nongame Wildlife Program Facebook page, where staff share educational content and updates as the season unfolds.
And if history is any guide, sometime soon — perhaps near the end of March — the first egg will appear in that small gravel scrape, marking the quiet beginning of another Minnesota spring.
For readers in the Duluth market, the takeaway is pretty simple. The FOX21 site now looks and feels like a modern news operation. Clean design, smoother navigation, stronger technical backbone — all of it working together to deliver stories more efficiently.
Howie is Minnesota’s Columnist, writing about power, money, sports and civic life across the state. His daily column is sponsored by Lyric Kitchen . Bar of Duluth.
Now and then in the local media business, something simple happens that quietly says a lot about where things are headed. This week, it’s FOX21 KQDS' redesigned website.
The new Fox21online.com isn’t just a fresh coat of paint. It’s a reminder that in a digital-first era — where readers decide every day which local outlets deserve their attention — presentation, usability and speed matter as much as the journalism itself.
And right now in the Duluth television market, FOX21 has clearly raised the bar.
Spend a few minutes on the redesigned site and the first thing you notice is how clean it feels. The layout breathes. Headlines are easy to scan. Stories load quickly. Navigation makes sense. In a regional television market where some news websites still feel like they were designed during the MySpace era, that alone is a small revolution.
FOX21 News Director Matt McConico said the goal from the start was straightforward. “It is a cleaner, more modern look for our website,” he said.
Mission accomplished.
The redesign also reflects something important about how local newsrooms operate today. The website is no longer a secondary platform where television stories get dumped after the broadcast. For many viewers — especially younger ones — the website is the newsroom.
That reality makes performance metrics important, and early numbers from the redesign are encouraging.
“We're very happy with its early success,” McConico said. “It's an expected thing that when you change a website, traffic dips a little bit at first. Not us. We've actually seen traffic increase right after the change.”
Anyone who has ever been involved in a website rebuild knows how unusual that is. Most redesigns come with a temporary audience penalty while readers adjust to new navigation and layout changes. Avoiding that dip suggests FOX21’s audience immediately recognized the improvements.
Behind the scenes, the overhaul also included a major upgrade to the technology that powers the site.
“We also changed the ‘back end’ — called the Content Management System — giving us so much more flexibility than before with design and story presentation,” McConico said.
That matters more than readers might realize. A strong content management system is what allows a newsroom to publish quickly, present stories more creatively, and adapt coverage in real time — all essential tools in today’s competitive digital news environment.
The new platform also allows FOX21 to share content more easily across its broader network of stations.
“We're now able to more easily share stories from all around our Coastal Television stations,” McConico said. “Just days after the change, we've been able to easily share what our stations in Alaska are doing with their Iditarod coverage.”
That kind of collaboration expands the range of stories available to readers while still keeping the focus on Northland coverage.
The system also improves partnerships beyond FOX21’s own stations. “It's also easier to share content from other partners,” McConico added.
All of this points to a broader reality in today’s local media landscape: strong digital infrastructure is no longer optional. It’s the foundation.
For readers in the Duluth market, the takeaway is pretty simple. The FOX21 site now looks and feels like a modern news operation. Clean design, smoother navigation, stronger technical backbone — all of it working together to deliver stories more efficiently.
In a competitive media environment where audience trust and attention must be earned every day, those details matter.
Right now, Fox21online.com has set the standard among local television news websites in the Twin Ports. And, at least for the moment, it isn’t particularly close.
