That's the day the two-game, total goal hockey series was to begin. And that's also when the fun began.

A telephone call from a television reporter woke me that morning. The woman on the other end said she had read what I had written and would like an interview.

You don't have to ask me twice to be on TV, so I told her to name the time and place.

When she came by my room an hour later, I complimented her on her excellent research, impressed that a Duluth television station had tracked down my article in The Crimson.

"Wait a second," she said. "Your article was reprinted in the paper here this morning.

"Everybody's talking about it."

I wondered: it or me?

A little nervous, but confident that the 100,000 slowtalking, kind-hearted Midwesterners wouldn't hold a grudge, I consented to the interview.

We talked on the street in front of the hotel before the lights and camera, and the whole episode transpired pleasantly enough. I wondered briefly if the crowd watching my induction as a celebrity would have any reaction if they knew who I was.

Nah, not little old me.

I spent that Friday afternoon wondering around downtown Duluth, waiting for the evening news. Those few hours of innocence were the last I would spend that weekend without looking behind my back every few minutes for the mob. And its rope.

After the weatherman asked the public to restrain itself, the actual segment about my article ran. It started off with man-on-the-street interviews, as a seemingly endless series of Duluthians blasted me. Then they showed portions of my interview, with which, I must admit, I was pleased.

The crowd at the hockey game that night was less impressed with my on-air performance. The first hurdle was getting into and around the rink in my conspicuous cost and tie without being recognized. I told the attendant at the press gate my name, and he told me that there were a whole lot of people in the building who wanted to see me.

I slinked over to the press box, where I started to get the word on the day's events.

Harvard Coach Bill Cleary had publicly apologized to the city for me at a press conference that afternoon and, despite the fact that he and I had been enjoying a healthy relationship, I was warned that the article had really upset him. A fellow hockey correspondent told me that he had been stopped three times on his way to the press box and asked if he was Nick Wurf.