FanHouse Ford Field

PHILADELPHIA -- Detroit's Ford Field is the place where Villanova's NCAA tournament ended last year, with a Sweet 16 loss to eventual champion Kansas. The site of this year's Final Four, it's the place where the Wildcats' 2009 tournament will end as well. This time, they're hoping they can win a couple of games before that happens.

This time, they think they'll be better prepared for the unique challenge of playing a basketball game in a converted indoor football stadium -- in particular the unusually long walk from the locker room and a raised floor that apparently shakes a bit when you play on it.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- There's no place like home for the Final Four.

Goran Suton scores 19 points and pulls down 10 rebounds and the Spartans hold Louisville under 40 percent shooting to knock off the overall top seed Cardinals 64-52 and advance to the final weekend for the fifth time in the last 11 years.

Only 90 miles from their campus, the Spartans will play Connecticut on Saturday at Ford Field in Detroit. A crowd of 72,000, the largest ever for college basketball's signature event, is expected for each game.

We've had college hockey stories on FanHouse today. We've had Detroit Red Wings stories on FanHouse today. So, naturally, we come across a story in the Detroit Free Press which reports that Ford Field could host a hockey double-header pitting Michigan against Michigan State and then the Red Wings against an opponent-to-be-named-later in the night cap. Central Collegiate Hockey Association commissioner Tom Anastos confirmed discussions about the game, which would be a test run for an eventual Frozen Four at the stadium, but said they're very preliminary:

"I don't have the Red Wings or the NHL on board ... To me, there's an order to getting something done. When you talk of an event of this magnitude, it would be naive to assume that because someone says, 'We're up for it,' that it will happen." Anastos said the Wings would need to get approval from the NHL. Then all of the parties would have to agree on a business plan.

David Goricki of The Detroit News wrote about this yesterday, with Michigan State coach Rick Comley claiming the game would be played next December and that the Toronto Maple Leafs would be Detroit's opponent. (There's a sure way to try and get that attendance close to 80,000). Recall that Michigan and Michigan State competed in the "Cold War" back in 2001, before a hockey world-record crowd of 74,554 at Spartan Stadium.

My only questions: Will an NHL game inside a temperature-controlled dome stadium have the same fanatic appeal as those icy conditions in the Heritage Classic and (we assume) next month's Winter Classic in Buffalo? And is there any way we can convince this guy on the right to come back to Ford Field with a giant "D" painted on his chest and pasties with Pavel Datsyuk's face on them?