Current, Former North Dakota Hockey Players Arrested

People who like to rip on North Dakota (not me!) often bring up the idea that there simply isn't much to do there. The nightlife in Grand Forks and Fargo simply isn't considered vibrant enough for some, and while that's understandable, the quieter way of living can be attractive to some folks.

Anyway, I'm babbling. I tend to like visiting Grand Forks because it's such a great college sports town, and the North Dakota hockey team is usually the headliner.

On this day, they're a headliner for the wrong reasons, as former Sioux defenseman Joe Finley and current forward Matt Frattin were arrested early Tuesday morning for creating quite a ruckus outside a Grand Forks home.

A former UND hockey player and a current one were arrested about 3 a.m. Tuesday after a campus officer saw the men throwing cups, plates, a kitchen table and a lawnmower onto a Grand Forks street, UND Police Lt. Dan Lund said.

Joe Finley, 22, and Matt Frattin, 21, are both charged with disorderly conduct. In addition, Frattin faces a fleeing charge and Finley faces a charge of giving false information to officers. All the charges are misdemeanors.

Lund said Finley and Frattin were throwing objects from a residential garage on the 400 block of North Columbia Road, where one of the two men lives.

“It was their own property, so there was nobody’s property that was damaged other than their own,” Lund said. “They said they just kind of routinely destroy each other’s stuff.”

However, the pair managed to make a mess.

“There was glass from curb to curb from the dinnerware that they threw,” Lund said.

Um, OK.

But, wait. There's more.

When first approached by police, Lund said, Finley ran around a house but stopped when officers told him to. Frattin ran into a home, not stopping when instructed to, and was consequently charged with fleeing, Lund said.

Police said Finley showed them a credit card with someone else’s name on it. When asked if his name was the one on the card, Finley said it was, Lund said. At the jail Finley gave his real name.

Police said Finley told them somebody else gave him the credit card. Lund said police think the credit card belongs to a friend of Finley, but the matter is still under investigation.

I'm all for partying it up with friends, but this is further proof that nothing good ever happens after 1am. Just go to bed.