This Web site has been a long time in coming, but the day has finally arrived where we can bring Minnesota Golden Gophers fans a fully-equipped Internet home to cheer, pontificate, question, praise and shed tears about the best Big Ten institution. And we even plan (read: hope) to do some original reporting here as well.

The Daily Gopher is a venture that aims to combine the blogging powers of two year-plus old Minnesota Gophers sites: Gopher Nation and Paging Jim Shikenjanski. For months, both of us wanted to team up and we were searching for the right location, the right platform and the right look. Eventually we teamed up with the bloggers from SBN because they provide everything on their sites that we wanted, including the ability for increased fan interaction (see right sidebar).

Both PJS and Gopher Nation were created out of a desire to fill a void in the Minneapolis/St. Paul media. Gophers sports are put on the back-burner, while professional team coverage dominates the local mainstream media. As a former journalist myself, I hope to bring a journalistic attitude to The Daily Gopher, and both of us intend to provide thoughtful analysis and comprehensive coverage of all things maroon and gold.

As we begin this new venture, expect to see some small tweaks here and there until we get this site to be everything we want it to be. If something is missing you'd like to see, please drop us a line. And please register on the site so we can make sure The Daily Gopher is a place for interesting and respectful dialogue.

We're excited to be here, and we're looking forward to providing your daily fix for Gophers sports.

Ski-U-Mah!