GRAND FORKS - The Nickel Trophy is officially headed to Bismarck next week.

The trophy, which was presented to the winner of the UND-NDSU football game from 1938 until 2003, will be given to North Dakota’s Heritage Center on Monday.

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During the 2017 legislative session an amendment was attached to a Senate bill that required that the two schools either renew their rivalry and continue playing for the Nickel Trophy or have it turned over to the Heritage Center.

After talks between the two schools, the University of North Dakota, which has had possession of the trophy since 2003, has decided to turn the trophy over to the Heritage Center, spokesman Peter Johnson said.

“We collectively agreed that that era was over,” Johnson said.

The trophy, which is 250 times larger than a regular 5-cent piece, weighs 75 pounds, and is 2 inches thick, is a replica of a once-minted U.S. nickel. It features a bison on one side and an a image of a Native American on the other.

UND won the 2003 game in overtime before the teams took a 12-year hiatus from playing each other. When the rivalry returned in 2015, the Nickel Trophy was no longer up for grabs as UND retired its Fighting Sioux nickname and logo.

“It was a fun and intense rivalry for many years,” Johnson said.

The teams are set to play each other again in 2019 and will be in the same conference starting in 2020 and are expected to play each other on a more regular basis.

“I think the thought was that if we’re going to play for something we should have a new tradition since now it’s Division I … and everything’s different than it was,” Johnson said.

UND has brought out the Nickel Trophy at various times for events and fundraisers throughout the years, but it hasn’t left Grand Forks since it traveled around the state as part of UND’s 125th anniversary celebration in 2008.

Johnson said the trophy had a “bit of a farewell” during this season.

A dinner organized by UND Athletics and the Alumni Association will be held Monday night at the Heritage Center as a “last hurrah” for the trophy before it is turned over to the state museum.

It had a history of being stolen by fans during the 1990s, according to previous Herald stories.

In 1997, NDSU students wore UND janitor shirts to steal the Nickel Trophy from the players’ lounge in Memorial Stadium. A year later, UND students swiped it back by obtaining the security codes for the NDSU Memorial Union alarm system, hiding above the ceiling tiles and communicating via walkie-talkies.