I live in Utah and, being a thousand miles from the coast, the fish and seafood selection here is both expensive and poor. Anything that is actually labeled a fresh has to be flown here. At least thats the impression I get from parusing the local grocery store. There is a whole foods here that has a semi-decent selection of fresh fish but the prices are pretty exorborant, especially for practicing.

If I had a nice dinner party I'd get some of the good stuff, but for practices is the frozen variety sufficient? What can I do to miinimize the differences between fresh and frozen fish for practicing?

There is a lesson on How to Buy & Store Fish in the Cooking School, which also talks about frozen fish and proper thawing methods and if done properly you can still obtain great results. Cheers!