The Sicatoka

Funny, but I was just thinking the same for the home team. They really need to show up and start playing well tonight and tomorrow night and unfortunately games like that is when they've been MIA.

Now you're gettin' it. For hockey, heck yes, and thus they work just fine for hoop in a pinch too. But what does any of this have to do with how many UND Football drew in 2005?

I'll use this opportunity for one of my favorite rants: In deep, in the slot, if the puck ends up on your stick in a scrum just fire ... even if you're on the backhand! The time it takes you to spin and get on forehand is time for the defense to find you and for the goalie to recover (from the save that cause the rebound that gave you the puck on your backhand) and stack. A goal by a member of Team USA, Womens Team USA, back on Saturday went in because she just fired from the backhand as soon as she got it, no spin, no handling, just fire. Backhanders count as goals.

Didn't I say that when I said:

I'd love to! How's it going to work and who's going to pay for it? A donation would be great! Oh, yeah, those are the same open questions here. We're in "notion tossed out by someone" stage right now (both Buning and you)!. Why's everyone so uptight over it? Or is it that NDSU fans are uptight about someone at UND publicly speculationg about a comparably-sized arena to FargoDome? Why should DI-AA fans worry about what a DII is doing?

I guess I don't see what you guys think you see in what I'm saying. I'm not saying building a bigger stadium will automatically increase average attendance**. (Note the 70-75% of house going to 60% in a more seats house.) I'm saying a bigger building might be useful for "peak" or "high interest" games. And depending on how "bigger" is done, might it be useful on days other than gameday? Again, who yet knows? ** I'm far from saying it here (because I don't believe it would happen for football at UND), but there is a local case of "build bigger stadium means bigger average attendance": Ralph Engelstad Arena.

Agreed about the north wall, but isn't the hotel going on the north end of the ballroom (furthest north end of the ballroom building)? What is behind the east part of that north wall of the arena (that little bump that isn't white-roof-arena or the long rectangle ballroom) is the kitchen facilities for the Aurora Ballroom. That's expensive stuff to consider ripping up. Let's go "way-crazy" out there: Could you take off the west grandstands and rebuild them say "double-deck" with a suite level? Now that'd take some bling.

Yale's stadium was built (1914) when they and Army were the powers in college football. They aren't that today and their attendance shows it; but they still have the stadium from that time. Yale vs. Army, November 3, 1923: 80,000 attendance. (100% capacity)

Did it come up red? No, my mistake. It came up short of expectations, but was black about $100k. Either way, NDSU put money into a city-owned facility. And won't Alerus be around for "the next 90 years" also? As far as "who pays", at this point the answer is "pays for what?" Nothing has been formally proposed. So what's to worry about?

Is that what I said? No, that's not what I said. Nice try however. My inference was that 25% "excess capacity" in a facility the size of The Al may not be what they want any more. A quick peek at DI-AA numbers from this year show a lot of teams running at an average more like 60% of house. 10000-ish average in a 17000-ish house would be about 60% average (reasonable) and would hold big games.

Looks to me like UND and NDSU are both averaging roughly 70-75% of full stadium capacity over the past five seasons. Now there's talk of expanding a facility that's been running 70-75% full. What's strange about that? At least there are ways it could be done.

It's -26F in Warroad this morning. That's straight air temperature, not wind chill. Survive that and you too could be known as Christian, Marvin, or The Oshie.

Because "bowl" shaped seating wouldn't work because of the existing pylons that hold up the roof? What am I missing in what you are saying? I'm surprised they said "horse-shoe". I would think "3-sided" would be more accurate. I'm no architect, but I could maybe see seating and suites put on the south end (build to south into parking lot) and maybe suites on the north end. Another musing: If you put a south grandstand on the facility would you then put down the BB court at that end and have it running E-W? Could you put the current mobile portion of the west grandstand on the north side of the court in that configuration (does that big sucker turn)?

Come on "Bison Dan", be careful with that knife; it cuts both ways: city-owned FargoDome just came up red in its latest numbers and NDSU just put money into locker rooms and offices there. The money would come from the rest of Buning's musings --> a $35 MM capital campaign for athletic facilities.

I think my vision of my "1" and your "Memorial Stadium remodel" are pretty much more same than different. My ITF would cover Memorial with the west wall of the building being a remodeled west grandstand (and that would provide some seating in the ITF). I'd like an ITF to be game capable for soccer and some day maybe lacrosse. (I'm not a track guy; I leave that to you. ) sokarcrazy: The issue isn't "indoors", it's surface. You must play soccer on real grass or FieldTurf, not Magic Carpet like The Al currently has. FieldTurf in an ITF would work as a host site.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Since when do we play away games in Alerus Center? Pretty cool gig if we could get it.

I'd go with this: 1. Indoor training facility: I know soccer folks don't want to hear it, wanting to be outside, but I think it should be soccer game capable. The current field could be for practices. 2. The Betty: scoreboards, suites?, bigger court-end seating systems. 3. The Al: more suites? south-end seating? 4. A pool at the Wellness Center (so athletics could move out of Hyslop entirely and that land could be used for academics) 5. Mods to old REA to maybe use that as "extra space" beside an indoor facility.

You hit a key point: Right now the prime issue has to be building and expanding the M/W BB base to have the revenue to even begin to think about expanding to other sports. Another case of cart before the horse is right there. Honestly, a "starter" NDSU DI team could play in Moorhead. It'd be embarrassing if the Spuds outdrew them for some games, but prove you're serious about hockey by investing in a team, then come for an arena. (Coming for the arena first seems to smell like wanting a basketball, not hockey, arena to many Fargo voters according to the last two votes.)

The Fargo Forum, August 27, 2004, Mike McFeely's column: And an indoor training facility, especially in this climate, is a need.

Could NDSU find recruits? Sure, but there's a cart before the horse here. You'd need a DI hockey program. The model to look at would be UN-Omaha. But they had an arena already (the old 8000 seater before this new 14000 seat one). And they were putting 8000 in for USHL games (the Lancers). What I see in Fargo is: - no suitable arena -- two different arena proposals going down in big "no" votes in the last decade -- FargoDome showing red in its last budget - little support for "pay for a ticket" hockey -- dead Bears -- dead IceSharks -- a once-folded NDSU club team - a very tight athletic budget at NDSU during this transition. -- mens hockey would mean womens hockey (Title IX) so double expenses Could? Sure. Anything is "could." Will? Not in the foreseeable. I believe the folks at NDSU have other fish to fry first.

Does this mean we can no longer refer to the Black Sox and Shoeless Joe? What about the White Sox? The Red Sox?

I worry that our powerful DII S&D teams would be chum in the water in DI.

Like I've said, there are a lot of "ifs" that go with my ponderings. Then again, mentioning "ifs", couldn't soccer play in this guy's notion if it came to pass? If you could play lax in it, and put in field turf, you could get soccer out of the November wind and cold.

For openers, let me go back to the framework that my thoughts on this exist within: Someone brought out the issue of travel expenses. I believe that would be not the show-stopping issue we expect. Looking at this years baseball and mens golf schedules, and doing (admittedly very) rough calculations, I see: - baseball traveling over 10000 miles and having to spend about 17 overnights on the road - mens golf traveling over 3000 miles and having to spend about 7 overnights on the road For this (again, very rough) estimate lets figure baseball travels a party of 30 and golf travels a party of 8. That would mean about 300000 "body-miles" (bodies * miles) traveled and 510 "body-nights" (bodies * nights) in hotels. For golf it'd be 21000 body-miles and 56 body-nights, for two-sport grand totals of 320000 body-miles and 570 body-nights (after some rounding). Assuming a mens lacrosse schedule that would look like DU's with five long road weekends (one to NY/MA, one each to MD, NC, VA, and conference to OH/IN) and a "road" game at Air Force, travel would look like: - 15000 miles and 9 nights on the road. Assuming a "hockey-sized" travel party of 30 (like baseball) that's 450000 body-miles and just 270 body-nights. Yes, that's 50% more "body"- or "team"-miles traveled, but it's less than half of the overnights (hotels, meals) costs. One more note here: This comparison is DI lacrosse travel to DII baseball/golf travel. If UND went DI (see "framework" above), baseball and golf travel costs would surely swell. I'd venture to say that travel "before" and "after" travel costs would come out roughly equal. The differences would be the increased opportunities for gate revenues and championships.