The Sicatoka

A member of this board and I have had long sad conversations about this in many aspects of life.

USA Hockey should have sent the team they sent to Vancouver in December to Turin (Torino). At least then "1-4-1" would seem not quite as hideous.

Just the same, can we get him a specially modified set of shoulder pads with a "horse collar" like footballers wear to protect that neck?

Dearest Mikey, Why don't you roll out the Brendan Morrison "the best team doesn't always win" quote too? And I can tell you why USA Hockey is going home: USA Hockey scored fewer goals! Want to know who to blame for that? See your local mirror. Signed, An embarrassed USA Hockey fan

Now, mind you, I have a soft spot for Mayville (the town and college) for various family reasons (and because the Mayville DQ has the best malts in the state) but in the times of tight ND SBoHE budgets I struggle as to why we as ND taxpayers keep it around when UND and NDSU are each just 40 miles away.

They'll have trouble proving it with anything short of someone pulling a "Steve Smith, from behind the net off of Grant Fuhr"* goal for the other team. * That should really make Calgary fans and Edmonton fans .

I'm telling you, in those situations, with Duluth, or Tech, or St. Cloud, or even Anchorage, in town, I wanna hear "How Much Is That Doggy In The Window" crankin' out.

I can understand USA's lack of offense punch, but Canada on this no-goals run? Ouch. I wonder if Mrs. Gretzky bet on that happening.

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.