The Sicatoka

Joe Albi in Spokane holds 28646. Woodward Field holds 6000. They have plans to expand it .... to 11000, or 2500 fewer seats than The Alerus Center today.

Womens hockey is up and running: Welcome to Season III and being the newest member of the Womens WCHA. Having Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio State (WWCHA members) coming in can't hurt attendance, nor will UM-D, SCSU, or MSU-Mankato. UND is actually in pretty good shape regarding Title IX. Adding womens hockey helped the numbers. As far as BSC sports, recently Portland State got an exemption (budget woes) from the mens and womens tennis requirement.

2002 season football seating capacities: Montana 18845 Montana St. 13500 Weber St. 17500 Idaho St. 12000 Portland St. 20000 Cal St. Sacramento 21195 Northern Ariz. 15300 Eastern Wash. 6000 Those are the latest stadium capacity numbers I have. I know Montana has gone close to 24000 seats since then. I don't know about the others. As far as "15000", Montana State and UND are in the same position. Idaho and Eastern Washington are worse off. Northern Arizona really isn't much better off than Montana State or UND. Having seats is one issue; filling them is quite another.

Bulldog: Since you seem to like Massey Ratings, what do you think of this? 10/09 at North Dakota (139 4-1 ) [ 23 14.0 -24.1] ** That "23" just right of the "[" means that Massey thinks you have a 23% chance of winning the game against UND. Massey expects a 24-14 UND victory. Thoughts? ** http://www.mratings.com/rate/team.php?tm=134349

General observations: - The Big Sky will do whatever it thinks it needs to do to protect .... itself. If that's forcing the hands of some schools, to ensure the BSC doesn't lose its autobids, that's what it'll do. - I'm almost forced to agree with 'bisonfan1234' about the 15000 requirement. Every "hard and fast" NCAA rule has always later been "amended". Look at the past attendance rule for example. Plus, conferences like the MAC are going to have problems if "15k" is held to. - Roger Thomas is already talking indoor training facility (see start of thread). I'm sure any school would much rather have the FB/BB/hockey facilities in order and then only have to worry about training space and indoor track. (PS - How hard would it be to put a modular 200m track into the Alerus for a meet? Better yet, would it fit into the Olympic Ice Arena at REA?) - The BSC doesn't give a rip about hockey. However, hockey is revenue-positive for UND. Hockey at UND gave it a great BB facility along the way. The BSC, as every conference, does care about budgets and facilities. Now a question: If BSC football was 12 teams, split into two divisions like the SEC, would the BSC be able to play a "conference championship" game before the DI-AA playoffs (and sell it for some television dollars)? What are the rules on that?

Like I said:

Quite. I've wondered why it hasn't stuck yet considering .... he-done perpetrated all over Peluso!

Pure "out there" speculation, some serious "pie in the sky" by me, and nothing more. The Mid-America Conference. Why? - About half of the MAC is going to have trouble hitting the new DI-A "average 15000 per home game" attendance figure. How that affects that conference is yet to be known. Will it split along attendance lines? Will it split into two halves for football (part I-A, part I-AA) to make it work (and not give up the BB rivalries)? - MAC members Miami of Ohio, Western Michigan, and Bowling Green all play DI hockey (CCHA) and would love the chance to get UND (WCHA) in there once-in-a-while even if it is non-conference. - The MAC may be looking for members now that Marshall is bolting. - Two of UND's comparables (for funding comparisons) with the State Board of Higher Education are MAC members (Ohio University, SUNY-Buffalo), so UND does compare well to some MAC schools. - Geography-wise, the center of the MAC closer to GF than the the center of the BSC is. Travel-wise it may be easier (NWA's hub in Detroit) to get to. Yeah, yeah, "out there", "unrealistic". I know. (There have to be schools in the MAC's existing geography that'd be much better fits.) But hey, it's all crazy speculating at this point anyway. We now return you to the previous BSC discussion.

To all the folks that want every UND thought process to go out as a press release to all the world's media, here's how the Big Sky does business: Seems like the Big Sky does business like UND: Quietly until it has studied things and thought them through.

Mike "The Perp" Prpich on a wicked, laser-like wrister from about the dot to the far top corner beating the goalie glove side.

I'm not a facilities expert, nor am I building it , but I'd guess a facility that could house a 300 meter track and 80 yards of turf could easily house the modular items that you mention (200 meter track, 55 meter dash).

The Fargo Forum article: http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm...&section=sports Great picture from the arena center ice camera in the story.

What else should UND Athletics spend it on? They already - play in an indoor football stadium - have a brand new basketball and volleyball facilty - have an on-campus Olympic-sized hockey practice facility - have The Ralph. What is missing is the indoor training facility (for indoor track and for training space for outdoor sports like football, soccer, baseball, and softball). PS - "Best of the best". I like it.

The City of GF owns and operates the Alerus Center: the land, the building, all of it. Shouldn't the problems NDSU/Fargo/FargoDome are having (and there at least NDSU owns the land and leases it out) about locker rooms be enough of a red flag? Are you sure you just don't want UND to have such a facility?

To the best of my knowledge: (a) the player in question is at BSU (links above), (b) UND's players are where they should be: at UND working hard (academics and athletics).

Some UM-C fans read this board (just as others).

Upper administration (Thomas, Harmeson level), then coaching and athletics staff, then public, would be my assumption. You need messengers to carry the message to the public.

Now why in the world would this guy be in Grand Forks. (There's a photo to check your eyes SiouxMeNow.) I really like this part of his bio: I believe Fullerton was once quoted (by The Oregonian) as saying: If it was him, I wonder if he liked The Ralph, The Betty, and The Al.

Like I said: When they're sure they've looked at the matter well enough internally and have solid answers to the questions that will be raised would be a fair supposition.

A budgeted cost never realized is a net positive on the bottom line.

UM-Crookston. MSU-Moorhead. Both went DII for what other reason than attempting to elevate public perceptions of the schools? PS - Good to see you haven't lost the ol' ad hominem touch.

Looking at the names mentioned here: Sando: His best USHL campaign was 26 points. Lee Marvin's best was 17 points. Of course, Lee played defense and Drew played forward. Lee has trouble making the lineup at either position. Lindenberg: His best USHL campaign was 11 points. Scott Foyt, who can't break the lineup at defense, had 8 points in just 31 games at defense in the USHL (before being traded to an AWHL team that year). Moreland: He has only played 9 USHL games (according to HockeyDB.com). That's not a full season sample to compare to. Now, USHL success clearly doesn't predict future success; however, it tends to be a good indicator. My questions are this: Did they skate this summer? Where? With whom? Have any reached full potential already? Do any have untapped potential ready to be developed?

What we really need is a New Jersey kid on the roster! Back to this "recruiting Minnesota" thing: UND's current roster, player's home location and number from there: United States 16 - Minnesota 7 - North Dakota 6 - Michigan 1 - Illinois 1 - Alaska 1 Non-US 9 - Canada 8 -- Manitoba 3 -- Saskatchwan 3 -- Ontario 1 -- Alberta 1 - Slovakia 1 And if the rumor that Matt Moreland has walked on and made the team is true the US total goes to 17 and ND total goes to 7 .... and that's as many North Dakotans as Minnesotans. That's almost as many North Dakotans as Canadians.

The cameras built into the facility must not matter either then. You're telling me just having to send game announcers (and not having to send a truck and a camera crew and production crew, or having to arrange an uplink frequency) doesn't matter to folks looking to broadcast a game? It's about the facilites and what they provide. Not having to lug all that stuff to a game-site matters to broadcasters (meaning lower production costs). PS - The 13280 in The Ralph for basketball (Kansas at North Dakota) seemd "OK" with the place for that game.

tony: You assumed whom I had in mind. It could any one of numerous schools in the region who have attempted to raise the profile of their school by advancing athletics over academics. But since you mentioned NDSU, from their own webpage it says, "An ACT composite score of 21 or higher or SAT score of 970 or higher is recommended." (emphasis added) That's not a minimum. As far "public", UND has a history of not engaging in public discusssions of issues until they have a very good handle on the variables.