The Sicatoka

Uh, 'rock', at the gate general admission tickets are $18.50. Season tickets work out to be about $16 per game.

Not that I'm going to lose any sleep over them, but what happened to the NDSU men? They were 6 last week and they're not in the top 10 now.

There's a big difference in losing 15 pounds between someone with less than 10% body fat versus someone with, well, .... let's just say, over. PS - I'm guilty as well.

No, I'm saying I'll take the easy data when it's to my advantage, but, I'll play fair by leaving a source where someone, if they choose to do the grunt work, can dig out a refuting case. Please note I dug for the "Other" numbers when you chose numbers that "worked" for you. (Sense the fair play there?) Either way, (a) you avoided the "Other" numbers, and (b) neither should be tootin' horns about them. Avoiding the "Other" numbers conversation, and your past ineffectiveness with the shift key, states volumes about character as well.

First, when you say "your town" you assume incorrectly about location. Next, I agree that a 10k stadium in Fargo would have made no sense. It's already there and called Dakotah Field. Somebody correct me here if I'm wrong, but I believe Alerus Center was built such that if the need arose in the future, endzone seating could be added by moving the north and south walls out. I believe it's always better to have a stadium that looks full.

How exactly could FargoDome be expanded to 30,000 seats? I don't see the space because there's four-sides seating already, plus, isn't the sidelines to seats gap too narrow already? We've covered this already, but Alerus Center is larger than a significant number of IAA football stadiums, so get over yourself. PS - Glad to see those Griz fans calibrated you on geography.

Like I said, if you followed the link you'd easily see that '2002' could be retrieved with a few simple keystrokes. I wasn't going to dig out all of that data. I, quite simply, let some other person do a menial task like that. (I won't comment as to who that was. ) The "Other" category contains the other sports (beyond baseball, football, and basketball which are listed individually). Since you want to talk "Other," which must contain wrestling because that's not listed separately, let's look at .... 2001 and 2002 "Other" Men sports 4-class rates (as reported at the previous link): School Year Rate NDSU 2001 33% UND 2001 44% NDSU 2002 46% UND 2002 38% Those Bison wrestlers have nothing on Sioux hockey players. (But I don't think any Bison wrestlers went professional either. ) Bottom line: Neither UND nor NDSU should be tootin' the horn here.

I learned by observation of the best "unseemly extrapolator."

YaneA: WDAZ doesn't help folks outside of their tower's range. Some have to watch FSSN on Midcontinent Cable. OK, if not 'psweeney@wdaz.com' or 'bkerr@wdaz.com,' how about 'mccomm@midco.net' because they are the backbone of the system. Maybe 'semrau@ralphengelstadarena.com' or 'ronh@ralphengelstadarena.com'? They're REA's marketing and media relations people and REA is a part of FSSN too. I'm not sure who at UND Athletics would be the person to talk to. PS - All of those email addresses are available on public websites so I'm giving away anything that's not already out there.

I'd say the chances are not good at this point. http://www.fightingsioux.com/sports/mhocke...ey/schedule.asp I don't think the series is on TV down in Mankato. The reason the CC series was put on was because WDAZ/FSSN could buy the feed (what there was of it, oh the bad camera work) from the Colorado Springs station that was showing the game there. If nobody's covering it down there there's no feed to buy and I doubt WDAZ would send a live truck and crew down to Mankato at this point. The home Duluth series will be on (as are all home series). The Wisconsin series should be on at least Direct TV Channel 642 (Fox Wisconsin). Maybe we all should spam WDAZ and ask them to get the Wisconsin series on the Fighting Sioux Sports Network! psweeney@wdaz.com

No, JBB. I gave the link to the source. Anyone could take the logical extention of that link to the 2002 data and put up numbers like those you provided. (As a matter of fact, I looked at UND's and NDSU's 2002 numbers back then and wondered how long it would take you to find them.) There's no omission. I over-provided data and, thus, provided your (long awaited) rebuttal. All that and I get no "thank you." Regarding the stats for hockey graduation: I don't see "hockey" as a specific line-item on that NCAA site. How do you come about such data? Did "someone tell you"? Do you believe everything you hear? I'd try to provide the names of recruits and graduations or early departures (or transfers as the case may be) if you'd like, but it may lead directly to a conversation about how, similarly, Bison football recruits of late don't seem to hang around for the full four/five years. (I don't think they're going to the pro ranks early either. I'm sure that's unfairly killing NDSU's numbers with the NCAA, just as circumstances at other places are doing the same.) It's a knife that has blades on both sides. You decide. Like I said initially: Are you sure you want this conversation?

Don't flatter yourself JBB. I'd take Lennon over any of those three right now. My point was this: TeamMakers and other Bison FB fans would go off the deep end if it's not Rocky, Gus (Casey), or Terry Allen. Geez, 'Bisonguy' already has the bright yellow "Gus Bus" parked in front of Gene Taylor's house. What more can you say?

Ah, but do those wildly fluctuating graduation rates (because of calculational anomalies, that you admit to, and I will too) allow for players who leave school early to play in the professional ranks? Last I checked, no, they don't. In the past two years UND has lost three players to early departures to the pros (Bryan Lundbohm, Travis Roche, Ryan Bayda). When a hockey recruiting class is a handful of players that is hugely significant. That's why I asked if you really wanted to talk about this. The numbers are so inconsistent because of the (lack of) methodology of the NCAA.

Is that like football should be played outside? Oh, that's right. On the Montana Grizzlies board football should be played indoors is what you said. Then why not hockey indoors? Hey, JBB, by the way, where is the U of Montana located?

Lennon over Rocky Hagar? Lennon over Terry Allen? Lennon over Casey Bradley? Come on, even you must have trouble believing that. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Be careful Jim. If fans of a certain other school read that link it may cause a meltdown.

Marc Ranfranz battles last year's All-American (who has a 92% save percentage) to a 1-1 tie for all but two seconds of a game. A screened shot finds its way in and they lose 2-1, and team defense is the problem? Where's that team that was averaging 4+ goals a game? The mirrors in the Sioux locker room need some serious use this week for soul-searching.

I'm sure others will agree with me that we're spending too high a percentage of our time chewing the fat about a player who left, a player whose commitment to Sioux hockey was well known, and a player who stepped up to the table on many occasions. Chris has moved on. We still miss him, even though he was not very good at checking and he got quite a few bad bounces. I'm sure his current Seawolves teammates think he's just aces. It was certainly good of Coach Hill to take a gamble on him. And I'm sure he

They try to balance the power across the regions. They do the same thing in hoops.

I'd say at least enough to remain eligible for NCAA competition (and that's all fans should really know).

That type of information isn't usually known outside of the players and coaches, much less tossed about in public forums like this. Consider it to be like grades: private, academic information.

Let me paraphrase Tim Hennessy from the radio this morning: Four WCHA league titles, two NCAA titles, but you say he doesn't know how to pick a goalie?

You can read some of the details about the facility here: http://www.theralph.com/building.htm http://www.theralph.com/stats.htm The place has a walk-in humidor to keep the moisture in the sticks perfect so their flex is just right.

" .... a segregated sport ... " sayeth the purveyor of wrestling. PS - JBB, are you sure you want to talk graduation rates?

Let me guess, you'd rather talk about DII football titles won last century.