dden3

Assuming that some of us may be correct and that we have some pretty weak young players on the team who are not progressing, how are these guys who presumably have scholarships gracefully put out of the program to make room for new recruits with better potential and more proven ability? How does this work in college hockey? Its not like football where you have a hundred guys to shuffle around. I heard the announcers say last night that Dean sat a couple of veteran defenseman for their lackadaisical play on Friday night. Of course he also switched up goalies. I think UND needs to start relying on more than one goalie at a time. Seems like we have been primarily a one-goalie team for a long time. Cam has had some weak games and we have had to stick with him. I know Bubba has a short roster right now with injuries, but some pine time usually motivates hockey players.

Thanks.

Where does the team and fans usually stay in Colorado Springs?

Purchased tickets by phone last week to the Omaha series. They are much less proud of their tickets this year than last, when they were ranked highly and were opening up a new facility. Basically got as many tickets as I wanted in the upper deck in the shoot twice zone for $20 a piece. Hope to see a lot of Hawks/Sioux fans there this year.

The green outline of the Hawk did not contrast very well with the green helmet on the TV feed I got. Seems like that could be much improved.

What are the hockey players saying? Its boring, but so is Hawks. Request to the NCAA: Prohibit UND from going ahead with Hawks since there are 50 other NCAA teams with a prior claim to this nickname.

We better go while the Canadians still have a friend in the White House!

Reagan had them in once and Clinton had them in. I hope this can work out for the current team. Not sure how a trip like this gets paid for. Ed Schafer could probably help too as well as Kennedy.

Will the team be invited this summer?

Anybody have the information on the Wyndham hotel deal. I can't find where I read that.

Seems like we have a lot of goalies in the fold and the current guy has a couple more years left if he stays and then there's Tomek. Wonder if we would ever go to a two goalie rotation like Denver has done quite often over the past several years.

What is the TV / Streaming situation tonight?

1. Johnson was left out to dry, but he is not playing aggressively. Sitting in net, not challenging shooter. Previous observations that he is slow with the glove when in the butterfly seem to be correct. 2. Keaton Thompson had a terrible series. Took bad angles both nights and swings with the stick before taking the body. 3. Team looked gassed. Don't know if its possibly the rumored flu in the team or whether they can't handle the altitude. Schmaltz was really tired Saturday night. Two of the top line haven't played for awhile and maybe showed in their conditioning. Anybody else notice that the top line started Sat night in the trap rather than the aggressive forecheck. I thought maybe the coaches were trying to save some energy?? The whole team seems to take the puck rather than the man and often took bad angles this weekend. 4. I think they will correct the defense and the health/conditioning questions. Goaltender needs to get some confidence and challenge the shooter and cut down some angles.

How embarrassing for the people on the Committee and all of the UND community to have such an ordinary and uninspiring choice duplicative of so many other schools.

Somebody came out and skated with them and punched them in the mouth and they weren't ready for it. I went to the Sat night game in C Springs and thought I had mistakenly bought tickets for the ballet. Wake up and play hockey, Sioux.

Kelley needs to be run out of the state. To change the rules now is outrageous. The guy is a joke.

I was also at the game in Fargo when the whole place went silent after the Leclair hit on Nelson. The Sioux ended a long streak of dominance by the Bison that year. Both Steve Nelson and Leclair had big games that day for their teams. I have no idea about these guys that came after Leclair but, for that era, was something else and came up big in big games.

I don't have a problem with them selling the place out, but they shouldn't restrict us from buying the remainder on a first come first serve basis online the same as all the rest of their home games. If their season ticket base drops off in the future, they will want us back as customers - or at least the people who are in charge of the budgets will.

I called the league office in Colorado Springs this morning and complained about the ticketing process described above and had a call back from the UNO ticket office within an hour. I then bought tickets for each night over the phone. A lot of hassle. I let the league office know that them not selling tickets online for this series was BS and they seemed to agree, but don't know if I was talking to anyone in any kind of position of authority. Its bad for the league if they don't want us filling up their stadiums. Without us, they don't have a league. League needs to discourage this kind of behavior by the teams. Too bad UNO doesn't try to schedule the UND series back at Centurylink. Last year they had 10 to 11 thousand there each night and I think it was fun for their team to play in front of that many. And they gave the Sioux all they could handle. Sioux came out of it with one win and they were lucky to get that. Sioux fans spent a lot of money in downtown Omaha that won't be spent this year.

Its hard to believe he is actually our athletic director. I suppose there are a couple of million ($) other reasons Hak left, but I think he would be glad to be away from Faison and Kelley.

A few years back the Lamorieax (spelling) sisters had just returned from the Olympics and did a ceremonial puck drop at a Sioux game at Engelstad. As they were walking off the ice they stripped off their Olympic jerseys to reveal their Sioux sweaters. The camera focused in on Hak and even he had to smile wryly about that one.