pentaxman46

I have heard that Coach Jones has a good red shirt class and that he has held true to his word not to play them this year. I don't know anything about them. What I want to know is: 1) How good are they?, 2) Any size in the middle?, 3) Who are the standouts?, 4) Is this the group that will give our men's team the jump start they need to get back on the map? DG

On the Sunday night Sioux TV show a couple of weeks ago, Coach Mussman mentioned Brady Trenbeath's potential last game against USD. In the Sunday paper he was neither listed as graduating or returning. Exactly what is Brady's status for next season? DG

Jeff Panzer and Jason Blake are 2 others that played their 4 years out.

Wouldn't it be absolutely refreshing if one of these players said, " It isn't all about me and money, I've made a commtment to this program and want to stay and help win a national championship." I know it's a pipe dream, but it would be great to finally find a player that put something first instead of themselves. Unfortunately greed will prevail. As you can tell I, too, am fed up with constantlly fielding what amounts to a junior college hockey program. DG

I don't understand why the hockey team can't paractice at the Ralph through Tuesday. The bb teams would be showing up in town untill Weds and The Ralph crew can put the bb floor up Tuesday evening after the Sioux are done with hockey practice. DG

I read somewhere that Fox Sports North was working a deal with ESPN 2 for the regional games. Anyone heard anymore about this? DG

This is not the first time an ex NFL coach has come back from retirement to coach Div II or III football. Lou Saban, former coach of the Buffalo Bills, OJ simpson's head coach, retired and then came back to coach both a high school team and later a Div III team. DG

1) We have to a much better job of breaking out of our zone and creating offense off it this afternoon. If Denver gets the time of possession that we let Wisconsin have last night it will be over real quick. 2) Where has Radke been lately. I thought he was supposed to be one of our best young blue line players but I haven't heard his name mentioned during a game in a long, long time. 3) During one of the period breaks last night the Commisioner of the WCHA said that there is an agreement between the WCHA and CCHA about joint telecasts this weekend. Will we be picking up not only the WCHA games but also CCHA games on FSN today and tomorrow? DG

PA and Dubay just gave great rube creds to Sioux fan's for traveling so well last night. They seemed to be very impressed with the amount of Sioux fan support at the X. Congrats not just to our hockey team, but also to you rubes who made the treak! DG

Good jump in the first, I thought we rope 'a doped it a bit in the 2nd. My main area of concern still is the struggle we have in clearing our zone. Wisconsin had several stretches of prolonged time of possession in our end. That's about the only thing I agreed with Woug and Frank about.

It was said last week that UND needed a good effort against the 'Dogs' to get an NCAA bid. Now that that has happened does everyone feel that the Sioux will get the bid no matter what happens this weekend? DG

I think I saw a different game Sunday than DH and TH did. The last half of the 3rd period was owned by Wisconsin. The time of possession Wisconsin had in our end was ridiculous. We were running around like we were on a penalty kill for the last 12 minutes. When we finally would break out and get down into Wisconsins end we'd get about 10 seconds of possesion before the Badgers would clear the zone and put another long surge of pressure on Jordy. I timed one stretch and Wisconsin had the puck in our end for 64 seconds before we could clear. On the TV telecast PS and JB commented on the Badgers carrying the play to us in the last 10 minutes and the Sioux, supposedly noted for their conditioning, looked tired. The Badgers had far more jump than we did during that stretch.

The Saturday afternoon UND/Wisc game was packed, 11,500 official attendance. Sunday, however, the attendance dropped to 10,500. 1000 empty seats for a game with the hated Badgers, what gives? DG

Hey, the home uni green helmets and breezers were worn during that natl championship game. Don't mess with our silly superstitions! Besides, I did mention that the black is ok for road games. DG

And one other thing, speaking of green and white, it's about time that they bring back the green helmets and breezers for home games. The black stuff is ok on the road, but we haven't been the same hockey team since they went to black helmets and breezers. We do bleed Sioux green, not institutional black! DG

Part of, in fact most of, the reason for the poor ice is the insulation and basketball and other flooring laid over the ice for auxillary events in the Ralph. I've mentioned before in other threads that the Vancouver NHL team rediscovered what real good ice can be once the NBA team moved to Memphis. I knew when bb got their foot in the door with the Kansas game we were in trouble.. The problem with the Ralph is that it is all about money! They could care less about a charged up atmosphere, just don't upset the big money season ticket holders, most of whom sit up in their suites playing pocker or pinnacle. The Ralph is way too dead. Too much leather, wood, rubberized paint and accoustical tile on the back walls. Also too many people going because of the building, not the game. I wish when they planned the arena that they had used the design of the Old Ralph and dropped 10,000 green and white plastic seats into that baby and let her rip! Put the students back where they belong, like in the Old Ralph, and hang on to your hats. DG

The real problem, as verified by Tim Hennesy after the game Sat night, was that Denver had great head man passes and their speed in transition created a lot of odd man rushes. We just didn't have the speed to counter act. Gone are the "speed kills"days when the Sioux would burn everyone with their quickness. Denver had far better depth. Their last line has a 30+ point man. I have to agree, the Sioux seem very disorginized offensivley. The good teams we have played have much better offensive orginization and flow. Someone missed the boat on a lot of our recruits over the last few years because once you get past the first line our talent is at best average. If the Sioux struggle to beat Bemidji, how in the world can we seriously think they have a shot at an NCAA invite. The results this past weekend bear me out. DG

During the World Junior's comments were made by players and the ESPN broadcast crew about the bumpy ice. REA has struggled with ice since it opened and mostly because it has become an all purpose arena. A couple years ago, when Vancouver was in St Paul to play the Wild, PA and Dubay interviewed the Vancouver play by play guy. They asked him what it was like being the only show in town since the Vancouver NBA team moved to Memphis. He said that the only thing he new for sure was that since the basketball team moved out of the arena they now had some of the best ice in the NHL. DG

It is time that we come up with some sort of VooDoo karma thing for the goalies that face the Sioux. Almost every opposing goalie that have started against us, this year, have had a career night. I have never seen anything like it! I can't remember the last goalie that had a poor performance against the Sioux. I think over the last 1 1/2 years you can count on one hand the number of poor performances by opposing team goalies.

Lest the bison faithfull (brainwashed) forget, their first attempt at the "big time" was to pursue D1 hockey. Their administration and the city of fargo tried to shove an arena proposal down the collective throats of the fargo voters. That effort was a horrible failure as the voters , including the ndsu campus vote, shoved the proposal up Chapman's and Taylor's collective rears. Still smarting from a huge case of big green penis envy Chapman, and his lacky Taylor, decided that they would show UND somehting by going D1aa football and throw the rest of their programs to the wolves. They knew that the chances of the ncaa reducing DII scholarships was small. They just used it as one of their excuses to make the move and masage Chapman's ego. DG

Maybe I'm missing something here but for the life of me I don't understand why RT would want the comish job of a conference that has been gutted of 2 charter members (ndsu and sdsu) and 1 very strong football member ( northern colorado). The replacement, so far umd, doesn't bring the strength to the table that those 3 schools do. Mankato and St Cloud, perhaps due to hockey costs, are having trouble with their respective athletic budgets. I would think the AD job at UND would be far more attractive. DG

For years the area behind the opposing bench at the Hyslop was called the "snake pit". UND students would get there early and trash talk the opposition coaches and players. During time outs the visiting team would have to take their chairs out toward the middle of the floor to get away from the "snake pit" verbal abuse. Some of the visiting teams enjoyed the pit fans creativity, others must not have because the last few years at the Hyslop Sioux fans were not allowed behind the opposition bench. DG

Because the Ralph ice crew had to replace the Sioux logo with the IIHF logo at center ice, they may have had to start with a fresh sheet of ice that wouldn't have had time to cure and would be a little slow. I don't understand why they didn't do this earlier in the season so the ice had time to set up for this tournament.

If the BSC expands I can't imagine that they would take in more than 2 new schools. It seems like a slam dunk that Northern Colorado and Southern Utah fit their geographic mold far better than any of the Dakota schools. I would be shocked if any of the Dakota colleges got an invite. DG

I've been very disappointed in our lack of intensity all year. After Saturday's game DH complimented Alaska for playing hard all weekend. Why in the world can't we get a consistant hard effort out of the Sioux. The only times this past weekend that we played with intensity was the 2nd period Friday night and the last 3-4 minutes of the 3rd period Saturday night. During those times we were all over Alaska. We have to play that way every night to be effective. The players know that, they talked about coming out strong in the first period Sat but it didn't happen. They were flat...again. I'm also dissappointed in our defense. Alaska's first goal Saturday night was inexcusable. To allow Alaska's McMahon to skate away from the boards with the puck and move in front of the net for the shot was unbelievable, but the kind of thing that has been going on with our defense the last 3-4 years. Mental mistakes continue to plague our "veteran " blue line crew. Tim Hennesey's new broadcast partner, Greg L. was right when he said that to loose to Alaska at home is just not acceptable! On the plus side it was nice to get Brady Murray's energy back into the lineup. A nice 3 point weekend for him. DG