Rebel_Sioux

Perhaps. But that could take a decade or more to pan out as they need more actual PAC teams first. The other western conferences offer better opportunities in the near term.

Perhaps, but Atlantic Hockey is even less worthy. I suppose they could play in the NCHC and compete with the other CO teams instead of an Ohio team but that's also unlikely to happen.

I know why this won't happen, but it would really be better for AF to join the WCHA and then just play a non conference series against Army.

Let's be honest, even with the college players (plus a few recently retired players or players whose owners let them go) the US and Canada teams will still have some pretty competitive teams.

Sadly I haven't been able to attend a game in person since the new name was adopted (Texas is pretty far away), so I can't comment much on how persistent the booing is (although I could occasionally hear it on the TV), or which teams have fostered the best environment, but in terms of support, I'm pretty sure the athletes are smart enough to realize that fans are booing the name, not them or their performance.

So where was this outrage when we were still the Fighting Sioux and only the hockey teams wore the logo?

Well as a current MS student and BS grad I would have thought the $80K (rough estimate) I've invested on my two degrees might have warranted a vote. I'm not sure what went wrong with the committee. They repeatedly ignored what polls indicated that most people wanted. Rumor has it Kelley appointed a lot of PC minded members but I'm not sure how true that is.

For the record, one can accept the change and move on while still recognizing that the NCAA/UND administration have mishandled pretty much every step of the process. We can still support the school but that doesn't mean we have to agree with their logo or funding decisions. Most people I know, fall into this category.

I think the school should have road out the "No Name" policy for longer. Both sides were moderately happy with it for the time being. But no...the administration(s) had to put fuel on the fire. First with the nickname committee, then with the terrible logo. But fires aside, the fans did submit some truly unique names. How did names like Green Hawks or Sundogs* ever get past the initial cut? *As a meteorologist I liked this name, as a fan I think it was terrible. No one besides Hawaii wants to be named after a rainbow.

I agree ...you think they'd be able to realize that in times of tight budgets, some things need to go such as the $25K banquet and weekly awards

This was one criticism I had with cutting Swimming and Diving to begin with. The school will likely still keep the pool because most 4 year colleges have pools plus the community seems to be pushing them that way too (not sure if they'll help with the budget though). All I can say for sure is that being from Minnesota, not having somewhere to swim would have given me pause on choosing UND.

Ah. You're right. I was thinking of Indoor/Outdoor track and field getting counted twice. Regardless you're missing the point. Cutting sports, majors and professors is far worse for our image than underfunding the marketing department. Demolishing some of those buildings is overdue. Some may have been avoidable with proper maintenence from past administrations but that is a moot point and I don't blame Kennedy for those choices. But the buildings that remain, even the newer ones, are still falling apart with numerous leaks, outdated AC (if any) and heating systems, etc. I'm not saying they shouldn't increase the marketing budget, but $3M is a huge jump considering the current budget.

Baseball, golf and women's hockey make 3. Swimming and Diving officially counts as 4 sports...so 7.

No you really don't get it. The name was retired. Fine. We will move on because we have to. But cutting 7 sports (assuming men's golf goes), academic majors and buildings does more to harm our image as a school than marketing the new brand that, to date, hasn't even sold well at its current funding.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article159321249.html Saw this today. $3M for a re-branding campaign. We can't afford to maintain the buildings on campus or fund all of our sports, but we can sure afford to jam a new logo and slogan down your throat!

Same people the Indian names have offended...rich white lawyers who aren't affiliated with the names in any way.

And yet, somehow Fighting Irish, Padres and Demon Deacons are ok.

And about 1000 of those comments are people high fiving each other over being right about their predictions and/or how glad they are that the sport is gone. Another 500 comments are from people criticizing the twins or Brad Schlossman. Then the remaining 200 or so comments are from people who actually liked women's hockey.

I've always felt that was relatively clear.

I wasn't saying the cost of the name change alone cost UND 2 million a year. But everything can snowball quickly. You have the actual costs of all the committees and cost of the logo firm and then there are the annual loses in licensing and fundraising. And yes, I know we were forced to retire the name, but the way the new Fighting Hawks name and logo was forced onto the school that was already having budget issues made many alumni and donors that much more unhappy, thus making fundraising even harder. Given all of those factors I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that we may have been able to save some of the sports if the Fighting Hawks name hadn't been forced onto us.

I agree with this 100% even going a few years back. For those who were paying attention to the state budget, the cutting of a few sports was obvious. But this probably isn't true of the vast majority. If they had blatantly said we need to raise $XM dollars to avoid cutting sports/majors I bet they could have saved some teams and degrees. Of course, if they hadn't wasted the money on the new name and logo, they may have been able to raise enough money to keep all of the teams.

The S&D team had some make the Olympic trials. So they almost had an Olympian :-)

I meant in reference to the article. You post was fine.

That's a bit of an understatement there. If a school is ready to make the jump then they should. Waiting for 7 other schools to upgrade their facilities so the whole conference can move up could take decades.

As a meteorologist, I actually prefer Sundogs to Fighting Hawks.