CarpeRemote

I’d prefer we play these games in high school hockey hotbeds and use the game as a recruiting tool. Host recruits etc. But I have to agree that Nashville is a great town and well worth the trip for fans. Like a little Las Vegas. I’d never give a B10 program like PSU who is now focusing on hockey and backing it with cash the ability to tell recruits they get games and opponents like this.

I have to admit that when I see it next to the others it looks really good

(Not directed at you) It doesn’t suck despite being a generic, grunting grazer with turds on it’s fur, because they win. If NDSU’s football logo and mascot the past 50 years had been a Pekingese peeing on a lamp post it would now be awe inspiring, and Fargo would have a public hanging for the dork who changed it to bison. In sports winning fixes everything. It will at UND too.

Agree. Every successful college sports program is intensely branded. Its not easy to do but It’s critical for recruiting, monetization, and winning. The most important thing about the logo/mascot is that it’s incorporated into the overall program brand. What the logo actually is, is far less important, Penguins sounds stupid until they reel off championships, after that it’s a brand and next thing you know hard nosed Steeler fans are walking around with a formal chicken on their shirts and it looks fine. Golden Knights was a little cheesy until now. Oilers, meat Packers, Crimson algae, Buckeye nuts, generic animals like Jayhawks, Eagles, Gators, Bruins, Bears, Longhorns, and Ducks...all goofy until they kick your a$$. Those schools and teams are the brand, the logos are secondary but need to be embraced and incorporated Other teams feared North Dakota, not the Sioux. They don’t care what our logo is or was, but they do care about playing a great hockey program. The more we bitch the more it hurts our brand. As a recruit it would be weird going somewhere where fans are so neurotic they seem hate the mascot on your jersey more than they like the team. 1/2 these kids in college are probably sick of a bunch of grumpy old men screaming ‘Sioux’ and ‘get off my lawn’. I guarantee the players get sick of it, they never played for the Sioux and are here because UND, not the Sioux, gives them a shot at glory and the NHL. Allow them to be proud of the logo, not be embarrassed by it I didn’t like it at first but my brain trumped my vicarious memories, and I decided I like winning a helluva lot more than nostalgia. Life is about change. Put the damn Hawk on the floor and hats and embrace it, buy a keychain. We can modify how it looks later if we want, it’s done all the time. Build the brand, sell the shirts, pay the bills, recruit the players, win the games, have fun; repeat.

“Usefulness”? Think back on your life about someone who did something for you they didn’t have to and it changed everything. Thank you Englestads

Please don’t mess this topic up with a cogent argument. But thank you anyway.

I assume his uncle is Bill Stankoven. Maybe not the best goalie we ever had but certainly had the best hair.

Or would it make it easier to comply if we gave up that many men’s schollies? I know enough about Title IX to be dangerous but my wife is an HR attorney who deals with Title IX suits, and I sleep at Holiday Inns. Without a lot of background info she said eliminating a football team is more likely to solve than create IX issues. It seems odd a school would allow losing enough money on one poorly supported sport to wipe out the deficits of 7-8 sports. I feel like an actor in the commercial where we become our parents for even discussing a football cut, and I admit I’m bias because I love our hockey program. From a sports perspective hockey is our identity. I live in the east and and no matter how cocky people are about their behemoth football they defer entirely to UND hockey. Side note: I wonder how we are able to lose about double the money on women’s basketball and volleyball than NDSU

The football team virtually bleeds money. Negative revenue of 2.3 million in 2016. I barely missed a hockey game in my four years but I might have been to the Potato Bowl once, ate a potato, and left at halftime. Small college football is going the way of the dodo at an accelerating rate. I will duck now.

Do you have a sense of how hard this staff (top to bottom) recruits relative to the pre-Berry era and also to other good and upcoming programs? I’m not beating up on this staff, just trying to get a read. Thanks

Thanks for all the great posts and info I get here; one of my pearls in life is to surround myself with people smarter than me. Would anyone mind posting what you consider good sources directly related to hockey recruiting and evaluation. Greatly appreciated

It’s all about your last sentence. NCAA hockey is basically one and done like basketball so in this business you can’t afford an off-year in recruiting. 17 year olds have a short memory reference. Two bad years of results and in their minds you are average. The top of the heap college coaches literally hire their assistants based on: 1. Can they recruit? 2. Can they coach? ”Recruiting is like shaving, if you miss a day you look like a bum”—Jim Tressel

Absolutely, the BIG has recently decided they want to win at hockey, it’s not a flash in the pan situation. With annual budgets of over $100,000,000, annual receipts of $28,000,000 million/year per team just from the B10 Network, and paying the women’s volleyball coach $48,000 above Berry’s salary, it’s going to be a challenge for us now that hockey is a focus. Now more than ever we need to recruit like mad, run the toughest program, get every ounce out of our players and keep adding to NHL rosters. Everyone who comes here wants the NHL and wants a program that demands and provides excellence from the table, to the weight program, to the coaching.

Agree. Having followed recruiting closely for decades I know there are always blue chips that wash out (mostly because their head isn’t screwed on straight) but a constant is that teams with the highest ranked recruits win the games. Coaching staffs who recruit like their hair is on fire are the most successful. The adage, “It’s not the X’s and O’s, It’s the Jimmys and Joes”, will always be true.

Unfortunately or fortunately Ohio State is here to stay. Their athletic Dept makes a huge profit and spends $109,000,000/yr on the programs. Their synchronized swimming team is in a new $20,000,000 facility. They decided to have a winning hockey team a few years ago and bought one. Their roster used to be mostly Ohio kids, Michigan kids, and maybe 4 Canadians. This year they have 4 kids from Ohio. Their coach wanted a $75,000 treadmill for their hockey team and a booster paid for one immediately. There are 3 Big 10 teams in the Four if you count Notre Dame. The conference has bought in to hockey now. The good part is teams like Ohio State will bring college hockey more mainstream. But competing against that kind of money isn’t easy. Our biggest selling point to recruits is that we are a blue blood with the NHL pipeline, facilty, location near recruits, and fan base. I think our recruiting budget is under $500,000 so we need to make the most of it

It’s all about recruiting. Really, it is.

As much as I loved Sioux hockey while at UND I reluctantly agree it’s time to embrace the Fighting Hawks even if it’s not what I would have voted for. These players are young and barely remember even the last Olympics. They probably on average don’t care about the name They were recruited as Hawks and wear the jersey. It would be weird being a player while the fans chant another name as though that’s more important than them and the program. I might do them some good to hear it as it is