Brim006

And even if UND came after him late, I would actually respect if the kid has the old school mentality that he'd stick with the school that believed in him before anyone else. His speed, hands and elusiveness reminds me a lot of Grant Johnson. Grant had 75 points as a JR with GFC and 85 as a SR. Mattern is already at 58 with 6 games to go plus another potential 6 more depending on EDC and state. With Mattern's 8 point game last night he's pushing nearly 4 points per game on average

So it just feels a bit like things are snowballing and worsening at a pretty fast rate for UND athletics. The only bright spot right now is the excitement around the new football coaching staff that seem to be bringing a lot of energy and excitement. If we don't start seeing rapid changes for other teams now as well during their off seasons, I think Chaves either isn't taking his role seriously, or is clearly out of touch. UND can't continue making changes 2-3 years too late because we're seeing the results from that shortfall currently. I hate the rotating door culture we're currently seeing in the NHL head coaches, but I also can't stand the decade long drag out of coaches getting 3-4 second chances that they dont deserve and are never able to course correct. It would be nice to find a happy medium between those 2 examples. If anything, get some excitement back with your fan base and cut the loosest fat and salvage any fan pride that's left out there after these embarrassing dry spells.

It's actually pretty remarkable when you step back and look at the full picture. Essentially every single UND program has been declining in unison. It might be tough to find a single other school in the MVFC, Summit or NCHC that has had worse overall athletic departments than UND has had across the board the past 2 seasons. To make matters even worse, look at UND's closest peers, ND?U, SDSU and USD across all of their team sports for a direct comparison and woof, it's nearly a 180 flip of all winning records compared to UND's losing records across the board (or currently on track for losing records). FYI - hockey is the ONLY team sport at UND that ended with a winning record or is currently holding a winning record this season. And if hockey is the best UND has then things are even worse than I realized. As for fan morale? Living in the Bismarck-Mandan area which I'd say could be considered a decent in-state neutral example, I'd venture to guess that of the "local" 4 schools gear, stickers and flags presence it is BY FAR in large NDSU appearances, followed by a large gap to 2nd place SDSU appearances, closely followed by UND and then rare USD appearances in a distant 4th.

I'd bet that was pretty epic. That rink was so electric

He's proving to be the real deal thus far. His size might be the only negative, but that certainly hasn't stopped many speedy forwards at the D1 level lately, so not really a major factor. I'd imagine he'll be playing in the USHL somewhere next year.

Mattern continues his ripper of a season. He might hit 50 goals at this rate, especially if they make state and get 3 bonus games. All as a junior to boot. Looks like the last time a 50 goal season happened was Bott's Aide in 2013-2014 and Mandan's Bair in 2004-2005 before that, so once a decade. Both with 52. As far as 50 goals in the EDC...no clue. Probably someone in the 90s? Also, when was the last time there was an active D1 commit playing in NDHSH? Braden Costello from RR when he was already committed to UND played in the 2016-2017 season. Was GFC Grant Johnson committed to Northern Mich during his Senior year or did that commitment come after high school? His SR season at GFC was also 2016-2017.

WF appears to be a completely different team at this point. 9 game win streak, scoring 5+ goals every single game. They must've changed something because things are clicking and they figured out how to better utilize a player like mattern.

Mattern already has 5 hattys, and 3 of which were 4 goal games. Ufda I wasn't sure anyone would beat Eric Meland's EDC 45 goal mark from 2007-2008 since even Grant Johnson never even broke 30 in his historic runs. But it looks like Mattern will easily beat it at this current pace (27 goals in 13 games).

I recall him from a game in 2006-2007 in Minot. DL vs Minot. I believe the penalties were like 8 or 9 for DL and 0 for Minot late into the 3rd. Ole Al Henry called him over to the bench and threatened to rip his head off . I don't think he gave out another penalty after that and DL won on a penalty shot either really late in the 3rd or maybe even OT. The kid from DL who scored the penalty shot was wearing 2 different skates because he had to borrow one from a teammate due to getting slashed so hard on a breakaway that his tuuk shattered and the blade flew off. Kind of a funny memory.

Looks like some good matchups tonight. I'll be curious to see how the FN and WF game goes. J-town and Mandan should also be a good one too.

For some reason this Minot season seems too good to be true. Although I'd love to see them go undefeated and win it all, I am going to guess they will drop 1 bad game in the reg season and lose to an EDC team at state 1st or 2nd round.

Men's Bball = 1-3 conf and 7-12 overall good for 8th in summit currently Women's Bball = 2-2 conf and 7-10 overall good for 5th in summit currently Football = 2-6 conf and 5-7 overall good for 8th in MV Hockey = 7-3-2 conf and 12-8-1 overall good for 1st in NSIC, but bad non-con losses have them likely missing NCAAs yet again. Soccer = 0-4-4 conf and 4-8-6 overall good for last Softball 6-12 conf and 14-42 overall good for last Volleyball 2-14 conf and 9-18 overall good for last At what point does the pressure move to Chaves instead of just coach by coach? I'm not sure I can find a peer school with worse overall athletics than UND right now, and that includes last year and this year so far.

I like this plan the most.

Yes, this is great. Hopefully everything falls into place without too many hiccups and/or delay. Grand Forks needs to continue building on the momentum of some of these industries they rely on and do well. Diversification is great, but GF will likely fail to be the best location for many other industries that might have eyes on ND. I wouldn't waste too much time or resources on those lower chance options and instead keep piling on the food processing and drone trains that seem to work well overall. This company will mostly produce retail fries for grocery chains like Costco and Sam's club I believe. Mostly using yellow potatoes and likely will have battered fries as well. Although Simplot doesnt do a lot of retail (directly), this will cause major competition for employees which will drive up wages and naturally bring more people to town. Good news all around.

Still nowhere near the caliber of venue kids deserve for state tournament games, even just consolation games, but I just wanted to post photos of the rink after the renovations because like many others, I also have an orange dungeon feel memory of the Eagles which isn't the case anymore.

Do you know if that's the plan again this year? Or if only boys is in GF and they can do all games at the Ralph including consolation? Worst case, the consolation teams should be playing at the purpur, not Eagles. Hoping that was a one off issue due to scheduling constraints or something because I agree, that doesn't make much sense.

Not to defend the legendary troll, but even out west the only answers I ever hear from kids are that they either don't really care, or they say the Ralph. Anecdotal because I haven't asked a ton, but I have yet to hear a kid directly say Scheels in Fargo.

That makes sense, I get what you mean.

It's girls hockey. Exactly, but you were directly comparing attendance in past years to the year it was in Minot. The fact that girls hockey attendance is low isn't the point. Your point was that it was even lower than normal soley due to being in Minot, which I think is false. I think it was lower than normal primarily due to being detached from boys state for the first time, and to your additional good point - that it was at the same time as WDA basketball tournaments there...not directly because it was Minot instead of Fargo. I'd agree Bismarck is a great atmosphere for WDA and wish they'd alternate every year with Minot. Have to call out your comment - [Minot] "it's on an island in the middle of nowhere" - In relation to what...Minnesota? From that comment, I can tell you are from Fargo haha. Minot is about as centrally located in the state as you can get, second to Bismarck. Fargo is about as far as you can get into the corner of the state, so if you want to argue it that way, I'd say Fargo is on an island in the middle of nowhere in relation to the rest of the state of ND. Even despite 5 of the 20 boys teams all being in the area, Fargo isn't closer for any more teams than Minot is. 10 teams vs 10 teams split actually (see below), with Minot winning the tie breaker due to longer miles in total combined. So in reality Fargo is actually more in the middle of nowhere than Minot is pertaining to the hockey teams in North Dakota. Closer to Minot = Minot, Williston, HB, Bottineau, DL, BHS, CHS, Legacy, Mandan, Dickinson Closer to Fargo = FSS, FN, FD, GFC, RR, WF, WFS, GPR, Jamestown, Mayville

I was wondering the same thing. Although Eagles has been greatly improved, why was that rink chosen instead of Purpur or even Icon as the secondary rink for state.

I remember that game. That one and when GPR was playing a few years before that, I distinctly remember the cheerleaders having to go up to the upper deck and remove the giant posters to free up more seats as people were pouring in. If attendance for state games ever spikes back up, I think the Ralph in GF will be the one and only option for the state hockey tournament at least for boys, but as of right now I don't forsee that happening anytime soon as attendance is hurting across all sports at all levels across the country.

Looks like only about 2,000 for actual seating capacity so only a few hundred more for standing. But what have the state championship boys attendances been in recent years? Can't be much more than that I wouldnt think. Maybe some exclusiveness and a barn packed to the brims would be the best atmosphere yet.

Was girls state attendance way down because of the location, or was it just because it was solo for the first time and didn't have default fans from the boys? I think the answer is the latter. Since Minot, GF and Fargo all have setups that work, I think for the purpose of spreading the wealth, and for the betterment of the game within the state, it would be best to rotate between the 3 each year and always have boys and girls in separate locations. I know Fargoians believe they're the center of the universe, but the fact is they're in a far corner of the state and it's logistically unattractive to many cities/teams. We all know Fargo would love to capture all the state tournaments and all big tournaments in general, but I think a hockey town like Minot would be a great host even for the boys, and we all know the dream of playing in the Ralph will always keep GF as the other top option despite their 2nd rink drawback. With that said, due to the dying breed of olympic ice, has there been talk of switching the ralph practice ice to the normal size yet?

The players used to and likely still do unanimously prefer the Ralph for obvious reasons. Although the smaller atmosphere has probably changed a few of their minds, especially if they have already gotten to experience playing in the Ralph before.

The GFC win was the most impressive of all I think. I remember being shocked seeing Minot get that far let alone winning it all. Because I didnt follow the 2nd half of the season much and I recalled DL beating them to win the Roseau tournament and not much after that. There have been so many Minot teams that were better than that team, but like you said, everything just fell perfectly into place for them that season for whatever reason. And they had a guy like Flom to score just enough of those big goals needed and their goalie to keep them in it. That's when the west won back to back titles for the first time ever.