Rick

As you listen to that interview you get a glimpse of what makes Sioux Hockey special. While the star players in other programs can't wait to get out, Sioux players like Oshie, Toews, Duncan, Chorney, Finley.....the list is very long, have an extremely hard time leaving. Oshie says it's like a family, and we see that year after year. How many times, over the last 4-5 years, have we heard about other programs star freshmen players packing it in during the second half of the season because they can't wait to get out? When you hear about a star player moving all his stuff out the day after his last game as a freshman, you start to wonder when they started "packing" the season in? They all talk about not being happy with the way they've been used, or they're not happy with whatever. But, as you listen to them, they're always talking about "me". While UND players talk about the team and about the family atmosphere, others are talking about "me". You really have to Hakstol and company credit, they are not only getting all the best players available, but they are getting the ones with great character and they are getting them to fully buy into the program. There isn't another program that comes close to what Sioux Hockey fans get to experience year in and year out.

Hey, I believe the I-29 railroad overpass down by the Mayville approaches 21 or 22 feet. I believe I can see the State Capitol Building in Bismarck when I reach the peak. :-)

I know what will happen.....Brian Lee will get blamed. I've never understood the "we're not the favorities" philosophy. This is exactly where I'd like to be.....the favorites. I'd like it to be that way every year. I say, put the target on UND's back and let someone else try to take it away. If someone doesn't want to be the favorite they should start cheering for some other team that has a chance of sneaking up in the standing about once ever 10 years.

I think we can all agree on several things......Hak has done an outstanding job his first three years and everyone feels he should be rewarded for his excellence. He took his first 3 teams to the Frozen Four and that is a very rare accomplishment. With a little bit of luck (or a gift call or two from a ref like we witnessed a few years ago in an overtime game) he could have number 8 hanging from the rafters. Not only is he getting his teams to the Frozen Four, but he

The highest paid coaches in college hockey haven't come close to accomplishing what Hak has done in his first three years, so I'm confident that he'll get a contract that will keep him happy and still fit within the Athletic Departments budgets. I'm as big of a Hak fan as anyone. He's the best coach and recruiter in college hockey, but the only way UND will lose him is if he gets a good NHL opportunity. If that happens, it's not going to matter what UND is paying him, because he'd most likely make the jump to the NHL. There isn't a better job in college hockey than the one he's at right now so moving to a higher level/better program isn't in the cards. I say.....relax, it [better contract] will get done.

I think that shows how incredible Jonathan Toews was. He was an even younger 17 y/o as a freshman and I believe he had close to 40 points.

I agree with Dagies.....one of his former coaches said that his greatest strength was skating. I believe the coach said that for a player as big as Fienhage he skates extremely well. If he has any weaknesses, I don't believe skating is one of them.

On the menu they call it wabbit steaks. I've heard that dining services has receive a lot of complaints over the last few years about people finding pellets in their prime rib steak.

I believe Johnny Carson used to do a skit on this guy. Wasn't his name Floyd R. Turbo?

I believe that the main reason they went South was to access marine transportation. Some of the blades are about 42 meters (almost 130 feet) long with 123 layers of fiberglass, and the new blades are just over 65 meters (215 feet), so they need to ship them by barge. I thought they'd end up building a facility North of New Orleans on the Mississippi, but they must have gotten a deal in Little Rock. I've never been to Little Rock, but the Arkansas River must be large enough for barge traffic over to the Mississippi River. The shorter blades can be transported by rail and truck The Grand Forks plant has done an outstanding job of reducing their cycle times and becoming very productive. With the large number of fiberglass layers that are layed into each blade, it creates all kinds of quality issues if they don't complete a blade in one 10 hour shift. Just a couple months ago they were at a 23 hour cycle time and I believe they've reduced it to about 8 hours now. If the Red River flowed over to the Mississippi, I suspect GF would have had a chance of doing the big blades also.

I wasn't questioning your analysis of Gleason, I was most likely in the practice rink at different times. I was probably in the Main Rink when he got beat. But I didn't see any issues with his skating and I was really impressed with his poise on the blue line when he was under pressure during power plays.

Hey, maybe Gerry Grassfire and Smokey Joe Chaps could be locked in a cage match until The Sicatoka declares a winner.

I also left the office a couple of times on Friday to run over and catch parts of two games. When the Green Team played I was really impressed with Kristo and Fink. They were terrific on the penalty kill. They played keep-a-way for quite a while playing short handed. Kristo was much faster than I thought he'd be and I thought he was clearly the best player on the ice. I was hoping to see what Kristo and Fink would do with the man advantage, but in the 3 power plays they had while I was there, the coaches never put them out. My guess is that the coaches knew what they could do on the PP and wanted to see what some of the other could do. I thought Cichy struggled while I was watching, but I only got to see the first period of this game. Apparently he really stepped it up the rest of the game because he ended up with a goal and two assists. I wish I would have stuck around for the rest of the game. We must have seen different periods of Gleason because I was really impressed with his poise on the blue line, especially during the power plays. I thought he did a very good job of getting the puck to the net and he had a terrific spin-o-rama with the puck to avoid the opposing forward who thought he was going knock Gleason and the puck out of the zone. Again, I only got to see him for one period. I was really impressed with Tyler Landmann. He's a great skater and I thought he was very effective on the penalty kill. He is very good at getting the puck to his teammates for great scoring chances. I also saw Craig Ludwig there but I didn't know what number his kid was. It would be nice to have another Ludwig with the Sioux.

We're getting sidelined here. I was just wonder what the NCAA would do if the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux was located in Sioux Falls or Sioux City? Would that matter? I don't see how they'd be able to say the UND Fighting Sioux are hostile and abusive without saying the the city the university resides in is hostile and abusive.

I wonder what would happen if the city of Grand Forks would have been named Sioux Falls, Sioux City or Sioux Forks? Instead of the Grand Cities....maybe it should be the Grand Sioux. I'd rather change the name of the city than to change the name of the U. Would the NCAA still be able to tell UND they have to change their name and logo? How could the NCAA tell a team that their name is hostile and abusive if the city they're located in also has the name Sioux in it? Would they require both the city and university to change their name? What If......

We're members of Calvary. We'll be there at 10am Sunday morning. I don't think I'd be in favor of naming our hockey team after our church though.

That's good to hear. Now we know that the bridge to no-where is at least going somewhere.

It's not only the peach-scented oil beads that are keeping him in the tub.....I heard that he recently ripped off one of those life-sized Danica Patrick cutouts from Happy Harry's, and now it resides in his bath tub. Again, this is only a rumor, but you know the old saying.....where there's bubbles, there's oil scented beads....or something like that. ;-)

No it isn't. You first heard that name last June 3rd, it's just that your getting senile and you don't remember it.

One of the main things you want to look at is the bearing used in the skate. The bearing that Rollerblade uses is excellent. When you spin the wheels you'll be able to tell the difference in the quality of the bearing just by listening to it. Those Kame-Apart specials you're using right now are probably pretty noisy. I can't remember the name of the bearing that Rollerblade uses, but it probably wouldn't be too hard to find out. I'd ask what bearing K2, Salomon & Bauer use and see if it's the same as Rollerblade. Maybe the others even have a better bearing now, I haven't checked them out for a long time. It's about time you opened that crusty wallet and spent a few of those dusty Benjamin

I could care less if they want to waste their time reading my e-mails. The only person I wouldn't want reading my e-mails is PCM.

Dagies, (aka Mohammod Ali).....you're landing some real hay-makers today. Try to keep all the punches above the belt.

Zing......oooh, right between the eyes Dagies.

brady murray signs with the kings http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/transactions Parise joins team USA http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/story/2007...orldroster.html PCM inks new 5 year deal http://www.worldnews.com/sudo/reporting/2007

Looks like Erwin Martens should have gotten us +15.2% last year, so The Sicatoka is being a little conservative.