mksioux

I'll contact him and report back. I know he'll want to play if he doesn't have some other tournament already scheduled. Update: Stuckinfargo will play.

BUMP Anyone else going?

Having the place filled with Gopher and BEMIDJI STATE fans will be more depressing than if it were empty.

Another question is when was the last time UND got swept at home by St Cloud?

Where have I heard this before? While it's obviously a true statement, I think it gets thrown around too much by the Sioux faithful because we think our team is better than we sometimes are. We need a rationalization to go on thinking our team was better even though we lost. The underlying problem, I think, is that this team is truly average. Sure, they appear to NHL scouts to have great talent, but prospective NHL talent alone does not make a good college hockey team. It's becoming painfully apparent that this truly is a middle-of-the-road wcha team. Unfortunately, unless everything goes UND's way, that's not going to be good enough for the NCAA's. For me, it's especially painful given it's the first and last regional Grand Forks will have. After all of the trips to Mariucci and Yost, it would have been nice for the program, fans, city, state, etc. to JUST ONCE get to play at home. But Murphy's Law is doing its best to interject.

Despite how hard so many try, there is just no way to sugar-coat what is going on. A team loaded with alleged talent, 6 1st round draft picks, is in 6th place in the league and currently out of the NCAA field. If this is acceptable because of "youth", then obviously the expectations for UND hockey have been lowered.

Watching Minnesota use the Ralph as its own personal playground on the way to the Frozen 4 will be too much for me to stomach. If UND doesn't make it, I won't be making the trip up there.

Everyone mentions how poorly the passing game was last night. I agree that it was very poor, but I don't think it's as simple as saying the guys didn't pass well. St Cloud was in every lane, deflecting every pass, blocking shots, and was playing great positional hockey, especially considering their mundane personnel. It seems like UND often gets beat in the position game. UND played a pretty good positional game in it's defensive zone, but despite considerable disparity in personnel, UND just couldn't seem to find a way to break through St. Cloud's positional play. It was hard not to watch that game last night without thinking that Motzko schooled our coaching staff. With UND playing .500 hockey for quite some time now, it looks like the PWR is starting to catch up with them. It's easy to say they're a year away, but with annual early departures, one never knows what the next season will bring.

So much for turning the corner.

What a stale game. Goephert makes three or four rediculous saves. St. Cloud gets a questionable garbage goal. The rest of the game has been a big snoozefest.

I've seen nothing out of this team to suggest that they can go 8-0 or 7-1 at home the rest of the year. They haven't played an inspired home game since the Friday night Denver game back in October. They've played 11 home games and I'd only classify 2 of them as "good" games. The rest of them have ranged from poor to downright abhorrent. UND has a lot of proving to do at home. Whether they can create a culture of winning at home will be much more clear after this weekend. I truly think this is by far the most important series of those remaining. UND desparately needs these points. Will they play that way for once?

I had the same type of experience Friday night. The fans around me were annoying, per usual, but none of them actually said anything to me. That's been the norm of my Mariucci experience. The only time I can recall being hassled at Mariucci was at the '03 regional Ferris State Debacle. I've witnessed more taunting and obnoxious behavior from Gopher fans at the Ralph than I ever have at Mariucci.

http://siouxsports.com/hockey/whatif/

I'll play.

You raise very interesting questions and I think they are all valid points. I agree that the transfer of power from each University to the other NCAA members on important social issues may be too much to stomach for some of the presidents, but I believe ideology will win the day and be the driving force. As long as Brand & Co. is pushing to the left, I don't see much resistance.

While definitely a positive development, I can't get too excited about it. In reading UND's second appeal, I was VERY impressed with UND's procedural arguments. I thought they were the strongest part of UND's appeal. Essentially, UND is saying that this "policy" passed by the Executive Committee was really "legislation" and the Executive Committee does not have authority to pass legislation. The problem with prevailing on this theory is that a win would only be cause for further delay. If the NCAA agrees that its Executive Committee exceeded its authority, all it has to do is pass the "legislation" the proper way. Does anyone honestly think that the vast majority of the Presidents of NCAA members don't wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of the Executive Committee? Maybe I'm being overly-pessimistic, but I truly believe that Universities are the most politically correct institutions in the country. Even if the Executive Committee exceeded its authority in this instance, I think this legislation will ultimately get passed in the proper procedural manner. Then UND will be in court, which is where this was heading anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing UND for making these procedural arguments -- I think they are essential to the appeal. But I just can't get too excited about the possibility of winning on procedural grounds.

I don't like the "picked apart" comment by the reporter. It makes it sound like the NCAA did a thorough job. That would be uncharacteristic of the NCAA.

Also in the fax from Franklin: What is he talking about? UND has been very diligent in filing its appeals. The NCAA is the party that's stalling. They've had over two months to look at the second appeal. That's not an "extremely short timeframe."

They are used to getting beat by Russia, but not USA. They despise the thought of USA as their hockey equals. That was my point. I was trying to give them them the benefit of the doubt. But the more I think about it, you're probably right unfortunately.

I disagree. If that were the case, wouldn't the American fans have been cheering wildly against Canada last year? I didn't notice any of that. If there is a hated rivalry between Canada and USA, it is pretty much one-sided. I think there is more than one reason why the Canadians in attendence hated team USA so much. Each person in the arena could have had a different reason for cheering against the USA. For some, it may have been political. For others, maybe it was the pre-tournament hype of team USA or Jack Johnson. But I think the biggest reason is that hockey has been the one thing Canada has had over their bigger, stronger, richer, more relevent, more confident, better looking neighbor to the south. Now that USA's hockey program is on the rise and is becoming consistently competitive with Canada, many Canadians probably are starting to feel threatened.

I thought this was the most important paragraph of the article:

I was critical of Stafford's effort after the Minnesota series. But to be fair, I thought Stafford worked his butt off both nights of the Harvard games. I can't say the same about some of the other guys, but I thought Stafford worked hard both nights.

Yep, and maybe we'll renew our rivalry with Valley City State, Crookston High, and the G.F. American Legion too. Then we'll have come full circle.

So someone (likely a university professor) had to "educate" you into being offended by it. And you're proud of that?

You may want to try the St. Cloud State message board for better luck.