LeftyZL

Damn Right They Will Be Better Tonight. There's no doubt in my mind. This series has got an eerie reminder to me of the Wisconsin series at home last season. And we all know how that series and our season turned out.

So you sit the guy that got hung out to dry or didn't have a chance on at least 5 of the goals? That makes no sense to me. I agree with putting in different players to try and get a spark on the team, but changing the goalie in this type of a loss I can't agree with.

Thanks again for the recap... What I can't understand is that with how big of a name Maine is in hockey that all of the student tickets aren't sold. Also, I thought that on the Monday of game week, the tickets became open to the public for that particular series. If that's the case, why hasn't the public gone out and snatched these tickets up? Maine is too good of a team to not have that place rockin'. Let's give them a dose of Western hockey and see if they can handle it.

If you scroll to the bottom of the men's hockey schedule on Fightingsioux.com, it states that the tape-delayed game vs. Maine is "set" to air on October 22nd at 2pm CST. Take it for what its worth.

The funny part about all of this talk is that when I was at the 2005 Frozen Four, I talked to a bunch of people from out east schools(Boston U., BC, Maine, Vermont, and UMass are schools I know I talked to), and they all had one thing in common. They Hate Minnesota. With A Passion. Some may call it jealousy, others may call it a fact. I just love it when I recall those days in Columbus.

Come on now, don't throw out meaningless statistics like which team has won more WCHA playoff titles now. The only number's that matter are 7 and 5. And 7 is ALWAYS GREATER than 5.

Sioux-per Villan: If you don't think Porter should be on the 2nd line with Kozek and Watkins, who should? The way I see it, those 3 players all compliment each other. They all play physical, and with Kozek being the sniper, Watkins being the Set-Up man, and Porter filling in the leadership role on the line, that line is complete. It's the type of line every team wants I think: A line that can play physical against the one of the other team's top lines and still contribute on the score board at any given moment.

Since you predicted the score of the Winona State game to be 35-28 Winona State, and the actual score being 49-2 UND, I'll predict UND to win 42-(-3) based on your logic.

When you don't have the same people working at the same place every game, I would think that it makes it pretty difficult to make sure everyone is trained properly. Granted, it's still not that great of an excuse, but how well would someone know how to do a job when they do it once a month or even less than that?

Here's a few reasons: 1. It's the policy at REA. 2. In case your ticket(s) is stolen or lost, no one else should be able to use your ticket without proper ID. 3. So a student can't sell their ticket for more than face value to the general public, since the general public won't have a student ID. There's a few off the top of my head. To pay $75 for season's mens hockey tickets is a steal. Deal with them checking(swiping) your ID everytime you go to a game and it will become routine in no time. It's only 5 seconds out of your life.

Just an FYI - The Ralph as well as The Betty are both used during the summer months(June and July) for summer camps. They are not sitting there un-used. Memorial Stadium is used for football during the summer for football camps. I also don't understand your last paragraph. Since I used to work at The Ralph, there is a list of people available all year round. The issue is not having employees/staff on hand as you state. It's a matter of time and space. The Ralph isn't "dead" as often as people think it is. It also gets used during the school year for hockey classes(phy-ed) through UND. If you take away all of the hockey/basketball/volleyball camps, as well as all the other stuff going on there, the only available time when the arena is being un-used is in August. It's tough to schedule big-time concerts/events around a somewhat loaded schedule. You're also making comments about the administration/staff that are untrue and completely off-base. Your comment of "All the capabilities and resources, but NONE of the drive and motivation." Where did you come up with that? Everything anyone does in a business takes time. The larger the event, the longer the prep time. The Toby Keith concert was announced in January-ish this year I believe. The concert was in February. They began planning for that event in November of 2005. The Ralph got all of the revenue from concession and beer sales. All of the ticket sales went to Toby Keith. How much money do you think they made after staffing 50-60 people for 5-6 hours? That's 250 man hours minimum for an event like that. The cost at that is well over $1500 just for the staffing of the "part-time" crew. What about all of their other bills? Granted, I'm sure it was a pretty good chunk of change, but not as much as people on here or anywhere assume. Did you know they came up with the idea of the motorcycle raffle 2 YEARS AGO? They sent it to a company to see what kind of potential the idea it had. It took the motorcycle company 2 months to build that bike. You also can't get big-time concerts events anytime you want. Especially during the winter, which is not the "touring" season as everyone probably knows. You can't come up with an idea and have it done at the snap of your fingers or at your earliest convenience. Everything takes time. That's what people forget sometimes.

I don't understand why having 500-1000(?) cars on a particular parking lot for 5-6 days a week for 9-10 months out of the year would not cause "wear and tear" on a particular lot. Granted, it may not be the leading cause of UND charging for parking, but it definitely has some validity behind it. Who pays for the gas/diesel that the buses use each night? It comes out of someone's pocket. UND might as well defer some of the costs to the people that are actually using the system. I would be doing the same thing if I were UND. If people wanna complain about the prices and want to park on the side roads east of Columbia, they still are going to have to walk to the arena. Have fun walking in December/January/February. Bottom Line: Don't complain on a message board where no one on here has any idea, for the most part, why they are implementing the fee or what they are doing with the money. Go to the horse's mouth.

With the size of the lot, I'd say you probably would want to get there by 6pm at the absolute latest for a Saturday night game. 6pm might not even be early enough. That place fills up quick when hockey is going on, a lot of people show up early, eat dinner, drink beers, and watch other sports before wandering over to the Ralph. Just a friendly piece of advice. Take it for what it's worth.

Not trying to be on the other side of the fence on this one, but when you look at the big picture of things, people are getting to park in lots reasonably close to the arena for $65/season, or $5/game. You get close to 20 games(if not more) for your $65 and they drop you off at the main door. That's closer than the $10 you need to pay to park at Suite 49 for $10/game. Yes, it may be a pinch on some people's budget. But when you figure the number of people that use those lots to park there every game, that gets to be a lot of wear and tear on the parking lots listed than there would normally be if there was no REA. Somebody needs to pay for it, it might as well be the people that use it IMO. You could also park on a side street and walk to REA in the cold too. Whatever floats your boat. I just think it's a fair deal. Either that, or pony up some major money to park in the main lots around REA.

Don't forget about Porter, that guy is a stud on the PK. I'd go with Toews-Porter, Fabian-Oshie. That's just me though.

What I don't understand is why this story is being published on 10/2/06, when in the article it says that the incident occurred sometime in February 2005. Something is loopy about this article. Or I am mis-reading it.

That's not my excuse for him...That was one of YOUR excuses for him not winning it all last year. Refer to post #47 before you start putting my name behind things I never said please. I just re-quoted what you had already posted here.

Boston College was a 3 seed playing in Worcester, MA against a team from OH. Just because they were a 3 seed doesn't mean they were necessarily an underdog because of the home-ice crowd. After they got by Miami(OH), I would call their came against Boston University a toss-up. You can throw out the records. Just like when UND plays U. of Minnesota. So the whole "being a 3 seed" doesn't fly as an excuse either. At least in my book it doesn't. By the way, it's not being biased. It's called being honest and looking at the whole picture and career of an individual. If it was biased, I would be saying that Parise dominated the National Semi-Final game and got a bad bounce or had bad defense in front of him. I'd say both goalies weren't particularily sharp in that game. Again, Just my opinion.

Like I said, I hate excuses. And anyone who picked Miami(OH) and Boston University to win the title over any WCHA team last year is just plain out of their mind. How would they pick against Wisconsin playing in Wisconsin? Wisconsin was the best team last year. Period. And no, I wouldn't take Schneider any day of the week and twice on Friday and Saturday. I'll still take Elliott.

What's with the attitude and hostility towards me? I never said he wasn't a good goalie, just wasn't in Elliott's domain yet. You are coming up with the same excuses I hate to hear: "Young team", "clearly overmatched team", and "good, but not good enough". All I said in my post is that he's been on some very elite teams that haven't won the big game with him in goal. I apologize for missing the U-18 World Cup, which I didn't see on a website with his stats. Either way, you make excuses for why he hasn't won: (A)BC was too young, (B)Team USA was overmatched, and ( C )Team USA lost to a Russian team that included Malkin(The U.S. must have had some "decent" players to offest one Russian). He's played well, I said that. But he hasn't stolen a game for his team(s) when he needed to or when pressed to do so because of his team's short-comings as you have outlined above. That's all I said and I'm sticking by it.

Sorry about the mis-spell of Elliott's name, Anyways... You're saying that because Schneider had a good game in the National Championship game, but his team still lost, that makes him a great goalie? I saw him play both Frozen Fours games last year and I watched Schneider play in the World Juniors the last 2 years and he didn't do anything spectacular to impress me. How about the 5 goals he gave up to UND in the National Semi's? And before you say "How about the 6 goals Parise gave up to BC in the same game", I never said Parise was a great goalie. I never said he was the 2nd best goaltender in the country. He was a good goalie and had some big wins on some big stages, but he still had some less than stellar games in those same situations. I said "Show me goalies with big wins on big time stages on prime time TV and I will take them any day of the week and twice on Friday and Saturday." What has Schneider won? He's been on good(some may say great) teams and he hasn't gotten any of them over the hump yet. Not all of it can be put on Schneider, and it shouldn't, but he still needs to win or steal a game on a big-time stage before I'll say he is the 2nd best collegiate goaltender in the country. There are a lot of GOOD goalies in college hockey, but only one great one IMO. Like I said, it's only my opinion.

This is just me speaking, but if I was the president of a school and I heard about a faculty member publicly bashing the school that gives that person a pay check, I would personally see that their contracts are not renewed after the year. After all, if they turn away potential students with their shananigans and/or antics, that will mean less teachers needed at the school. Seems like a reasonable/logical step in the process. I'm all about free speech, but where do you draw the line if you are an employer? I'd cut my losses with the current employees right now if I were that person.

What does that say about our college goaltenders if you feel that Schneider is our 1st or 2nd team All-American?? Sure he's got good stats, but he hasn't played that well in a big game when it mattered most. Stats are not the easiest thing to look at and/or decipher. Elliot has played in big games and won them. He has carried his team when needed. Anyone who doesn't see that is either blind or has a distinct hatred towards great goaltenders. After Elliot, I would say that there are a lot of good goalies, but not great ones. Show me goalies with big wins on big time stages on prime time TV and I will take them any day of the week and twice on Friday and Saturday.

Almost identical stats, vastly different leagues.

I'm not 100% sure, but I remember hearing about a club lacrosse team at UND while talking to some UND students at tail-gating last weekend.