dickgraham

Beer getting dumped on heads, laddies dropping f bombs.....how retro. It made me feel like I was back in the Old Ralph! Terrific stuff. DG

It was unbelieveable that they built the Betty to seat only 3,000 fans! There are area NAIA schools with gyms that big. The Ralph is fine if you have a full house, as they did against Kansas a few years ago, but it is a lousy atmosphere with 4-5,000 fans. Too big. The main basketball arena for a DI school should seat at least 5-6,000. You have to project that your BB programs will improve and, along with it, attendance will go up also. I grew up during the Bill Fitch era at UND and crowds of 6-7,000 were not unheard of. The Phil Jackson led teams, in those years, drew big crowds, as opposed to the 1,500-2,000 that would show up in the pre Fitch years. In those days the Hyslop held more fans . They used high football endzone bleachers on the east and west ends.

So, Brady Murray, Rookie of the Year in the WCHA wasn't good enough to be Rookie of the Year in the end of the year Sioux awards? DG

Perhaps UND's best defensemen, James Patrick, is still strapping them on for the Buffalo Sabers. DG

Vanek and Ballard have a very good reason to sign. They would get not nearly as much under the new collective bargaining agreement as the one that is now in place. I have to believe that was a major consideration for Zach. DG

I stand corrected. Ian Kid only had 60 points in the 86-87 year, not 63. Still more than Zach or Bo. DG

CB took a young, inexperianced team to the top this year. The Mc Naughton cup is nothing to sneeze at , the hardest championship to win in college hockey. Don't forget that we don't hang final 5 banners in the Ralph but we do hang the reg season championsip banners. This team will be a veteran team next year. The youngsters will be another year wiser. On the other hand the "Hrkac Circus" championship team was young also. If you go back in the records you'll see that Ian Kidd, a defensemen for G-d's sake, had 63 points! That's not a misprint. he had 63 points from his blue line position! That is more production than from Parise or Bo, DG

Listening to Chad Hartman's show on the fan about a 1/2 hour ago. He's interviewing Glen Sonmor and in the course of the interview, after talking about Zach leaving UND, Hartman asks Sonmor about the other North Dakota rumor that CB is still being hotly pursued by the Blue Jackets to be their next coach. Sonmor said that is an old rumor but is still alive and that CB would seriously consider it if asked. He said that knowing Dean as well as he does that his competetive nature would drive him to see how he could do at the next level. He went on to say that with the strike looming the Blue Jackets may wait to name a new coach until they know that next season is on or not. My question would be why would CB even want to take his shot at the NHL with the Blue Jackets? I don't think I would. DG

It's too bad Zach and any others who leave early didn't sit down and talk with former Sioux and Black Hawk great, Troy Murray. Between periods of an earlier game this season Tim O'Keefe Troy about what he's doing now that he's out of the NHL. Eventually he got around to talking about his leaving the Sioux early to sign with the Black Hawks. It wasn't till later that he discovered what he was missing by leaving UND prematurely. He said the Sioux hockey "family" was something very special that he could never get back, but at that young age with a pro team waving $$ in a kids face he bit and now he wished he hadn't. For all of you who didn' see Troy play, you missed one of our special players. His years in the NHL prove that out. DG

For some reason Zach's leaving hurts worse than former Sioux players that have left early. Maybe because of the great promise that will now go unfullfilled. Do I blame him? Absolutely not. Any of us would leave in a heart beat. But if you think he won't get the rough treatment in the NHL that he got in the WCHA your kidding yourself. The WCHA stuff will seem like childs play compared to the reception he'll get in the pros. DG

OK, this is our last swipe at Frankie & Dougie's play by play of last Sat's championship game on FSN. How does everyone think they did. Personally, even as a Sioux fan, I think both of them did a pretty even handed job. They stayed focused on the game instead of chuckling over some old joke as game action went by. I even thought that Frank added to the excitement as he got caught up in the intentsity and pace of the game. I know they made some errors like Woogie not knowing how to pronounce DL's last name. But all in all a pretty good job. Your thoughts. DG

All the more reason all of us should be putting the presure on our respective cable companys to get with the program. DG

After reading what Jeff Dubay said about Victory Sports providing NCAA regional coverage to Dish Network and the Metro area cable companies free of charge, it seems that all of us that are living out here in the sticks need to be putting pressure on our cable companies ( Midcontinent and Cable One) to jump on board! DG

This is not the same Don Adam of a few years ago who would just look at Mike Commodore and whistle him for a penalty. The few games that I saw him ref at the Ralph this year where well called. Saturday nights Final Five Championship game was a tough one to officiate, especially the first period. Overall he did a good job. DG

wcha.com will carry live radio feeds of all Final Five games. DG

I tried to e-mail Bruce Mcleod but it wouldn't go through. I then went to the WCHA web site to get a "contact us" address....no such thing. The Fox e address I had goes to the national site. Anyway, you can be very sure that if the Goofers were playing the Friday afternoon game it would be telecasst. Why the Thursday play in game is being telecast and not the 1st semi-final game Friday afternoon is beyond me. The Fox Sports North schedule that day is not of the earth shaking ilk so that there appears to be no reason that game is not on the air. B Mcleod and the WCHA should be raising holy h--l over this. Let's face facts, we are fighting the Big Goofer Monopoly and are in a no win situation. At least we have Tim Hennesey's radio play by play. We can onlly hope the Sioux kick the living crap out of every team they play this weekend, that might make me feel just a tad better.

While listening to the series with Bucky from the Kohl Ctr it sounded over the radio like the atmosphere was jumping, lots of the Bucky pep band music and not so much canned rock. The Kohl is a bigger building than The Ralph so my question for those of you that were there is: How are things done there? Is there pep band into it alot more than ours? Is there as much canned rock music and commercial pllugs over the pa? DG

Is Prsthus any relation to Paul Prsthus, the former Rugby High School and U of Minn basketball stand out? DG

WDAY sports has been nothing more than the sports information department of ndsu for years, ever since wday signed on to carry bison sports on radio and tv. In fact Ed Kolpack, former sports editor of the Fargo Forum, once labeled them as the ndsu/wday bison. They take great pains in burying Sioux hockey coverage till the end of the sports news while KVLY 11 and KXJB 4 will often have Sioux hockey as their lead off story. This is old news and any objective sports news journalism by wday toward the bison is non-existant. DG

Let's see, our record against Duluth this year is....3-0. I don't know if that will work for us or against. Knowing that we have beaten them in the past should give us the confidence to go into Duluth and play well. On the other hand the 'dogs are going to be particularlly snarly knowing the have dropped 3 straight to UND. It was after the series in Grand Forks that Sandlin was upset, about which we don't know. DG

As I recall the PA advertising crap was going on at the Old Ralph also. It was annoying then and it is more annoying now. DG

I know the coach's show is Wednesday, but what time does it go on the air? DG

There were many times in the Old Ralph, with the Sioux down by 2 or more goals to start the 3rd period, that the crowd got on their feet and raised the roof to try and get the team jump started . That hasn't happened in the New Ralph, and sure didn't Saturday night! I thought I was in a library. Where in the H-ll is that famous rocken Sioux fan enthusiasm that visiting players used to talk about in the old building. Is the new building too soft? Are we not drawing the hard core hockey fan anymore? What gives? DG

Last weeks Sports Illustrated had a big article on the Michigan-Michigan State hockey rivalrly. Read that and then tell me the profanity at UND games is out of hand! All of the chants the reporter wrote about had to be typographically bleeped out. There didn't seem to be any complaints from the respective university presidents or non-student fans. My recommendation for all of you is to read that article. DG

Listening to Bruno (Minnnesota Wild), on the PA and Dubey show on the Fan this morning, talk about the new NHL rule proposals. He liked the prospect of decreasing the size of goalie pads and equipment but was really excited about the proposal to move the nets back a couple of feet towards the boards. This would get more action in front of the net and cut down on the amount of cycling that occures in todalys game. I'm wondering if the NHL adopts these rules, would the NCAA also adopt them? DG