dickgraham

I was wondering what in the heck happened at Wisconsin this past weekend until I got a look at the game pictures in an earlier thread. We were wearing the Black Ice uniforms and nothing good has happened to us on the road with those uni's in the recent past. Next time on the road, the green jerseys CB, please! DG

All right back my question, why haven't they worn them in the past when every other team has? DG

This topic has absolutely no value except to satisfy my curiousity. All UND athletic team have a version of the black road uniform except the mens BB team. Why don't they wear one? Is that RG's decision as coach or is it something else? DG

Looks like we'll be stuck with TH and on the radio, could be worse.

During is bit on PA and Dubay's radio show, Joe Sensor added that his grill/bar had become the Twin Cities UND hockey headquarters. PA commented that Puffy (Jeff Dubay) loves that! (NOT) Sensor went on to say that you can thank JP Parise for that but they pack people in for the Sioux hockey games and the folks coming in to his place love UND hockey. DG

The band shoud be heard and not seen? Come on! Has anyone seen the Wisconsin hockey band? In the past they all have worn red and white rugby shirts and some have had the Dr Zeus "cat in the hat" red and white hats. They play great college pep band music and actually know, and play, more than 2 songs. The Sioux hockey band is fine, they just need to play different stuff. Speaking of Wisconsin, in their old building the Wisc student and band section was in a corner and that seemed fine with them. They could stand and go nuts to their hearts content without bothering any old fogey reserve seat persons. Our seats at the Ralph are in a corner in the lower bowl and they are terrific, with the exception of having to keep an eye out for wayward pucks durnig warm ups. If I were a student the trade off for seating in the corner would be well worth it as long as the establishment moved the band down with us like the Badgers do. So folks, put some green and white rugbys on the band and have them march into their corner seats playing something from Queen or When the Saints Come Marching In for every home game just before the team hits the ice. They can roll from their march in song right into the UND fight song as the Sioux come out. I have seen this done at other places and the corwd about takes the roof off the joint! DG

One of the comments made by the Gopher media director to Fank Mazzako on Fox Sports Net telecast of the Sioux/Gopher series was that although The Ralph had a pro feel about it, it did have a decididly collegiate atmosphere because of the students and the band. Their media guy commented that even the PA announcer was intense. Mazzako aggreed. Good praise from the rodent faithful. Keep that student and band stuff going. It's great. Zach Parise commented on the post game show after the Saturday St Cloud game that the fans don't realize how important their getting into the game means to the team. When the fans are quiet it really is dead in that building but when crowd intensity and noise are up he feels it really drives the team. DG

This will date me but when I was a kid my dad took me to the games in the "Old Barn". The band back then was the Phi Delt pep band and they would march in to the arena before the game playing "When the Saints Come Marching In" I was young enough that I thought it was the UND fight song! The also played the beer song from that era, "The Beer Barrel Polka" and a lot of others I can't remember, but they were very good and when the came in just before game time playing the "Saints", the crowd went nuts. DG

During the last few years at the Old Ralph most of the music posts here slammed the canned rock music and wanted more presence of the pep band.

The Wild placed Travis Roche on waivers Saturday. Their GM says that Travis has not been playing so that they had to place him on waivers and if he clears waivers he will be assigned back to the Houston Aeros again. He went on to say that they need to find a replacement for Travis. Why hasn't he been playing? Injured? Not playing well enough? DG

It was also great to see James Patrick still playing. 20 plus years and counting! Simply amazing!

It's hard for a coach to show patience when their "all world" goalie recruits keep letting in ultra soft goals, some from 30' - 50' out, game after game after game! Part of the problem is that the vast majority of coaches, from the NHL through college down to the high school ranks, have very little knowledge of goal tending. Quick, name 1 NHL or college coach who is a former goal tender. I suppose there are a few, but I can't think of any. All most all of them were forwards or played on the blue line and have no clue what to look for when their net minder hits a slump or how to correct technique faults. The smart head coaches bite the budget bullet and hire a goalie coach. Far too many don't. It makes as much sense for a college or pro hockey team not to have a goalie coach as it would for a major league baseball team to not have a pitching coach. Rarely do you see a goalie coach on the bench during a game, however the pitching coach is, more often than not, sitting right next to the manager during a major league ball game. DG

My son attended Gino's camp in the mid 80's. The best thing he liked about it was the personal attention coach Blais gave to him while there. Almost 20 years later CB is still doing so. He is a "class act". DG

I was wondering because this past years game was announced during one of the last Sioux home games of the 2001-02 season. DG

Has there been any kind of announcement or talk of the Wild playing another exhibition game at the Ralph this coming fall? DG

Just a note on UND hockey fan's from the Fargo area. I was born and raised in Grand Forks and now live in Wahpeton. My brother has Sioux hockey season tickets, but because he lives in Portland Oregon, guess who gets the majority of the tickets. I know this is making a short story long but when we head home on I-29, after a game at the Ralph, the traffic between Grand Forks and Fargo is unbelievable! It's more like the traffic volume you would see on Thanksgiving or the 4th of July. Judging from that traffic volume, and that's not counting the Fargo fans that stay in Grand Forks for the weekend, the 1/3 estimate might be a little conservative. DG

This collection is full of great stuff! Thanks ! DG

The bb floor and insulation screw up the ice! No bb! DG

This past season can be broken down to this The Gophs started their charge toward the NCAA title when Potulny came back and UND's great season started it's long slide toward the toilet when David Hale went down with his illness. Pretty good proof that 1 player on a team can make a huge difference, especially when they are great players and team leaders like those two were.

Andy Schneider moves the puck up ice with authority. He will only get better as he moves into his junior year. Lee Marvin started to move the puck up ice with some confidence the last month or so of the season, his sophmore season should be very interesting. Schneider is a hockey stud and I will be very surprised if he does not have a good to great NHL career. The entire Sioux defensive core is big and mobile but they need to make smarter passing choices and play better position hockey. DG

For those of us who don't visit the BB site, Jeff Brandt, Jakes namesake and veteran guard on the Sioux BB team, has decided to leave the team and play his senior year at Minot State. DG

Defense & goal tending- Everything starts in the nets and moves out from there and we had average goal tending at best while our opponents in the 2nd half of the season had good to great goal tending when we played them. The defense, while talented, were many times out of position and/or made bad choices on passes and turned the puck over to opponents that allowed opposition players to skate in free on our goalies. Offense- As many an analyst pointed out Thurday afternoon, UND's offense was not in synch. We had very little team offensive flow with all three forwards involved in moving the puck up ice as a unit. Too much individuality. I can remember several games in the 2nd half of the season and the playoffs where one Sioux forward was pushing the puck up on offensive with no help from the other forwards. Passes into the slot with no Sioux players within 5 yds of the pass. The main thing missing, as Tim O'keefe pointed out on Thursday's radio broadcast of the Ferris State game, was mental toughness. Youth- Sorry I don't bye into the too young bit. UMD is as young as we are, Minnesota has a younger average age team. DG

Thinking back on last Thurdsay's game here are some observations, both heard from "experts" and felt by me as I watched. Tim O'keefe(after the game): You can talk all you want about bad puck luck, but the real problem was that the Sioux showed a definite lack of mental toughness in key parts of the game. Doug Woog: The Sioux are not showing any offensive unison. Too many times only one guy is pushing the puck up ice without any support from the other forwards. Their forward lines are not flowing as a unit. ( I noticed this several times in the last half of the season. I don't know how many times over the last month or so that a Sioux forward would put a pass into the slot and their wouldn't be a Sioux player near the pass.) Tim O'Keefe, Craig Perry and Doug Woog: Defense out of position too many times. Poor position and movement and ill advised passing angles resulted in turnovers and allowed Ferris players to skate in alone on the Sioux net. David Hale had a terrific game. He hustled, hit hard and had some great feeds out of our D zone to a forward moving up. Why can't Sioux players stay on their feet, my G_d they fall down a lot. Dean Blais: Jake Brandt played a good game but he got outgoalied by Brown. ( That's been our achilles heel. Everything starts in the nets and moves out from there. The Sioux got "outgoalied" by just about every team we played in the last half of the season.) Tim Hennesey, Tim O'keefe and Craig Perry: Other teams have discovered how to defend the Sioux's speed game after watching tapes of the Denver series and the UMD series and playoff game. Fore check them hard, force mental errors, clog up the neutral zone and back check hard. Ferris State did just what Denver and UMD did. Youth: Yes we are a young team, but so is Duluth, Minnesota and bunch of the other teams in the WCHA. They will be better too next season. Of all the comments about the game, Tim O'keefe"s "mental toughness" comment was the most important. DG

More bad news, a news report in the GF Herald states that UND is proposing that a new bb facility be built just west of the REA's olympic sized rink. It would seat 3,200 and most of the bb games would be played in the 12,000 main arena. Scheduling conflicts with hockey would put the bb teams into the new 3,200 seat addition. The WCHA says that it would work around UND's bb schedule. This could be a disaster, and not just from a hockey schedule standpoint, because the more time insulation and the portable bb floor are on the ice the worse the ice condition will become. BB needs their own stand alone facility. It was my understanding that the long range plans included turning the OLd Ralph into the bb and volleyball center. That would be perfect. DG

I just checked, The Ralph is hosting the 2005 NCAA DII mens national bb tourney. That tournament is taking place this week in Florida. That rules out getting an NCAA hockey regional that year. DG