dickgraham

I might have the year wrong, but The Ralph is hosting the DII national pumpkin pushing tournament close to that year. DG

Isn't The Ralph hosting the 2005 NCAA DII national BB tournament about that time? DG

Just got off the phone ( Weds 1:35pm) with MidCo Cable. She read off the latest release she had that the only televised game on Friday is the Goofer/Mercylhurst game Friday night on Fox Sports North. She gave me the Fox Sports North ph #: 1-310-369-9111. Lets get an armored division of Sioux fans calling in and demanding they put the game on the air! DG

I believe Zach got the HB nomination over Bochenski because he is a better 2 way player than Brandon. Is he HB material this year? I think not. DG

When I was a kid in the 50's and 60's my dad would take me to the games at the "old barn". The Phi Delt pep band would march in playing "When the Saints Come Marching In" and the student section would go nuts! At the time I thought that must be the school song! They would follow that up with the "Beer Barrell Polka" and again the students went crazy. Could it have been that the "anti-freeze" inside their wine skins was influencing their behavior? DG

In the post game interview, after Sunday's game, CB told TH that he has found his goalie. He was very high on Jake's effort. DG

On the youth issue, let's not forget Duluth is just as young as the Sioux are and we all saw the poise and dicipline they payed with last weekend. We have to dig deep and play with that type of attitude this weekend in Madison. Go Sioux! DG

The ironic thing is that, if I remember right, quite a few of their wins have come on 3rd period comebacks. DG

Maybe my eyes are bad but I read the vote tally with Parise ahead of Spiewak. DG

We have 2 goalies who are playing scared, they're afraid to make a mistake, have CB put the hook out and they won't see the light of day for a month. So they are playing tight and anyone who coaches any sport will tell you that playing "tight" will lead to mistakes. Our coaching staff has to decide on their main man in the nets and stick with him. In that light you have to like what Mike Sertich did with his goal tender this weekend. The guy got shelled Friday and Sertich put him right back on the horse Saturday, showing confidence in him and thus telling him "your our main man". We all saw how he responded, the young man had a very nice effort Saturday night. If one of our guys gave up 6-8 goals in one night, he would be lucky to play again in less than a month. Some continuity has to be established, the game of musical goalies is not a confidence builder. DG

I think we have to keep in mind that this is basically a junior college hockey team. With the exception of a couple of juniors and 3 seniors this years team is all freshman and sophomores. They played like it Saturday night. A veteran team would not have been sucked in by Tech's lousy performance Friday night and would have been ready for Saturday, but this years team showed their youth and lack of maturity with the Saturday effort. DG

A lot of talk about the main ice at The Ralph is not where CB wants it to be. Players have said that the ice in the olympic rink is better than the main arena ice. I recently heard an interview on KFAN radio that PA and Dubay had with the radio play by play guy for the Vancouver NHL hockey team. They asked him what's it like being the only show in town now that the NBA Grizzlies have left for Memphis? He made the comment that big difference is that the without the Grizzlies in the same building the Canucks now have the best ice in the NHL. There is no doubt that putting insulation down and the basketball floor or other flooring for bb games, concerts etc makes for slower, slushier ice. As long as the Ralph will continue to be a multi pupose facility, which it has to be, it will not have great ice. DG

Most of the Sioux players interviewed by TH before Friday night's game said that the weekend will come down to who wants the wins more. Apparently CC wanted them more, very disappointing! Several things came together that really hurt us in this crucial series. The flu bug, the 2 weeks off worked against us-we were not game sharp, youth and something that hasn't been mentioned much, altitude. It really looked like we had no gas, and CC had better goal tending. The good news is that this is the first bad week end of the year. Hopefully it will be the last! DG

The last time I heard that Mid-Continent was going to pick up a game was the Friday game against the rodents. Guess what? They didn't! I hope this time they follow through. DG

I seem to recall a news item a month or 2 ago that stated a new hotel/motel will be going up on the alerus site. DG

Dean Blais is on the PA and Dubay show on KFAN as we speak. DG

Virg's column in today's Herald pretty much repeated what was said on the coaches show. He did mention that Parise did not practice with the Sioux this week. After the world junior tourney he flew to the Twin Cities and then went home to Fairbault for the week and is to meet the team in Minneapolis today.

Murphy was called up last month and played about a week, I think, for the wild.

PA and Dubay interviewed Tim Hennesey, voice of the Sioux, this morning. Tim mentioned that, indeed, Parise, Jones and Greene are back and hard at it. He also mentioned that Blais is going to put Parise on a line with Mason and Spiewak and Bochenski will stay on the line he played with this past weekend.

OK, this is the big Sioux/gopher week. PA and Dubay on KFAN radio, 9-11am on 1280 am are asking for UND fans to call in. They were thinking about what Sioux player they should call on Thursday. Let's give thus gopher lovers the business. DG

All you have to do is insert the name "Don Adams" in place of Schmidt and you can imagine what kind of game flow we would have had. Makes me appreciate Scmidt that much more. DG

O'keefe gave up his banking job in Fargo to take a position with the UND Alumni or Foundation office. When he took the job he made the comment that the demands of the job would not allow him time to do the color commentary for the Sioux hockey games, although he has done a couple of games this year. By the way, even though Bredahl may not be the most exciting commentator to listen to, he knows alot about the game and if you actually listen to him you will actually learn quite a bit about strategy and positioning. DG

The Bochenski call came after 2-3 straight penalties called on CC. There is no way any official is going to make the next call against them unless it is something obvious. So Bochenski got mugged and then he retaliated and got called for a high stick. By and large Schmidt likes to let the teams play, Friday UND had only 6pp's and CC had 2.

Unfortunately basketball is the sport in which you are more likely to get homered by the officials than any other. The Sioux have to put the USD game behind them and get the split by beating UNO. Split on the road, sweep at home and they will be in title contention by years end. DG

Not to mention Michigan (this year and last) and Michigan State(last year.) Don't forget, last year at about this time UND put it's name on the Great Lakes Invitational championship banner flying high over the ice of Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.