NDHockey

Wouldn't that mean we are a shell of our former self too?

Why must we always come up with some hokey name for a line anyway? It seems like some of our fans have an infatuation with that.

The point is if you want to have something worth selling on TV, it needs to have as broad of a possible audience as possible. Notre Dame brings far more potential than any current NCHC school and that is why they are a more attractive team for TV than more successful programs like ours. A devoted local following is nice but it doesn't mean much to a broadcasting company if that local following isn't very sizable.

Getting scores on a message board is quite easy and people can follow multiple games at once that way very easily. That's not how people tend to watch games on TV though. Using people commenting on a message board about another game as some baseline for how much interest there might be on TV for multiple games is a pretty big leap. UMD and SCSU have a tough enough time getting TV attention locally, let alone getting it in a Twin Cities market that is dominated by the Gophers. I don't think you have a very grounded view on this. Most people are only going to intently watch one game at a time on TV and it is going to be the team they most closely associate with. Considering most college games are on at the same time, there is a limited amount of crossover. I don't know about you but I'm not going to waste my time watching an SCSU game when the Sioux are on (unless it was in between periods of our game) and I can guarantee you that is how it will be elsewhere. You aren't going to see very many hockey fans picking a game with SCSU or UMD in it over the Gophers in the Twin Cities outside of a small number of alumni from those schools. That is just common sense.

No offense but your post reeks of blind homerism and makes you look bad. The hockey teams in the Big Ten have won more NCAA titles in the last 10 seasons than the NCHC (2 MN, 1 WI, 1 Mich St vs. 2 DU, 1 UMD). Pretty hard to deny that Wisconsin and Ohio State haven't been among the best 10 to 15 teams in college football in recent years and the Big Ten routinely gets a lot of teams in the NCAAs for basketball. Your comment isn't based in reality. I think the point being made about brand is we aren't going to compete with their brand recognition and TV audience with moves like this. SCSU isn't going to capture much of an audience and that doesn't help us.

I read that Joel Maturi said that the Gophers will still have their hockey games on Fox Sports North when the Big Ten Network isn't broadcasting a Gopher game. So it would appear that FSN is going to remain similar to how it is now. Badger games on FSN were only broadcast in Wisconsin and I doubt there will be any NCHC interest in their market. FSN hasn't been broadcasting Big Ten basketball games recently so I am not sure what you think they need to replace in the future. Whatever they lost has already been replaced. FSN is going to remain Wild, Wolves, and Gophers in the winter. Unless you are thinking they would do tape delay broadcasts of our games, I doubt they are going to be the answer for NCHC's TV future.

The media interest angle in MSP as a reason to pick up St. Cloud is completely baseless. Over all the years I have lived in this area, I've never seen an ounce of media interest in St. Cloud during the season unless it relates to playing the Gophers. There might have been one article by Patrick Reusse one time but nothing beyond that. Yzerman19 has the right perspective. St. Cloud is not of any interest to the MSP market. Not even a blip on the radar.

You could play devil's advocate and ask if Hextall would want to take the risk in not signing what could be a lucrative deal now. Just because he becomes a free agent in August 2012 doesn't mean he finds an equal or better contract elsewhere in a year. It's not like the flaws you point out only hold true for one NHL team but not others. Maybe PHX is higher on him than a lot of teams might be. If you really like what a guy might add to your system, why wouldn't you try to sign him?

Isn't it more about getting to that second contract sooner as opposed to what he gets now? It seems like that is what you often hear about when guys sign early. It isn't just about the money they get now but also being able to get to that second contract earlier.

Is it possible that Jackson was actually meaning Saint Cloud as opposed to UM since Lee was mentioned? Other than Ness, Minnesota doesn't really have any players from the Section 8 region. But St. Cloud has landed some kids from NW MN in recent years. Like Marvin, Christian, Lee, and Oliver. A few of those players were discussed as possibilities to play at UND in the past. I would bet he meant St. Cloud when he made his statement.

Greene was an undrafted free agent so he wasn't getting any pressure from a pro club that owned his rights.

I read Minnesota Hockey Journal's "Quick Facts" and it stated we had been after both David Fischer and Jay Barriball before they committed to Minnesota this past summer. So you'd have to make that 2 and 2.

I guess I don't see what you feel is the major advantage for a coach keeping their mouth shut. Ultimately, it is the recruit that decides what school to attend and from what I have seen, many of them don't care who knows what schools are interested in them. So acting like it is any advantage to keep quiet is kind of a reach. #1siouxfan22 seems to be a pretty decent source. So I guess I am not going to be too hard on him if he says something that we hope ends up inaccurate. You seem pretty defensive for somebody who is not exactly giving us any specific reasons to think #1siouxfan22 is wrong.

I think Marto claimed he was a big Gopher fan growing up and he changed his mind. So it does show how things may change with some kids once they are recruited. You could be right about Forney.

I don't blame Murray for making a choice that ends up helping his wallet. It is easy to rip on a guy for taking a lot of money when you don't walk in his shoes and don't live his life. Murray has plenty of money to go back to school if he decides to. What I have a difficult time understanding is why some fans seem to expect players to be faithful to a program for four years when we have seen a number of examples of head coaches not showing that same kind of loyalty to the players for all four years. If a coach isn't going to promise a certain amount of scholarship to a player for all four years no matter how the player performs on the ice, why should a player promise four years of hockey to a program? It seems to me a bit odd that a handful of fans expect the player to show complete and total loyalty to the program yet they don't seem to care if a coach lives up to that same standard. Seems like a bit of a double standard from some fans.

The US U18 team played two games last weekend in Ann Arbor. Chorney didn't play for them in those two games so there must be some other reason he didn't play last weekend with Shattuck.

jk, on the other hand, if he isn't on Crosby's line, that means he is probably putting up the majority of his points against the other team's 2nd or 3rd line. Sort of puts things into into an equal minded perspective.

According to the Heisenberg recruits listings, Drew Stafford from Shattuck is coming to the Sioux next year. So it would appear that this would likely diminish the odds of Nikiforuk coming here.

I like good size. But a lot of times, you can't hit what you can't catch. So size can work against you too. Some of the best Sioux teams weren't big and were built mostly on speed. That is the kind of hockey I prefer but I am not the coach either. Ohio State is a very big team but Minnesota mostly skated circles around them. And that was on an NHL ice sheet. Imagine how it could have looked on an Olympic ice sheet. Should be a fun year in the WCHA

I would like to confidently agree with you Goon. But after watching Minnesota dismantle Ohio St. with ease, they look like a damn deep team. My concern with our team is that we may match up well with Minnesota on the top line but I think we may be on the short end of the stick in lines 2 thru 4.

Dubay says things to get a rise out of listeners of other teams. I don't think he often really believes some of the things he says about other teams but he knows it will get a reaction. kr just became a "sucker" of it.

My guess on who would be in the #1 and #2 spots would be Thomas Vanek and Mark Stuart.

I believe that a "slide" isn't so much about winning recruiting battles (as noted by jk) but its more about once you get certain players, do they develop as expected. Blais may be landing some kids with good "resumes" but that doesn't mean anything when they get to college. We saw last year that a storied background doesn't lead to guaranteed success in college. The college hockey landscape is littered with players who were the next big thing (no, not the wrestler! ) but who didn't live up to expectations. If the Sioux are going to stay away from a "slide" in the coming years, I believe a lot of the pressure resides in the current sophomore class. They are a big portion of the team and if they don't succeed as Blais expected when he recruited them, that would be a bad sign.

Goon, I am as big a Sioux fan as any other guy but I can make up my own mind outside of what other fans have to say. I am not some robot that can't make up his own mind and have to use other people to decide. That didn't play into my rankings at all and I would doubt it did for others either. I feel I put the Sioux in a very realistic spot in 4th place. I hope they prove to be better but 4th place is realistic in my mind. Unlike the Gophers of last year, we don't return a 3 year veteran goalie, an all-American and Hobey candidate defenseman or a guy who is a strong candidate to lead the nation in points. I don't believe we have the depth the Gophers showed. Yes, it pains me to say such things. Your Florida State and Miami analogy is flawed (I'd guess the booze was doing some talking for you though). Does anybody here remember the early 90s? A lot of the high praise we give Blais was certainly given to Gino back in his heyday too. There is no such thing as a program that can't have down periods and I feel it shows a Gopher-like arrogance to act like we are immune to it. As much as I dislike the Gophers, they are a top program that proved even the best of them is not immune to short term down periods. I am in no way saying this will be any extended down period for our team. I think we will be a lot more competitive this year but I don't see us as being the caliber of the other top teams (yet).

I think of the two players they lose in the first half only Eastman plays a significant role on their team. I don't think one player who isn't really a star is going to affect them that badly. I'd like to put the Sioux higher but I see at least three teams that I think are better overall.