fighting sue

No AM listeners? Seriously? I listen to 1440, The FAN -- all day programming out of Minneapolis, except for the 6-9 morning block. If you need a Vikings, Twins, T-wolves, or Gophers fix, they've got it. I also listen to 1520, out of Mayville. From 7:00 a.m. to about 5:30 they carry ESPN Radio programming. Good national sports talk.

Great article about Bettman from Yahoo! sports. It IS hard to believe that the NHL was once on par with the NBA for viewers. The author points out that the league is overexpanded, but does anyone think any team will contract? It's sad. http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_ylt=Amup...o&type=lgns

I think these 5-year figures are very hopeful for UND. What this tells me is that a football program with no chance of making the playoffs, a national championship, etc., is able to outdraw and generate more excitement than a team in contention for the championship, even though no one knows about/cares about who they play. In a few years UND football will become that team without hope of a championship, but playing better, more marketable and recognizable opponents. If, after five years, the attendance trend at UND doesn't take an impressive upward turn, even with relative success of the football team, I think you may safely say that Grand Forks is a hockey town only.

I agree that night games could make a big difference. It's an idea that's long overdue. When something takes place at night it seems more like an event, seems more special (hockey games, movies); when something takes place during the day it seems more like a chore (grocery shopping, church). To use an analogy . . . going to a UND football game has the excitement of going to a wedding, whereas going to a UND hockey game has the excitement of the dance/party after the wedding. Who gets geared up for weddings? Old people. But not the fun old people, the early-bird special eating, going to bed at 7 p.m. kind of old people.

I'm kind of a numbers geek so bear with me . . . I did some quick figuring of season attendance at home football games, based off of fightingsioux.com and gobison.com attendance reporting. The Sioux: 5 regular-season home games 47890 in total attendance 9578 average attendance The Bison: 5 regular-season home games 81886 in total attendance 16377 average attendance Though this difference seemed alarming keep in mind that the Sioux would still have the 4th best attendance in D2 football (based on 2005 figures) and would have the 34th best attendance in D1-AA (out of about 120 teams). However, against the same figures the Bison would have the 6th best D1-AA attendance and the 99th best attendance if they played D1 football (out of 119 teams). But the Fargodome is a much bigger arena, so I figured how full, on average, either arena actually was. For this I used the commonly-cited arena capacities of 13,500 (Alerus) and 18,700 (Fargodome). Alerus 71 % full Fargodome 87.6% full Are these numbers really anything to get worked up about? Do they tell us anything revealing? Does this mean that UND football fans aren't as dedicated or interested as NDSU fans? Perhaps the latter . . . remember, too, that NDSU football draws from a "metro" area about double as that of Grand Forks. This may explain the sheer difference in possible attendees, but doesn't explain the difference in average capacity. However, if we look further into the metro populations into consideration, the numbers reveal something interesting: Wikipedia (not the best source) lists GF's metro population as 97,478 and Fargo's as 184,857. Think of these as possible attendees. That means that on gameday 9.8% of the GF metro population was at the Alerus. In Fargo only 8.9% of the metro population attended games. Because the populations are so disproportionate I think this tells us that Grand Forks is getting out for UND football in "better" numbers than NDSU football, though the difference is still not impressive. If Fargo wanted to reach the same percent of metro area attendees at football games, they'd have to boost their attendance by about 1700 per home game. As for the difference in average capacity, I'm firmly convinced that attendance will rise once we play opponents with better name recognition and regional interest such as Montana, Montana St., NDSU, and SDSU, I think there's another factor. Hockey. Grand Forks is inarguably a hockey town and will be one for the foreseeable future. The Ralph draws many, many casual sports fans who may attend football games if there weren't another sports option. How much of an impact it has on football is hard to quantify without some actual research. Long story short (too late), I do think in spite of how much we lag behind NDSU in attendance, I definitely think we're ready to go up to D1-AA in football. It will, of course be challenging, but UND is obviously a good fit. As for the other sports . . .

OK . . . I'm guessing the Saturday playoff game will begin at 1 p.m. Does that mean that the idiots at WDAZ will broadcast some bush league D2 playoff game (shouldn't UND football "fans" have some incentive to go to the game?) instead of the #1 vs. #2 matchup of Ohio State and Michigan? Please WDAZ, show that you care about football.

I saw Brackins play at East Grand Forks a few weeks ago. He gained over 400 yards rushing and scored 6 touchdowns and 3 2-pt conversions. I believe those 400 yards were on around 30 attempts. He seemed to be very fast, though not amazing. Senior High simply wasn't tackling or keying on him. Not sure why. However, in I-Falls playoff loss to Proctor he was held to something like 40 yards on 18 carries.

I guess I don't see how the bomb-kids are relevant. Unless, you mean in the sense that they're having a viewpoint imposed upon them that they haven't really had an opportunity to dismiss, one that could be potentially harmful to them. I wonder, however, is the Jesus Camp really all that different from the average Dick and Jane churchgoers and their 2.5 kids? Their views regarding religion may not be culturally extreme, but even families with moderate and liberal religious beliefs are still foisting a belief upon their children. I don't think it's as easy to say that the Jesus Camp is a better or worse way of imposing religous beliefs on kids. What are your religious values? If they're not in line with the tenets of Jesus Camp, then you probably will be uncomfortable with whatever they teach. Similarly, would people with religious beliefs be uncomfortable if children were being taught that there is no proof of God? That he's a fanciful story scared, confused people make up to deal with a complicated and ambiguous world? Or, what if parents taught their children that there are dozens of different "Gods" that people worship -- as many as varieties of peanut butter -- and no one has any proof of what the "true" one is? (However, didn't South Park tell us it was the Mormons? Or Jehovah's Witnesses?)

I like the schedule, but has there ever been any discussion of an evening game or two? One p.m. is fine, but I wonder if a rowdier, more boistrous crowd might show up for a 7 p.m. start. I bet there would be a better chance of a sell-out with a later start.

Memorial Stadium capacity was 10,000. According to this super-cool website: http://www.worldstadiums.com/north_america...th_dakota.shtml However, I know for the Bison games portable bleachers were brought in and many were simply standing on the track in the end zones.

I guess I don't really know why games ARE played in the afternoon, but I think I could guess why none are played at night: 1) lack of significant television opportunity and 2) playing indoors. With a D2 team there's not much a of a chance to capture anything but a relatively small regional audience when games are broadcast on television. Oftentimes D1 games are played in the evenings to capitalize on having the maximum viewing audience. Secondly, I think part of the attraction of an evening game is to play under the lights, outside. UND holds no such attraction. When was the last time you saw a D1 football game, played indoors, in the evening, that was on TV? Really, this could only possibly apply to the Gophers and Syracuse. I think the Gophers did play Michigan in the evening two years ago, but indoor games never feel like evening games. They always, no matter the time of day, feel like indoor games, outside of any time of day. It's like they're played in a time vacuum.

Just saw the brief "Nightline" segment on the name. Done by Jeremy Schaap. Finished by saying (I'm paraphrasing) in spite of inflation, $110 million can buy anything. Not too positive. Said that Englestad's idea of a "good time" was dressing as a Nazi and throwing a birthday for Hitler. How often had he done this? Anyway, it's interesting to note that in the recent past Jeremy Schaap also had a story featuring the clearly insane Bobby Fischer who, it turns out, is a frothing anti-Semite. The late Dick Schaap and Fischer were friends at one time.

You know, I don't really think there's anything homosexual at all about either the Flickertails or the Gophers. Also, don't you think we all grew up just a wee bit and stopped using "gay" or "fag" as a synonym meaning "stupid" or "bad"? I realize your comment is mostly in jest, but people talk how they think.

Okay, I admit it -- I'm a moron. "Flickertails" does not refer to prairie dogs -- too bad for them -- but instead refers to the thirteen-lined ground squirrel, also known as Richardson's ground squirrel. This is also the same animal that the U. of Minnesota "Gophers" are named after. How ironic. So, I guess that would change the name of our annual hockey series in Grand Forks from "The Rodent Rumble at the Ralph" to "The Big Fight between Two Rodents with Different Names but That Are Really the Same Thing -- the Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel, also known as the Richardson's Ground Squirrel." I bet you could fit that on a t-shirt with small enough font. I'd buy one -- seriously.

Hey, why don't we go back to our original nickname -- the Flickertails. Every time we meet the Gophers for a hockey series it could be the "Rodent Rumble in the Ralph." Prairie Dogs can be pretty fierce. I guess they darn near ruined a picnic site in Medora. And no one could get in trouble for throwing frozen rodents on the ice anymore because, hey, those are our dead frozen rodents. Anyway, gophers are so lame when compared to FLICKERTAILS.

Yahoo sports -- in the NCAA basketball section. http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/news;_ylt=Au...cnnsi&type=lgns