82SiouxGuy

The SBoHE took the issue away from UND more than a decade ago. And since the SBoHE is superior to the President of UND, they have the ability to do that. The legislature should not be involved in an issue like this. It is part of the operation of the school, which is the responsibility of the SBoHE and the school administration. And not all of the people fighting to save the name are UND grads. Many of us UND grads knew this issue needed to be done at the end of the settlement (if not before). Some of us tried to get legislators to vote against the nickname law. NDSU backer, Al Carlson, has used this issue to build political power and to accomplish unrelated goals. That is his fault. And any NDSU fans that support this issue will feel the negative results at some point in the future.

The people trying to force UND to continue using the nickname, people like Rob Port and Al Carlson, are using anything but logic and truth. You say that UND is a member of the Big Sky. That is a partial truth. The Big Sky bylaws clearly state that to be a full member of the Conference the school has to be a full Division I member of the NCAA. UND is not a full Division I member of the NCAA. UND is transitioning to Division I, and the NCAA considers schools in transition to be a full member of their previous level. In other words, UND is a Division II member of the NCAA that is in the process of transitioning. In addition, I believe that the paperwork you quote also says that UND would not become a full member until they paid the entry fee, and that would not be due in full until the summer of 2012. That fee has not been paid. UND has not been given full membership rights at Big Sky Conference meetings. They are not able to vote on conference matters. UND is not a full member of the Big Sky no matter what you continue to claim. They have signed a contract to become a full member effective in July of 2012 as long as all other details meet the qualifications. It is similar to a politician being elected to office, but not yet taking office. They have the job starting on a certain date, but at this time do not have any of the rights or responsibilities that go with that position. As far as schedules go, they can be easily changed. It is doubtful that the Big Sky would change the schedule for this year. They could easily make them all non-conference games. But if you have paid any attention to collegiate athletics in the past couple of years you can see that schools have changed conferences with only months notice and they have rearranged conference schedules to make it work for both the outgoing and incoming conferences. Nebraska joined the Big 10 a year ago and competed this school year. I'm pretty sure that the Big 10 and Big 12 had schedules already done, they both had to make changes. So the schedules out to 2016 are meaningless. The reason they made them that far in advance was to work out a schedule through the entire schedule rotation because they have too many teams to allow a simple schedule that repeats each year. You said that Shaft had stated that Notre Dame refused to play UND because of the nickname. Again that's false. What Shaft said was that he wondered if the nickname played a role in Notre Dame not joining the new hockey conference. He didn't state it as a fact. He said that he wondered if that might be a factor. He didn't say that Notre Dame refused to play UND, because they did not. He was talking about reasons that Notre Dame may have used to pick a different conference. Wanless is an Athletic Director. Decisions on who is a member of the conference are above his pay grade. He can say whatever he wants, he isn't in the room when those decisions are discussed or made. He may speak with his school president, but that conversation can change rapidly when they are in a room with other presidents. If the leaders in the group push for an outcome it is very likely to become unanimous before they leave the room. Your side speaks in half truths and show a complete lack of understanding of how collegiate athletics work. Just the fact that your side doesn't believe that home field advantage for a team in the playoffs is an important factor to players and to teams shows that you don't understand athletics. The SBoHE has made plenty of mistakes in this process, but they are trying to do what is in the best interests of the school right now and for the future. I wish that more North Dakotans understood that and supported that.

But the majority party has shown that they don't like to be ignored. And they would have the "will of the people" to support them. If UND openly rebelled and ignored the law then Carlson would go after them in some way. There might be a better chance of the legislature overriding the measure when it is shown that damage is actually being done to the University. Unfortunately, the Constitutional measure may be in place by that time and that would be harder to get rid of.

He isn't a UND fan, he is a Fighting Sioux fan. He would rather have UND end the athletic program than give up the nickname. That doesn't sound like a UND fan.

And don't forget, the AD was just the person working the case. The State Board of Higher Education made the decision to accept or reject the settlement deal. If they thought there was a better deal they should have worked to get it. Or maybe it was as good as they thought they could get with the cards that both sides were holding.

I'm not a big fan of the AD, but at the time of the settlement UND was going to lose either way. They probably had a chance to win the actual case, but the NCAA had already corrected that issue. The case was based on the NCAA allowing a committee to make a policy, UND was arguing that it was against the NCAA bylaws. UND was correct. But while they were doing discovery the NCAA had passed a new bylaw to allow the committee to create such a policy. The new bylaw passed by a huge majority even though the schools knew that it applied to the Native American policy. Then the committee passed the policy again as a backup in case they lost the lawsuit. So if UND lost the lawsuit, the NCAA won and had a policy in place. If UND won the lawsuit and they threw out the policy, the NCAA already had the same policy in place to replace the original. And they put the second in place the correct way. Either way the NCAA got their way. Reaching a settlement bought UND some time. The AD has stated that the NCAA would not accept less than 2 tribes. They seemed to be willing to deal on other issues, but not on that. Obviously they knew that Standing Rock was going to be a hard sell. But it sounds like that was the only way to get a settlement and buy some time. Otherwise UND would have been on the sanctions list shortly after the trial ended no matter whether they won or lost.

It may have no college hockey teams, but there are thousands of people in Florida from the Northeast where they appreciate college hockey. According to Lou Nanne they are approaching sell out for the tournament. The people he had talked to from the arena said that there are tickets available, but they felt they had a decent chance to go over 20,000 tickets sold for each game and possibly sell out some or all of the games.

The wording on the ballot is now official. According to Al Jaeger: Vote NO to allow UND to move on.

I'm assuming that the best thing that could happen for UND right now would be for the Federal Court to throw out the Spirit Lake lawsuit after the hearing in a couple of weeks. It would be great if they had a chance to win, but the odds for that look very slim. So it would be better to get it over with now rather than waiting 2-5 years. If that lawsuit were thrown out now it might cause some folks to realize that it really is time to move on. The longer this drags on the more damage that will be done to the athletic department at UND.

The settlement doesn't say anything about 30 years. It asked for written confirmation from someone in tribal government with authority to give that confirmation. The written confirmation had to be received by November 30, 2010. It didn't say how the decision had to be made, just that the tribal government, the only people allowed to officially speak for the government, had to communicate that decision to the NCAA in writing. If you think about it, that was probably a smart decision on the part of the NCAA. The way they structured that determination really should remove them from any legal blame about whether the pipe ceremony can be used as an approval. They didn't make a decision about whether the pipe ceremony was followed or not. They left that decision up to the legal body that should be the expert, the tribal government from Standing Rock. It was a delegation from Standing Rock that performed whatever ceremony was performed. They should know whether the ceremony had any legal standing. They say it did not.

As MplsBison said, going to FBS would be up to the President and the Board of Regents. They are the ones that made the decision to stay in FCS in the last couple of years. Plus it will take a while for a new AD to be hired. So, with all of the upheaval going on around college sports it wouldn't make sense for them to even look at moving until at least 2014, and probably some time after that.

Montana probably doesn't go anywhere without Montana State. But more importantly, I can't see Montana making any kind of big move right now after firing the AD and Head Football Coach. They need to get their program in order before they make any other changes.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but you are right that the WCHA and Hockey East had an inter-locking schedule because they both lacked numbers. I believe that it was shortly after the Michigan schools and Notre Dame went to the CCHA.

I believe the poster meant that they were in attendance for Zucker's last game as a collegiate and his first game as a pro. And that this was the first time they had done that for any player. Quite a few have gone straight from college to the NHL.

One advantage of having an even number is that all schools can be playing in conference at the same time. With an uneven number the conference would have to let 1 school play non-conference each week, and those games can be difficult to find during large parts of the year.

The Alerus wasn't designed for UND. It was designed as a multi-purpose facility for the city of Grand Forks. At the time there was no consideration of moving UND to Division I. Memorial Stadium has been around for decades and only needed additional seats for a limited number of games. And the building is a good size for FCS football, only a few schools in FCS have larger facilities. The Alerus Center is well sized for the other events that are being held in the building. UND only plays 6 games in the building most years. UND moving out would hurt financially for a while, but those dates can be filled. UND is an important tenant for the building, but they don't cater the building to UND.

Both Wisconsin and Minnesota have told UND that as long as they are using the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo there will be no games during the regular season. Tournament games would be a different story.

Some of us prefer to convict and punish for actual crimes, not for associating with the wrong crowd.

But he usually gets offered a lesser crime like involuntary manslaughter in a plea bargain.

You're right, all 6 banding together could have probably changed things. Penn State has no college hockey experience and needed a home, so why would they worry about that? We know that Alvarez wanted to move Wisconsin away from the smaller schools in the WCHA. Already you have a problem even if the remaining 4 hockey schools wanted to stay where they were. Ohio State doesn't have the long history, so it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted their own conference. That leaves Minnesota, Michigan and Michigan State. All have some good history in college hockey, 2 of them are among the top 5 all time. But that isn't enough if the rest wanted to take the money for the Big 10 channel and run. I say go ahead and blame the conference as a whole, but it isn't as easy to blame every individual school. I believe that Minnesota was at least hesitant to make the change and probably didn't want to do it.

First, REA doesn't legally have to do anything. But if they don't they wouldn't be able to host NCAA tournament events. The NCAA has said that some of the logos would be able to stay, REA just doesn't want to remove any of them. That is an issue for REA and the NCAA to work out to see if they can come to a compromise. But there is no case where all of the logos have to be removed, even the NCAA hasn't gone that far. Second, you're comparing apples to oranges. A better comparison would be selling Fighting Sioux stuff in the Sioux Shop compared to Xcel selling stuff in a concessions area. Logos on the wall and seats are completely different. But even then it isn't quite a direct comparison because UND would have a regular on-going relationship on a day-to-day basis with REA versus a single event contract with Xcel. Third, the rule is that the school can't use the nickname and logo. And the NCAA won't use the nickname and logo for any of their materials. But there is no rule that states the nicknames and logos can't be on display any place in the arena. If there were such a rule than fans couldn't wear the logo.

It is possible that Minnesota didn't want to leave the WCHA and form the Big 10 conference. Barry Alvarez from Wisconsin seemed to be very vocal about supporting the Big 10. Of course Penn State would support it, and it makes sense that Ohio State and at least Michigan would probably want to stick together. Those 4 schools could put the deal together over objections from Minnesota, if Minnesota objected. Maturi and Lucia have seemed to be less enthused about switching conferences. Without direct confirmation it would be hard to know for sure whether Minnesota was in favor of starting the hockey conference or whether they wanted to keep the status quo.

The NCAA itself doesn't make any money off the BCS or the Championship game. The FBS conferences and schools make money, but the NCAA does not participate. This is from the BCS web site. The NCAA may have other reasons to support the BCS and try to keep playes involved. They certainly have plenty of issues to deal with. But the BCS system is separate from the NCAA even though the schools and conferences are involved with both.

There is usually an exhibition in mid December around the time the semester ends, but it looks like they have a regular series instead. That may be why they moved the 2nd exhibition to the beginning of the season.

Was it the NCAA selling Fighting Sioux jerseys, or was it the Xcel Energy Center selling Fighting Sioux jerseys? Xcel has sold Fighting Sioux jerseys before, and the NCAA wouldn't be able to control that.