82SiouxGuy

I've heard that a lot of retirees are moving to eastern North Dakota. The rumor is that Grand Forks has gotten a lot of new citizens from the western part of the state in the past year.

Have you been bilingual for a long time, or did you learn a new language for your intended?

I believe there have been some changes between seasons, but not during the season. Of course, our host would be the local expert on the subject.

You seem to be the only one aroused by the pink sheep.

Cal State Northridge left the Big Sky in 2001. Boise State and Idaho left in 1996. Those were the last 3 schools to leave. The Big Sky turned down NDSU after Northridge left, they didn't need another member. The conference has been very stable. It is not "floundering and losing members". That is a myth propogated by the people supporting the lawsuit and referendum. As far as UND's status with the Big Sky, there are at least 2 issues that need to be reviewed that you haven't addressed. First, technically UND isn't a full member of the conference yet. If you review the bylaws you will see that to become a full member of the conference UND must be a full member of NCAA Division I. UND is not a full Division I member yet. The NCAA considers UND a Division II member in transition to Division I. The school has to complete the transition and be approved as a Division I member. That won't happen until July at the earliest. The Big Sky accepted UND based on the assumption that they would finish the transition. The other issue is that kicking UND out of the conference is possible, but not the only action that the conference could take against the school. Kicking the school out when they are a full member would require a 100% vote of the presidents. But other actions would only require 2/3rds vote. The actions could vary a great deal. For instance, the Big Sky could prevent UND from hosting any conference tournaments. That precedent has been set by the SEC and ACC. The Big Sky would be following the best practices of the NCAA, which you believe would be more proof of anti-trust by the NCAA. But that hasn't stopped the SEC and ACC from withdrawing most league tournaments from South Carolina. If you are wrong about the anti-trust, UND would lose not only the right to host NCAA tournament games, they could potentially lose the right to host almost any post-season tournaments (other than hockey and whichever other sports are not in the Big Sky). Or the Big Sky could find other ways to penalize the school. The Spirit Lake lawsuit is the only chance of keeping the name. But it is far, far from a sure thing. And the results won't be known for quite a while. Forcing the school to keep using the nickname during this period, when the chances of winning the lawsuit are not good, is an irresponsible business decision. That's why it is not a good idea to sign the petitions, and not a good idea to vote in favor of keeping the name if either of the petitions is successful.

They have 3 media timeouts per period and can normally do 4 spots per timeout. That's 36 spots. They take a few more when there are long breaks, like sometimes after a goal. They have plenty of time between periods (3-5 minutes of ads each break?). They fit a few in before and after the game. They can probably fit more than 50 commercials in during a hockey broadcast. These are just estimates off the top of my head, I go to the games so I don't get to watch too often.

The last time I heard they wanted to put this building between the Canad Inn and the gas station on Demers. It was going to be the first building in a high tech business park. I don't know if that plan changed or not.

There isn't enough money involved in advertising on UND hockey to make it worthwhile for national advertisers or advertising companies. The viewership is more similar to a local broadcast, even though there are people seeing it all over the country. The total number of viewers is still going to be a lot less than a local TV affiliate in a major metro market.

The jobs are not currently centralized. Each campus handles its own IT. Some of the IT jobs will probably stay where they are, and some will probably transfer. For instance, a lot of the current UND IT is located in a basement in one of the buildings on campus, but I don't think that all of UND's IT is centrally located right now. The original plan included some excess capacity that could be sold to outside companies, I don't know if that is part of the current plan. The thought was that some of the UAS companies may be interested in the service. They also hoped to leave room for an additional building in the future as needs increase.

Hak said that Parks would be on the trip during the coach's show.

If they're season ticket holders maybe it can help you become more enlightened.

Dave covers things pretty well. Here are a couple of points of contact:

People want to use nicknames for sports teams. The school name, or even using North Dakota, just isn't a good substitute. Using the school colors has been done many times before during a transition or even for a school's new nickname. You don't have to look any further than Grand Forks Central when they dropped the Redskins name. Green or green and white have been used in chants at UND already so it makes sense that someone would use them for a nickname. This is why the 3 year cooling off period wasn't a great idea. It's also why tSic has always said that you need to control the name or someone else will. Green and White isn't going to stick as a new nickname. A different name will be chosen, and a lot of people aren't going to like it no matter what they choose. It would have been good if a process could have been in place with a reasonable timeline, but that isn't possible because of the cooling off period. So you can expect people to use Green and White or something else as a nickname until a new one is chosen, or the Sioux name is somehow brought back.

Broadcasting is expensive, especially live remotes.

Cameras plus equipment plus truck add up to at least $2 million or more. HD also involves a lot more satellite time, which is also expensive.

It should have gone into effect either July 1 or Aug 1 of 2011, which means it was in effect before the meeting with the NCAA. I believe the SBoHE decided to let the NCAA explain their position and see if that would change the legislature's mind. Letting the legislature change the law back was going to cause less problems than forcing the issue by challenging the constitutionality.

I just meant that not getting enough signatures would end that effort right away. If they get enough signatures on the first petition then the SBoHE has to decide whether to look at constitutionality. If they pursue that avenue and it is ruled unconstitutional, that would end that effort. If it is ruled constitutional it would go to the vote. And I agree, neither getting enough signatures or passing in an election are sure things.

We don't know whether it does or doesn't. We don't have a final decision on whether the nickname law was constitutional or not. If they don't get enough signatures, it isn't an issue. If they do, the State Board of Higher Education may decide to get a ruling on the constitutionality. If they get enough signatures on the second petition, then the voters of North Dakota would make the decision. But tSic is right, these efforts to force UND to keep the name without getting the NCAA to change their position on the issue would hurt UND.

FSN is Fox Sports North. They are part of the Fox Sports family of regional sports cable stations. They broadcast the Minnesota Twins, the Minnesota Wild, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Gophers along with other stuff. It is a 24 hour cable sports station that covers sports in the Twin Cities and the region. They send their own equipment and their own staff to cover the games. The station formerly known as FSSN is a group put together by UND, WDAZ and Midcontinent to broadcast some UND games. They have since expanded a little bit, but that is still the main purpose. Of course FSN is going to have HD equipment. They are a big money operation that is in the business of professional sports, and dabbles in college sports to help fill in the schedule. FSSN is a shoe string operation. They bought new equipment when the REA opened. The equipment still works great and HD is still very expensive. HD prices will come down just like all technology gets cheaper. At some point they will need to make the switch, but the operation is not a big money maker. It is more of a service to UND fans. Also, someone else said in an earlier post that FCS (Fox College Sports) only broadcasts in SD. So even if FSSN spent the millions to upgrade their equipment, people would still only be able to watch in SD until FCS makes the change. If you don't like watching the SD signal, don't watch. Watch FSN or something else. And most of the time you won't be watching UND. Complaining about it isn't going to do anyone any good at all. They will make the change when they can afford it. And the others are right, complaining about the local commercials is an insult to those good businesses. The broadcast is aimed at the local region and that's why regional businesses advertise on it. The additional viewers around the country are just a bonus. But there aren't enough of them to attract a national advertiser. The folks at Dahlstrom, Home of Economy and other local businesses are spending their money to support UND Athletics and to reach local customers.

I thought it was something like that also but couldn't remember for sure. This way they can include the cleanup of the site in the project and it won't be just a big hole in the ground for 10 years or longer.

I'm pretty sure that they projected more than $2 million in repairs 10 years ago. That was one of the reasons the new building was such a great gift even before anyone knew what it would look like, the old building needed major repairs. The roof needs to be replaced, some of the seating needed to be replaced and the ice making equipment needed to be replaced soon. And that was just the beginning. It would have cost much more to bring it up to standards that the other schools now have. Tearing it down would have cost plenty of money also and the school decided that it wasn't a good use of that money until the space was actually needed. There is a small UND department that uses the entry way for office space and storage right now. They are in the planning stages of moving out, possibly this spring. There has been some assorted stuff stored in the arena (I don't know if it was Athletic Department or Plant Services) and they were moving that out in December. It looks like they are planning to tear down the building soon, maybe later this year.

Don't forget, these are high school age kids. Making a decision on a movie or a video game to play and committing to it can be difficult for them. Yet, at 15 or 16 we expect them to make a decision about where they are going to spend 3 or 4 years of their lives and don't believe that any of them are going to make a change. Some of these defections may be preplanned to get what they want. But others are probably just kids being kids. Unfortunately, it's part of the way the system works right now.

Well consider your mind blown because the comparison does not work.

The sex trade is only a portion of the slavery that currently exists in this country. Best estimates are that approximately 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year, with approximately 40-50,000 slaves currently in the United States. According to this article from 2007, http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2981327&page=1#.TwvGrtXe6Sp, in 2006 the Justice Department initiated 168 investigations, charged 111 defendants in 32 cases, and obtained 98 convictions in human trafficking cases. All of those numbers pale in comparison to the estimated 27 million slaves around the world. That may be the largest number of slaves in history. In other words, trivializing the topic of slavery by using it in a comparison to a sports nickname is outrageous.

Where did I say anything like that? Slavery hasn't been put to an end. It is illegal in this country, but it still exists in this country. Other people in this country would gladly make it legal. And it exists in much larger numbers in other places around the world. Using any talk of slavery in a comparison to a sports nickname is just wrong.