82SiouxGuy

Your tuition money is paying for your education. You would pay that whether we had sports or not at UND. It will, hopefully, give you a better future. You can't count that toward your cost of going to hockey games. And as several other people have pointed out, the people of North Dakota subsidize your tuition which lower your costs without them getting a direct benefit. The money for hockey tickets goes through the REA with profits going to the athletic department. If REA sold the 2,000 student tickets at $300 instead of $75 it would bring in an additional $600,000 per year. They would probably have higher costs involved in selling tickets which would bring us close to the $300,00 they quoted. I have been to a lot of other venues where they don't stand for the entire game. You don't have to stand to be involved in the game. Many non-students have as much pride and spirit as the students or more, yet don't want to stand the entire game. And yes this is college. College students are usually at least 18 years old and considered adults. So act like adults. Most adults don't spend a lot of time swearing in public places, especially in group chants. Most adults show respect for others around them. And a lot of adults try to set a good example for others, especially children. No one is asking the students to act like this is church or study hall. Stand when appropriate instead of all the time and yell any of the thousands of words you know that aren't profane. I don't see where this is asking for a huge commitment from the students.

I have 2 tickets available in Section 306 Row M for both games. Looking for face value or best offer. I am in Grand Forks and going to the games so I can get them to you anytime up to the drop of the puck.

I agree with you Sioux-cia. The students could eliminate most of the complaints in 3 easy steps. 1) Reach an agreement with the REA about when they can and can't stand, and 2) follow it. REA staff needs to follow that agreement also. And 3) stop the chants with foul language. Start new chants that aren't obscene. There will always be someone complaining about something. But this would eliminate probably 90% of the problem without hurting the atmosphere in the arena at all. And I am sure that most of the alums would be willing to support the students rights if they would cooperate with these requests. Remember, we have been there so we probably understand the situation better than you think we do.

Some of the suites are rented by groups of individuals, not all are rented by businesses. And most businesses that rent them are owned by individuals or families, not big corporations. All suites pay a premium price for all of the food and drink, they can't bring in their own supplies. In other words, they pay big bucks to show up for the games.

He probably doesn't want the other side to know where a potential weakness may be. If they don't know where the problem is they can't try to take advantage of it.

I am at best a casual college basketball fan and probably know a similar level of teams. I probably watch more games during March Madness than the rest of the year combined. But can you name any of the teams ranked from 150 to 318 that don't belong to a big name conference, i.e. ACC, Big Ten, Pac Ten? That is where we would be in men's basketball most years. How many men's college basketball games are televised all over the country and on how many networks? Are casual basketball fans watching very many of these, even if we actually got to play even 1 game per year on anything other than Fox Sports North or the FSSN? I know that I watch very few of these games unless I have a specific team interest. How many DI women's basketball teams can you name that aren't in the top 25 or a major conference? How many people watch any of these games on TV with the possible exception of UTennessee and UConn? The only increase in exposure UND would get in most years would be from scores scrolling across the screen and most people only read those to catch their team's score. Or maybe a highlight on Sportscenter that 1 time a year we play a noteworthy team (and usually lose). The only time UND would get more exposure would be if they were in a conference with an automatic bid and won the right to get that bid so they go to the Dance. And the odds are against that happening more than a time or 2 per decade. My opinion on going DI has been the same since the schools south of us started looking at the subject. UND needs to have a conference affiliation in place or in the works (and a plan to cover the increased costs) before making the move. If they can find a way to cover both of these challenges I would be interested. If they can't overcome both challenges then it probably isn't the right time.

This just in from Madison, Wisconsin: Schools asked to drop Indian team names State superintendent cites discrimination Here is the link to the Pioneer Press article.

I think that lacrosse is an interesting idea for UND. While it is not a popular sport in this region currently, it has started to draw some interest. St. Paul joined the National Lacrosse League, a professional indoor lacrosse league, last year when the Wild were out on strike. The team is the Minnesota Swarm. They play in the Xcel Energy Center and they drew more than 13,000 fans for the final game of last season. They averaged more than 10,000 per game. Their new season starts January 6. They play 8 home games and 8 away games. Fox Sports North is going to televise the opener and 1 other game. I am a big baseball fan, but I would not object to exploring the option to drop baseball/softball and add mens and womens lacrosse. The weather in our area is not dependable enough to develop really competitive programs in either baseball or softball. Lacrosse at the DI level could be a good addition whether we stay DII in other sports or move up.

To further clarify: 6) Fighting Sioux is a moniker or name used by the University of North Dakota athletic teams, not to be confused with the Sioux Indian tribes that are associated with the Upper Great Plains area. The Sioux Indian tribes are also known as Lakota, Dakota and Nakota. This can get real confusing because both are human beings and many from both groups are from North Dakota. A few Sioux Indians have also been members of the Fighting Sioux athletic teams. But the UND Fighting Sioux and the Sioux Indian tribes are 2 SEPARATE GROUPS.

Could this have anything to do with the lower high school graduation rates on reservations? If you have a lower percentage of a group that graduates high school, you have a lower percentage that are eligible to attend any institution of higher learning, including UND. Therefore your actual enrollment would probably be a lower percentage than the percentage of general population.

I had someone back out on the weekend so I have a pair of tickets for each night that I can sell at face value to a fellow Sioux fan. They are in the back row of Section 306. It is a hike up the stairs but a great view of the ice. I am in Grand Forks so contact me and I can arrange to get you the tickets.

They installed brand new turf after the flood in 1997, I think it was paid for by FEMA or Community Development Block Grant money. It hasn't had a lot of use since, although the football team does use it for practice at times. It would cost a lot of money (probably well into the 7 figure range) to tear out the turf and build a good turf field with proper drainage.

I believe that Judi is a past chair of the Grand Forks Chamber of Commerce and still sits on the Executive Committee of the combined Chamber. Also, Xcel is a big supporter of UND Athletics. If UND decides to go DI it is going to take a whole lot of money so it is important to keep the business community involved.

Thanks for the report. I wasn't able to make it. That is about what I expected from the "discussion". Wouldn't it be nice to have an open discussion when both sides were at least willing to listen before rejecting the opinions of others.

I believe Lute grew up in Mayville and came to Grand Forks for high school.

Congrats JFR. Good luck to Rutgers in whichever Bowl they end up playing in.

I haven't seen this listed on here so I thought I would add it. The UND College of Education and Human Development is hosting a campus discussion on the use of the Sioux name. They list this as their 3rd campus discussion. It will be held from 2:30 to 4 on November 30th in the Memorial Union. It is free and open to the public. The listing on the UND calendar says: It may be interesting to see if anything new comes out of this or if it is just a rehashing of the same information.

I'm in the same boat as you Kermit. Used to sit beside Marc Chorney in a couple of Marketing classes.

The other difference between the 2 buildings is the volume of space. It takes a lot more noise to fill the new REA than the old building. I always thought that it would take a few years for the atmosphere to develop in the new REA. You have a lot of people attending games that were not used to going to sporting events. Many of these were the ones that showed up just because it was fashionable. Some are learning the game and adjusting. Some are being replaced because it isn't as much fun as they thought it was going to be. The crowd will develop its own identity. But as much as people complain about the crowd not getting into games, I don't know if outsiders see it the same way. IIRC many opposing teams have said that the new REA is one of the most difficult places to play, and also one of the most fun because of the crowd and the atmosphere. I think we have a pretty good thing going that will only get better. We just need to keep working to get everyone, students and otherwise, on the same page.

I think that there is a still a very good chance that the building will be torn down.

I see 2 important points in your post PCM. One is the question of retention rates for NA students. They are currently much lower for NA students than for white students. However, how do these numbers compare at other schools around the region and the nation? If they are worse here than at other schools then it may be related to the atmosphere on campus. Also, how do these numbers compare to the past at UND? Were retention numbers for NA students better, worse or the same 10 years or 20 years ago? If they haven't gotten worse in recent years you can't blame it on REA or the new logo. The other point is one that I have thought about for quite a while. Many of the problems that the name-changers talk about are harrassment for wanting to change the name. They claim that these incidents are racially motivated. You illustrated very well how having an opposing viewpoint will cause a reaction. I believe that many of these incidents would happen if we were the Bluejays or the Flickertails or any other mild mannered name and a group wanted to change the name. People are very attached to these names and logos. Can you imagine the uproar if a group wanted NDSU to drop the Bison name. People would be screaming a lot more than Yellow.

Thanks for the update. I am going to try to get to the game tomorrow night.

I had to work tonight and couldn't make it to the game. Who won and how did we look tonight?

Very well said. We have millions of people here in this country and it is very unlikely that any group of them is leaving. So we all need to find a way to move forward and work together to make this a better place for ALL of us to live.

GK's point was that the gentleman is Dakota not Lakota. He couldn't point out the simple error, he had to make a sarcastic comment about our lack of knowledge about the Sioux tribes.