82SiouxGuy

I stand corrected.

If there is already an app that does UND Insider stuff, and Jayson says that Neulion is working on an app that does live, HD broadcasts, then it sure looks like 2 different apps. It would seem like a big mistake to take away an app that shows the UND Insider stuff, and that isn't going to be available on the new app that he described.

Here is Jayson's post earlier on the same page where it says that the iPhone app is not ready or available yet. Neulion says that it will be ready before the games this weekend. This is the app that will need to be used for live, HD events. They don't have a date yet for when the Android version of the app will be ready.

They would love to sell the spots for $15 each. But as I pointed out in an earlier post, they have to balance the distribution of parking spots. They have a contract with UND that specifies a certain number of spots for Champions Club members. They can't sell those as tailgating spots. The contract may also include the student tailgating spots. And they would face holy hell if they turned a bunch of the regular spots into tailgating spots, leaving regular parkers without a place to put their car. The general public and the City Council would be upset. The Alerus Center reports to the City Council, not a good idea to upset your boss. They can adjust the balance a little one way or the other, and may turn a small number of regular spots into tailgating if that balance works better for the needs. There are already shuttles that bring people to games. Since they normally come from bars, they aren't really good for families. But there is a difference between the Alerus Center and REA. The Alerus Center is a public facility, owned by the city, so they have to answer to someone else. REA is owned by a private trust. They have a contract with UND and their mission is to support UND. But they only answer to the trust on day-to-day things. So the REA can do things differently than the Alerus Center.

They have limited parking space. Back when they had sold out, or close to sold out, games against NDSU or in the playoffs, they didn't have enough room for regular parking. That was with much less tailgating. They were parking people across the street in fields where the new motel is, and where an apartment building is going up. Those spaces aren't available anymore. They don't have any more room to open more tailgating lots. I know that some people like tailgating, but it isn't going to drive large numbers of people to attend the games.

I have no idea what the relationships are like between UND coaches and area high school coaches. And I doubt that most of the posters here actually know from first hand experience. I'm not overly concerned about it long term. Kids pick schools for a lot of different reasons. What high school coaches think about UND coaches will only be one part of the equation and the high school coaches would be doing a disservice to their students if they boycotted a college because of personal reasons. The relationship between the kid and the recruiting coach is a much bigger factor. Most of the fans that have swayed to supporting NDSU are fair weather fan types that will sway back to UND when UND is up and NDSU is down. Long term, performance on the field by UND will be much more important to both recruiting and fan support than how well the UND coaches get along with high school coaches. We've seen this cycle through more than once over the past 50 years as both NDSU and UND's fortunes rise and fall.

So the entire discussion is over an average of about 2 kids per recruiting year from North Dakota and 1 from South Dakota. The other part of the discussion should be, as siouxperseven brings up, is how much playing time are those recruits getting. Are they all getting significant time, part of them getting significant time, just roster filler?

The Alerus Center doesn't get the ticket money, at least not most of it. UND gets the majority of the ticket revenue. UND pays a fee to rent the facility, I don't remember if that includes a small piece of the ticket or not. More people does mean more concessions, but more tickets sold doesn't mean much more to the Alerus Center in ticket revenue. I don't think that decreasing tailgating fees or opening more spots would increase attendance a great deal. They sold out the season spots, so they must be doing something right. And I don't think that people who aren't used to tailgating are going to start just because it is cheap. Certainly not in the numbers you are talking. You aren't going to add 1,000 people, much less 3,000. People can show up and take part in the tailgating right now without having to go through all of the work and expense. So they probably aren't going to spend money on a rig, or some kind of picnic set up, plus food, and beverages, to show up and suddenly become tailgaters because the spot is $5 or even free.

I'm not a tailgater, so I don't know how it worked before. I know that people complained when the Alerus Center was losing money. A lot of people suggested paying for parking as a solution or partial solution. They started doing that for most events, at least for those events where tickets above a certain price are sold, and now the finances for the Alerus Center look much better. Parking fees aren't the only reason, but they are part of the reason. If they were playing on campus it might be a different story, but they are playing in a public facility and the city isn't responsible for subsidizing UND football. The other thing to think about if they were back on campus is that they may not allow alcohol in tailgating. Many campus stadiums don't allow alcohol, especially in the parking lots (although not everyone follows those rules). People pay a lot more than $5 for parking in most parts of the country. I've paid $20 or $30 dollars to park for an event, without tailgating. Tailgaters create more work for the Alerus Center because they have a lot more cleaning that needs to be done, so it makes sense that they charge more per space for tailgaters than they do for just regular parking. You are paying to use space for a certain amount of time just like paying for a ticket for an event.

They have a set number of spots that are set aside for full season tailgating at $50 per spot. That works out to $10 or less per game, depending on how many home games they have that season. This year it works out to $7 per game (only $2 more than simply parking). They sold out of those spots. They set aside so many spots for student tailgating. They have to reserve spots for regular parking for Champions Club members. They have to reserve spots for regular people parking. Therefore they have a limited number of spots you can buy on a single game basis for tailgating. You didn't buy your tailgating spots until after they were sold out of the season passes. That's why your cost is higher. That plus the fact that there are 7 games this year rather than the 6 home games that are usually on the schedule. It is just like getting tickets for a game. They have a certain number of tickets available for season ticket holders and they try to have a limited number available on a game to game basis. The Ralph doesn't sell every seat to season ticket holders even though they have a waiting list. They sell a certain number of tickets on a single game basis. That gives people that are only going to 1 or 2 games a chance to participate. It costs more money per game that way, but there are also added costs of processing. Buy your tailgating spots earlier next year and the cost will be less than half of what you spent this year.

Cratter is correct, a midget type program is about the only thing I could see being added. It would kind of be a feeder program for UND Hockey, and probably wouldn't need the financial resources that most of the others would. I don't know if there is enough available money left in the community to make it successful or not without a major sponsor, most of the midget teams seem to have a major sponsor attached to them. Individual events like the ones you list are a different story. I have attended Wild preseason games at the Ralph and I was at most of the World Junior games at the Ralph. I think that any of those would have a chance to be successful and I would seriously consider attending any of them depending on price and conflicts.

The mission of the Ralph Engelstad Arena, as set up by Ralph himself, is to support the University of North Dakota hockey program and the University itself. REA wouldn't do anything to hurt UND athletics. So they wouldn't bring in another program that is going to take away financial support of the UND hockey team. They would only bring in another program if it will enhance or add to the financial bottom line.

UND hockey also takes up a large portion of the available sponsorship dollars available in the Grand Forks area. I don't know how much more is available for another program.

As Jason has said several times, the Iphone app is not ready yet. They are working on it.

I figured that you should know it. It happens sometimes.

Fridays at 7:37 and Saturdays at 7:07.

Welcome to Grand Forks, welcome to UND and welcome to this board. I'm glad that you have had a good experience so far. Good luck with your education, and I hope that you get a chance to see a lot of great hockey during your time here.

Every time you post, you reinforce how much of a moron you actually are. They didn't take their foot off anything, UND was already playing better before that. SDSU was up 28-7, UND scored a touchdown. SDSU scored a touchdown. UND scored 2 touchdowns. And UND played at least as well as SDSU in the 1st quarter. The teams were closely matched. UND had too many penalties and too many turnovers. You're just upset that one of your MVFC pals wasn't significantly better than UND. You and your BSvillers "toe to toe" gets really boring, you need some new material.

I didn't say anything about the quality of SDSU. Danny Boy questioned whether it was a close game. I was showing that it was a close game and not a blowout. At this point it doesn't look like SDSU is a Top 10 team.

Final score SDSU 35- UND 28, 1 score difference. UND had the ball with a few minutes left and turned it over, a touchdown would have tied the game. SDSU with 21 first downs and UND with 19. SDSU with 455 total yards and UND with 458. Were you at the game, or did you watch it? I was there. UND had a slight advantage in the 1st quarter. SDSU dominated for the 2nd and a good part of the 3rd. UND dominated most of the 4th. UND couldn't stop Zenner for most of the game, SDSU had trouble stopping the UND passing game, especially in the 1st and 4th. UND had too many penalties and a couple of turnovers that made the difference. But it was definitely a close game. Thanks again for your interest in UND athletics and for being such a huge closeted UND fan.

So far they have had 2 bad losses, and 1 close game with SDSU. If they defeat EWU and go 7-4 there is a decent chance they make the playoffs, 8-3 would almost guarantee playoffs.

Even the Penn State athletic department may not believed it. Depends on when they found out they were going to get a huge donation designated for hockey. How many more Big 10 schools are going to get that kind of donation? How many Big 10 schools are going to take Big 10 television money and start a hockey program? With a 6 team league they have plenty of room to grow, it just depends on what kind of conference they want.

I'm sure they will take that into consideration, too. Everyone keeps saying that none of the other Big 10 schools are going to add hockey, so I'm not sure that this is the biggest concern right now. But, if it helps you to hold a grudge..., I don't think that the administration at UND will do that if they think it's a smart long term decision for the program.

It's amazing how interested you are in UND athletics. You should really come out of the closet and admit that you are a UND fan rather than a fan of NDSUAAS.

If the penalty in the team rules doesn't include a game suspension, it should. If missing a class is worth a game suspension, and it has been at UND, then any run-in with law enforcement that's more than a traffic ticket should be worth at least as much. Playing time is very important to players and is the best way to get their attention.