82SiouxGuy

All of the hockey arenas are already booked solid. Even ICON is busy. It was built in part so that Grand Forks could host youth hockey tournaments and the occasional figure skating competition. The other buildings are so packed with practices and regular games that Grand Forks held very few youth tournaments. That is changing. The Betty is fully scheduled with UND events. Really, the only building that might have the necessary time available might be the Alerus Center, and that would probably depend on the schedule. They would have to schedule around UND football needs and other events already scheduled. Plus it is a huge building that may not work well for a minor league basketball team. UND takes a huge chunk out of the sports entertainment dollar in Grand Forks. It also takes a huge chunk out of the sponsorship dollars available in Grand Forks. Places like Bismarck, Minot, Mitchell, and Rapid City don't have anything like UND to compete against. Cities like Fargo and Sioux Falls have much larger population and business bases, which allow them to support more things. They can support college and professional teams much easier. Independent league baseball was tried in Grand Forks by 2 different organizations and they didn't work. There is a semi-pro football league with a team in Grand Forks, it is barely a blip on the radar as they enter into their 3rd(?) season. They play mainly in June and July at Cushman Field. You would also need to find an owner that wants to put a team in Grand Forks. I believe that the baseball teams were owned by groups of businessmen. Most professional leagues prefer single owners.

I believe that the guarantee was $1.2 million. The REA may very likely lose some money on this deal, but they aren't going to lose nearly the whole thing. They had sponsors, attendance was good even if it wasn't great, they will have revenue from concessions, parking and the Lamplighter. Bringing World class events to the facility was always part of Ralph's plan, so even if they lost some money it probably helps fulfill his vision. Making money wasn't the main reason for hosting this tournament. Keeping REA and Grand Forks on the world hockey map was a large reason for hosting, especially since the U20 will probably never come back to a smaller than NHL level facility. You will never see a Duke or Kansas come to UND for a money game. The only way a program like those visits someplace like UND is for a special reason like Kansas did several years ago. Top level programs like those make a lot of money already, and they can get paid from other big name schools. In the long run basketball has more potential for revenue growth since hockey is a mature Division I sport and basketball is still a recent transplant. But that growth isn't going to come from giving away money to rich programs.

Fargo is the only other time the US hosted.

Michigan won 3 in a row and 5 out of 6 in the early 50's.

They aren't going to add all of those players this year. Depending on the number of current players that eventually decide to leave, about half of your list will end up at UND this coming Fall.

He has to have so many credits toward a degree after each year of school to compete the next year. Those include summer credits, each semester, online, etc. He probably had a good load last fall. He may have taken some classes online. He may need to take X number of credits this summer. He could probably take a few credits online this summer. They don't look at each individual semester alone for progress, it is progress toward a degree each year. For Division I it includes 18 credits for a regular academic year or 24 for the full year. They also have a waiver appeal process for progress toward a degree. If the student shows the ability to get back on track and successfully get a degree within 5 years, but has some kind of situation that interferes such as health problem or family issues, then the NCAA can waive the progress requirement 1 time as long as the student and the school have a plan in place to get the student caught up.

There has been talk in the past about replacing Gamble Hall (my home away from home for 4 years). I believe it involved a new building where Chandler is now. If I remember right, there was also a plan to add on to Hughes Fine Arts Center and that would be used for the classes and services now hosted by Chandler. I can't remember for sure if there was a replacement for Burtness in that plan or if Burtness was going to stay in place.

There is never a guarantee of making a profit when you host an event. They knew this was going to be difficult with the $1.2 million guarantee to USA Hockey. It will be interesting to see how it comes out in the end. It might come down to who makes the gold medal game, I'm betting that they would love a USA-Canada match.

The city is holding an international hockey tournament for more than a week, so that added to the hockey atmosphere for the weekend. It is one of the biggest international tournaments held each year and only the 2nd time it has been held in the United States.

REA guaranteed USA Hockey something like $1.2 million to be the host. They are using every way possible to make sure they don't lose money on the deal.

Non-conference opponents have been announced, but I haven't seen any dates.

The conference schedule has been posted. NCHC Composite schedule

The last sentence is true for any sport or program that gets cut, male or female.

Those type of things would satisfy a 1 year cut. The governor ordered the departments to come up with permanent budget cuts rather than 1 time fixes. That's why they cut sports and are talking other programming cuts rather than finding more short term fixes.

No. It means that UND probably wasn't Title IX compliant for 20+ years. It means that they were given time to reach compliance, just like all of the other schools. It means that they kept adding sports to reach compliance, and that instead of adding 1 more women's sport they cut wrestling.

Women's hockey is a ticketed event. They are general admission tickets, but you have to have a ticket to get in a game.

No one had to be completely Title IX compliant immediately. They had to make a plan to reach compliance and make steady progress toward that goal over a period of years. Adding hockey 20 some years later was part of that process.

All of the current cuts are coming from the budget problems facing the state, not from anything done by anyone at UND. That is part of what happens when you institute a flat 4.05% budget cut across all state budgets rather than opening up the budget process again and reviewing all budgets to see where the most appropriate cuts should be made.

One other thing for people to consider in the discussion of cutting sports or of supporting only sports that bring in a lot of people. Collegiate sports were not originally designed to make money. Track, golf, rowing, gymnastics, and many other sports don't have a chance to make money for most schools. And don't forget that even sports like football lose money at many schools. So decisions on what sports to have and what sports to cut are not based totally on dollars and cents. Money has to be a factor, especially in times of tight budgets. But if you were going to make decisions based solely on the basis of budgets, most of college athletics in this country would be eliminated. So would most sports at the high school level.

I understand why a lot of people want to cut women's hockey. I'm trying to point out why it would be very difficult to do so, and why it probably will never happen.

Women's hockey total attendance for 2015-2016 was 16143 in 16 dates. Baseball doesn't even report attendance.

Neither of you seem to get the big picture. Women's hockey was started at UND because of the need to add women's sports, and the need to have sports that were of interest to the student body. Not a lot of rowing, or field hockey, or water polo teams at the high school level in the region. Plenty of interest in hockey. As a matter of fact, one of the considerations was the fact that people might actually pay to go to hockey games while people don't pay to attend some other women's sports. But if they had added a different sport instead of hockey, they wouldn't have to have hockey just to put a team in that building. Now that UND has women's hockey it would be very difficult to remove it. Taking top quality facilities away from one gender and not the other would be just one of the red flags that would be raised. As a matter of fact, taking away any kind of opportunities would be a huge red flag. Especially a program that has been considered a top 10 program in the country for most of the last 5 years or so.

I was pointing out that there are several women's sports at Michigan that UND doesn't have. Not all are there to replace hockey. None of them are there specifically to replace hockey. Michigan never had women's hockey, so they didn't have to replace it. It is all about the total number of opportunities and the total support for athletics, not specific sports. Also, scholarships for FBS and FCS football are different, but roster sizes are either the same or very similar.

They don't have to use the same facilities. Minnesota satisfies Title IX in hockey with the men at Mariucci and the women at Ridder because the facilities are of similar quality.

They don't have to be similar sports. Title IX is about opportunities and support. Not a lot of girls are interested in playing football. But they may be interested in playing water polo, or field hockey or rowing. Then the school has to provide similar quality facilities for the women's sports overall as they do for men's sports. Again, it doesn't have to be the same size. But if you have top of the line men's facilities you can't provide women's facilities equal to a North Dakota Class B high school.