82SiouxGuy

I wouldn't consider Mama Maria's either upscale or fancy. But the food is very good.

What Wilbur said. Plus, he is currently playing in a tournament in Russia. The rumor is that he will be choosing UND as his new college.

I've served on a search committee for a non-athletic department hire, and that is basically how they work. They bring together representatives from different parts of campus and from off-campus groups that are associated with that department. The other role of the chair is to make sure that the committee follows University rules and procedures. But the chair is normally only 1 vote in any decision making. If the process is followed completely it can take a little longer to complete, but it is very thorough.

I don't think you will be able to make a lot of evaluations on any of the team performances, especially this spring. They will still have practices left to go this spring. I think that the best you can do will be to look for individual performances and individual growth. Who is bigger, stronger and/or faster than last year? Who looks better behind center and handling the team? How do the redshirts look compared to the other players at their position? Spring is always a tough time to evaluate team performance, this year it is even tougher because of the limited practice time. Mostly I go to the spring game for a little fun and to watch 'em fling the old pigskin around. That tides me over until fall.

I think that most of us already imagined a situation with UND and Minnesota playing a regional final at the Ralph, until something called Holy Cross happened. It was still epic.

Some years the regionals are very successful and some years they are not. It usually depends on location and which schools are playing in that regional. Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Gophers in St. Paul, BC close to Boston, Michigan in Detroit, all are examples of regionals that are usually successful. Other years it doesn't work. No Michigan schools available to play in Grand Rapids, not a success. First round series at the homes of higher ranked schools would give them a chance to be successful more often. The Frozen Four is pretty much sold out almost every year because of fans from schools like UND and BC, schools that have a pretty good chance of being there so the fans buy tickets every year.

I would guess that part of the reason goes back to timing of the hire. Brewster was hired at the end of the DI transition, and was therefore paid more on par with a mid-major level. Jones was hired in DII. He got an extension during the transition. When his contract is up he will probably get a pretty decent raise if UND wants him to stick around. As with much of life, timing can be very important. If UND continues to want Jones around, he will be paid accordingly. Whenever UND replaces Jones, the replacement will be paid more of a market price. But I don't see why UND would tear up Jones' contract now and give him a huge raise when there is no reason to do so. And just because he makes less than Brewster is not a good enough reason.

If you watched the U of M basketball coaching search you would have noticed a number of coaches getting raises because the U of M was interested in hiring them. If Jones does well and gets offers, Faison will offer as much of a raise as he can. Jones would then decide whether he wanted to stay at UND or move on. We don't know how much UND will decide that they can afford. So I'm not going to worry about your imaginary scenario. I have enough real issues to deal with without spending time worrying about imaginary issues. UND is currently paying the coaches what they believe these specific coaches are worth based on experience and performance. As has been pointed out, most of the coaches were hired at the DII level or at the beginning of transition. They have performed well enough to be kept, but haven't excelled to the point of getting large raises. The coaches are staying, so no one has gotten a huge offer to leave. As the coaches gain experience, and as their performance warrants, they will get raises. Only time will tell whether UND is willing and able to pay the required salaries at that point. Or whether UND is willing to pay what they need to pay to replace coaches when they leave. But the current salary structure doesn't mean that UND isn't willing to pay market salaries. I'm pretty sure that Dean left for an NHL job, which was his dream. The NHL also pays a lot more than college hockey. And Dale went to an existing FCS program that had been successful rather than going through transition. Money doesn't buy everything.

The coaches all show up at work each day, honoring the contracts that they signed. But some anonymous people on the internet are upset because UND isn't paying the coaches enough? I think I'll leave that to the coaches and the athletic director. Maybe I'll worry about how much UND is offering to pay coaches the next time they have an opening, or when one of the coaches has a contract up for renewal.

As usual. I'm not sure what you are talking about. If you are talking about the NCAA and college hockey, the NCAA makes money on college hockey. Hockey is one of the few sports that makes money. They aren't getting out of college hockey unless something major changes.

I will take 1 green and 1 black, no monikers. Great idea Mafia.

And if they are presenting the award, they get to choose the criteria for the award. If you want to determine the criteria for an award, create your own award. Or support the College Hockey News award. The Hobey Baker Award, given in honor of Hobey Baker, based on the life of Hobey Baker, is based on criteria set up by the Hobey Baker Award Foundation. The Foundation can use any criteria they want. They have chosen to give an award for the college hockey player that most closely lives up to the standards that Hobey Baker lived and played by. If you don't like it, don't pay attention to it.

I would say that Toews was even more heralded than Zach. Both were very talented and both have had great careers since leaving UND.

If you want that award, create it yourself. The people that created the Hobey Baker award wanted to honor his memory. They are allowed to create the award that they want to give. Hobey was the best player in the country, and he was more. Character is very important, I don't see any problem with making that a consideration in giving an award.

Before tonight, 4 out of the last 10 have been underclassmen. That includes Ryan Duncan, who was the 3rd sophomore to win it, and 3 straight juniors. Seniors definitely win more often, but there are plenty of reasons for that. They are usually older, more mature, more physically mature, and have more name recognition. As far as the character issue goes, the award is named after someone that lived a very straight life. He worked hard and did things the right way. He was also the best player in college hockey, maybe all of hockey when he played. The award is meant to honor him. They are going to compare all candidates to him. The one that exemplifies him the most is who should win the award.

Didn't Gwoz have a year left on his contract? That means a buyout of some kind. He doesn't have to rush into a new job if he doesn't want to. It may be difficult to go from a metro area like Denver to a rural area like Maine. It depends on what he likes outside of coaching. He has options and can probably do what he wants rather than having to make a decision right away.

If the big schools decided to take their ball and go home it would create some major changes in all of college sports. The big school basketball tournament would be different without the David vs. Goliath potential. But some people are put off by the blowouts that also can happen. It would be more of a tournament of equals and I think that a lot of people would appreciate that. If they wanted, they could even turn it into a true national tournament, everyone is in the tournament. That would eliminate the conference tournaments, but could be the first real national tournament. Other sports would suffer. Hockey is a great example. It is already a small group of schools. A split by the big schools would break hockey into 2 groups, neither large enough to be really successful. One option might be to create a separate organization to operate college hockey (or maybe turn it over to USA Hockey). That might be the only way to keep college hockey alive under this type scenario. Baseball might be another interesting example. I haven't looked at a breakdown of baseball playing schools, but I would guess that losing the big schools would be very hard to overcome. Losing the big schools from March Madness may completely destroy the NCAA, at least the operation as we currently know it. To be honest, I don't know if that is totally a bad thing. Maybe the NCAA could go back to running an athletic program and coordinating sporting activities rather than everything they are trying to do now. Let the big schools deal with most of the big problems that can happen and becoming Jr versions of pro sports. But in reality, this potential loss of revenue is what will probably push the NCAA into making some changes in football rather than possibly losing the whole enchilada.

The NCAA doesn't have their own championship for FBS football. The BCS is a separate organization. They put together the bowls and arrange the championship. The NCAA just recognizes that winner (the NCAA may have a piece of the BCS). The big conferences dominate the BCS. If they want to get rid of the smaller conferences, they can do that. That would leave the smaller 4-6 conferences without any kind of championship. That is one way that the NCAA would be forced to reallocate schools at different levels. The by product of that could be the BCS level, a level made up of the smaller FBS conferences and a few larger FCS conferences, and a third level of smaller schools. Also, as has been pointed out multiple times, the NCAA is a voluntary organization. There is no reason that the larger conferences have to remain in the NCAA. They could very easily leave as a group and form their own organization. Then they would make the rules and not have to give in to the smaller schools that dominate the NCAA. It could be very lucrative for them. Much of the money that comes into the NCAA from the NCAA basketball tournament would follow them to their organization. The big schools would pull in huge dollars from basketball and from football, either from the bowls or from a playoff system. Again, they wouldn't have to split that money with the smaller schools. You would have 3 organizations running college athletics. The NAIA would have a lot of the smaller programs, the NCAA the bulk of the programs in the middle, and the new organization with the top programs. They could still compete against each other if they wanted, NCAA schools play against NAIA schools. The NCAA might also be willing to negotiate a new system with the big conferences, just to keep them in the NCAA. If the big conferences were to leave they would take most of the TV money. The NCAA might be willing to make major changes to the system just to keep the money rolling in. That TV money is important to a lot of smaller DI schools. Without it, the rest of DI is just a bigger version of DII, and a lot of smaller DI schools would have to look at moving down. These are 3 ways that the system could be changed to the big schools advantage. You really seem to lack any imagination. Or else you are too locked into the system as it currently exists. This thing isn't set in stone, they can change the rules in any way they want. You are right about one thing, most of this is going to come down to money. How much money do the big schools want to keep and how much are they willing to share with the smaller schools?

It probably isn't the first time that it's happened in a game somewhere.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=26348

Paid in full years ago. They are on a cash accounting basis, have to keep turning over new "clients".

I guess they can plan on adding a few more dollars to the Ohio State Athletic Department profit next year. Just what they need, more money.

I saw the Hoggsbreath thread, didn't put it together with this. I thought that maybe you had just confused his eventual destination. Those small eastern schools all look the same.

Maybe one of these years I will get a chance to make it to this festive event.

From hockeydb.com: