Siouxman

Without Rollie the Goalie, I think it is Carolina's for the taking. I haven't had a preference as to who wins it between these two teams. But it sure has been fun watching the games. Commodore impresses me more with every game. He can play defensively, rush the puck up the ice, and get in on the scoring. Calgary flat out blew it when they let him get away.

Sioux-cia, I am leaving for a Candian fishing trip on the 15th, then another trip (work related), and then to a family reunion. I won't be back into circulation until early July. If you post a date and ask for the money, don't get concerned if you don't hear from me for a little while. I am just out of town. We are on board for this.

And that is where you are so mistaken. The only meaningless third place game is the one that they used to have for the Frozen Four. Before the end of the season, every game is important. Much of sports is mental toughness. After losing to St. Cloud, the absolutely last thing that the Gophers needed was to have a poor showing against Wisconsin. They didn't need to win, but they needed a good effort to clear that loss out of their minds. Instead, they failed to show up and went into the playoffs on a two game losing streak. A great sports cliche is you can't turn it on and off at a whim. The Gophers finished the Final Five flat, and it carried over to the Holy Cross game. Every time you have a poor performance and/or lose a game you should win, it creates a little doubt in your mind. I used to have the utmost respect for Lucia when he was at Colorado College and when he came to Minnesota. After his comments about the Final Five third place game, I no longer have that level of respect. As a previous poster mentioned, you have to have pride. It appears to me that Lucia and the team did not have that pride in playing for the Gophers. I said the Gophers were in trouble after that 3rd place game, and it came to be true. This isn't an "I told you so" post. It simply illustrates that everyone associated with the Gopher team should have been highly concerned going into the regional tournament. Moral: All games and pride in yourself and your program count - day in and day out.

That is incorrect concerning the DWI. You can get into Canada with a DWI on your record. However, to do it you will have to pay the equivalent of the Canadian fine for a DWI. AND - you have to be sure that your paying the fine is entered into the Canadian record. Because if it isn't, you will have to pay it again the next time. The trick is that only certain supervisory level personnel at the border crossing are authorized to enter the payment. We have a group that has been going to Canada fishing every year (except for 2 years) since 1976. We have an individual in our group that had a DWI in the 1970's and the border group caught it in the late 1990's when he went in to pay the duty on some extra beer. He wound up paying a hefty fine, but now it isn't a problem to get across.

We will go with the flow on the date. We very rarely miss a series unless it is real serious, so date is not critical.

I tended bar for a while at Frenchy's. It was originally beer only. After business dropped off because people were going to other places that had hard liquor, it was changed to include hard liquor and became Frenchy's Cabaret. I don't think it ever regained its earlier glory days. Part of the glory days were a result of the fact that many Sioux athletes frequented the place (maybe a precurser to Blarney's?? - actually Sioux hockey players were a lot older back then). Frenchy was eventually forced to close the business due to health problems. He suffered from emphysema, and the cigarette smoke was a problem for him. The building hung around for a while, but was eventually demolished. Frenchy is now retired in a small ND town. A recent issue of Sioux Illustrated had a very great article on Frenchy and a lot of Sioux history. It turns out that he played hockey in California with a number of the Grand Forks/northern MN hockey names of history, including Ralph Engelstad being the goalie on that CA team. If you can find a copy of the article, it is well worth reading.

Sioux-cia, Many thanks for heading this up. You can count me and Mrs. Siouxman in. As for Morley and Southpaw, they are on their own for this one (if anyone is thinking mean old dad - Hey, I took them to Milwaukee on my tab). Please put us down for two (2) spots. If we have space available when the time comes, I may be able to round up some additional attendees. They aren't Siouxsports participants, but they are Sioux hockey fans. Thanks again. Mr. and Mrs. Siouxman (1+1 = 2)

I have hired people, and you believe that I pre-screen applications long before I ever start contacting references. It becomes an impossible task when you have many applications to go through a full-blown checkout of every person. You will have some initial criteria in mind, and simply reviewing the applications will cause some to fall out of consideration. When you have many applications, it does not take much time to realize that some applications are just not up to par. Then you take a second harder look, at more specifics. You should be able to weed the applications down to a manageable size before you begin contacting references. There is no inference that you have pre-selected the winner. It is simply a process of carving the mountain down to a manageable molehill, and minimizing wasted time. You can always relook at applications that were previously screened out if the tighter investigation eliminates all of your smaller group.

I have a hard time seeing both characters having the same face. The one in the foreground appeared to me to have a narrower face, and as a result I never considered the fact that it might represent the same person. If they are intended to be the same face, that adds a whole different perspective and meaning to the scene than two different individuals.

I think that it would be nice to have the interpretive explanation from the author. Now that it is known that this is for the pow-wow, the figure in front with the odd looking posture could actually represent a warrior dancing. The two figures could represent the warrior of old and the warrior of today. Without having the explanation of the symbolism, I could see where this scene could offend some. For instance, the presence of the stars and stripes in the traditional native dress. Without the explanatory symbolism, it could be viewed as disrespecting the culture by some. It is an interesting scene and begs for an interpretation. Whoops, I just clicked on the link provided by PCM and got the interpretation. Now it makes sense. Just goes to prove, interpretation depends upon the context.

That is correct. It may take the situation where the football team makes the playoffs and is ranked higher than its opponent, but the NCAA has the opponent host the game. At that point UND has been harmed. Since hockey playoff sites have been determined for a number of years, and those sites are chosen years in advance, it could be a long time before the hockey team suffers damage. Even so, it could be tough to prove the policy resulted in not choosing the REA to host a regional. The football team is much clearer. Throughout the playoffs, the higher ranking team gets to host the game. A sudden situation where the higher ranked team does not host stands out and can be easily proven that damage happened. UND may have to wait for that to happen to strenghten their case, but that is a call for the lawyers.

The attorneys will also have to determine if it is possible to take legal action before the plaintiff (UND) has become an injured party, such as being denied hosting a home playoff game, or suffering financial impact from not hosting a home playoff game that they should have hosted. If so, there might not be legal action until after the policy has been in place. Obviously I'm guessing here, but that may be a consideration.

Relax. It is just good business sense at this point to very carefully weigh the positions and the odds of success on both sides of the argument. It is now that you would finally spend some money to get solid opinions from excellent, experienced counsel in this subject, considering exactly what legal point or points are available for contesting the NCAA and the probabilities of success. Then you need to be sure that everyone is on board with the plan. From here on out, if it does become a legal battle each step has to be carefully planned, anticipated, and carried out. It is not the time to prematurely fire your gun in the wrong direction or at the wrong target. If legal action becomes the plan, this will be a long project, with plenty of discovery and testimony development on both sides. Since UND hadn't exhausted all of the appeals process, there wasn't much that could have been done before this.

The legal fees is an interesting part. The harder the NCAA fights, the more it is at risk of losing. Of course, they don't seem to recognize when they've dug a hole and need to get out. They just keep digging deeper.

Tim O'Keefe was on KXJB last night. Said they are receiving many contacts about donating money to the legal effort, and getting legal offers to represent UND "pro bono." Said the contacts started coming last fall already.

The old "I was too stoned to remember" gambit.

It is critical for us to hold up our end and speak when we see racism, misuse of the Fighting Sioux nickname, or disrespect to the heritage of the Sioux people. This is a great day, no matter how the NCAA votes. UND and the tribes have to work together, because only through education will there even be a possibility of addressing the real issues faced by Native Americans on the reservation. Thank you Standing Rock and Spirit Lake tribes.

Ouch! Must be time for a press conference to straighten everyone out.

I lost all respect for Cherry when I was at UND in the 70's and watching Hockey Night in Canada. He is a classless act and has been a negative for the game of hockey. He has actively promoted fighting and challenged people to fights when he was coaching. "Goon" fits him perfectly. Oh, and by the way, according to Cherry Canada could send three teams to Turino and bring home gold, silver, and bronze.

How many #2 quarterbacks do they need?

Here's the Chucko story. http://www.startribune.com/512/story/386170.html

Man, that guy that signs for the .5 really takes it in the shorts. He should just stay in school.

I would disagree with the Hauser/Briggs comment. Hauser could rise to the occasion, unless he let a team get into his head. Once that happened, he would play like a 3rd string bantam. There was a WI game that demonstrated that very clearly. It didn't happen a lot, but it did happen. Briggs is a different story. Briggs has played okay at best. During the Gopher hot streak this year, it wasn't because they had good goaltending. It was because the offense was clicking like a well oiled machine. That offense would get opposing teams reeling and off their game. Even with just a decent defense, in that mode you can win a lot of games. The other team is too busy scrambling to mount much offense. A good offense can make a defense look good (except for the MN Vikings). It was when MN ran into better teams in the playoffs and they couldn't get the high flying offense going to get the opponent off balance that they ran into trouble. Then the gaoltending and defensive issues became glaring. The Gophers will need a great defense to get anywhere with Briggs in net. I haven't seen Frazee play that much, but what I have seen indicates that he isn't up to the point yet where he could displace Briggs. Until one of those two decides to become a solid goaltender, come playoff time the tough teams will cause MN trouble next year. Assuming Kessel doesn't go pro, I think MN will have a good team next year. They will be competitive in the regular season, but I have doubts about doing much at the end of the season. The biggest question mark is who will step up and lead the team with Potulny and Irmen gone. So far Kessel hasn't shown the ability to do that, but that is a high expectation for a sophomore. Look for the Gophers to start very slowly next fall, then potentially improve as the pieces adjust. How much is speculation, what we are all here for.

He may not have much for points this last year, but his physical play will be missed. He was one of the few Gophers with some grit and toughness, able to mix it up a bit. Without him, the Gopher fluff meter goes up a bit.