Walsh Hall

As was Blais back in the Hrkac days as an assistant. Some interesting stories there...

Yep. If Miami and UMD (and SCSU to a degree) win a few more games UND would have been playing this weekend. UND should have won a few more, but the NCHC out of conference record did us no favors.

This might be the one time I would have been fine with offsetting minors for the trip and embellishment. Two players were swinging their sticks and made contact with his lower leg/skate, but at the same time he went down pretty emphatically.

Great idea. Let the uninformed and illogical folks continue to post their moronic "theories," but shame one of the few posters with actually information. Glad to see SS once again being a microcosm for society. 99% mindless drivel and upset at receiving actual information.

It's not about settling, it's being realistic. All things being equal, UND hockey would always be a blue blood. There is now this new component. Keeping any truly elite basketball or football player at UND, when they will be offered substantially more $ elsewhere, is going to be a rarity. For a kid who is anticipating playing another 1-2 years in college, and there being several schools (including UND) who can provide similar development, it doesn't seem unreasonable to take the payday. I'm no fan of the portal, and what NIL is doing to athletics, but it is what it is. There will absolutely be many kids who choose a school based on $. If UND can't match the $ it's going to be an issue, and I can't see UND having the funds that BU, BC, UM, UMn... etc will have for the top end talent year after years after year.

Very true, but it's unfortunately largely out of the staff's control. If one collective has 2m annually to spend, and another 100k, well, the end result of such a lopsided race as that is too obvious to require elaboration...

Johnny Bloedow Gunnar Conboy Nolan Fitzhenry Ben Geiger Easton Johnson Nash Roed Carson Scott Freddie Schneider Finn Spehar Beck Thoreson Tony Timmerman

Really not surprising for any parent who has navigated youth athletics. If you aren't doing travel sports/camps by at least 8 or 10 years old (obviously it starts much younger now) you are likely going to be left behind and not in the "in crowd." Many talented kids get lost in the wash if their parents don't have the time/funds to be traveling 10+ weekends for each sport. Way less multi-sport athletes cut down the numbers as well. I know in my kids age groups there were several hockey players who would have been VERY good, but didn't stick with it due to lack of time and other events/opportunities, coupled with the cost. (We've not from a hockey first community....)

For sure... but the problem I see is that way too many parents are delusional and believe their child is part of that "top end talent." I'd like to see a long-term summary of the kids who left, for any program, and how it ended up.

I was thinking the same. Great hands, but sure is floating and waiting for the break.

It seemed like there was more time to kill for hockey related activities, but as a parent of pretty much every traveling sport, hockey definitely had the most drinking…by far.

Sorry if I missed it... are the WDA games being streamed?

Even posing the question is quite the tip of the cap to the GF youth program.

That really isn't much of a thing... But no, there is just a strong dislike of the expansion of legalized gambling. Couple that with the tribes and charitable gaming (a large and well-funded group) being very against it, this was a huge uphill battle.

Had absolutely nothing to do with it. This was not a close call.

Officially dead. Voted down in the floor vote. Not close.

Do not pass recommendation to SB2376 at the committee level considering the GF casino proposal.

What specifically has happened regarding the potential classification of sovereignty of the land or local/law enforcement not being “allowed on the land.” Being a tax exempt entity is an entirely different concept.

Dakota Magic (Hankinson) and Prairie Knights (Standing Rock) would be toast if a casino like the GF proposal opened in Fargo or Bismarck. They have to have major concerns if the door is opened to a 3rd party tribe opening a casino which would essentially put them out of business.

Much much smaller ultra-right contingent for that stupid one... This issue, and its precedent, has the potential to cause significant financial issues for many entities. I'm curious to see the position of the other tribes on this one. The tribes lobby hard against charitable gaming as it negatively effects their casinos. This may be the same for fear of casinos in Fargo, Bismarck and Minot.

I'm not at all saying that it won't pass, but from being around the capital there will be opposition from formidable groups. The conservative rural legislators may be an issue on this one.

Not much opposition in the first hearing this morning. Charitable gaming will have something to say in addition to the conservative/religious groups. Part of the issue is that if this is approved by the legislature it will be hard to deny other off-reservation projects. I'd expect similar requested for the other larger communities in the State. The legislature doesn't even want the citizens to be able to vote for sports gambling. I won't be overly surprised if this gets voted down.

Here's the SB if anyone is interested. SB 2376 - Overview | North Dakota Legislative Branch

Pardon my ignorance, what is the inevitable that will happen?

Winning 1 out of 10 is a pretty good clip, and a very reasonable goal to maintain at UND. I know I've said this before, and it's not going to change anyone's mind, but we are ahead of the game when it comes to winning. The Law of Averages plays a bit of a role in this. The bad news is, from a historical perspective, we were due for another drought. On the bright side, during this drought, we've still had a lot of secondary success to fall back on. It's not like we've been in the cellar trying to crawl back into the successful ranks of college hockey. The good news with the law of averages plays off of our short-term history, and it's the fact that we should have one coming soon. So, you have the long-term history fighting against our short-term history and it's just a matter of which one plays out. If winning 1 out of every 10 titles is a good, yet reasonable clip (which I feel is very fair for a team like UND), we'd have 10% of all titles. We are still ahead of the game. Because we can't round down, we have 12 more years to win a championship to stay ahead of the curve. We've been very fortunate with our history, but times have changed and so should our expectations a little. On the short-term we are overdue for another championship, but on the long-term, we are doing just fine still. This is why everyone both wins and loses this argument every time. Berry is a fine coach who has put our team in many opportunities to win another title. He can't do it all, sometimes it's on the players, and the other team wants to win just as badly as we do, and we end up losing some games when we shouldn't.