star2city

The Big Sky doesn't seem to have an allergy to the Sioux logo!! If it had been the Summit League, only the UND flame could have been used.

In the past, UND had been an "invited team" for the championship swim meet. The CUSA website does now list UND for men's swimming, but not women's swimming. CUSA Swimming

Great West baseball may be changing some: Current schools NY Tech NJIT Chicago St (go back to Summit?) Houston Baptist (to Southland? or Summit?) UTPA (to Southland? ) UNC UVU SUU - lost it's baseball home in the Summit UND By losing SUU and Centenary, the Summit will be down to six baseball teams.

Hopefully, the M/W swimming teams will get official affiliate membership with CUSA, which would be better than invites to the CUSA championships. That would be a major boost to the program. Big Sky softball will be: Sac State Portland St Weber St Idaho St N Colo UND USD SUU EWU <-- may add it If Montana is serious about FBS later, they need to add softball too.

Will be interesting to find out if SUU will have to pay the exit fee. Interesting, that they certainly have no legal hesitation in leaving. Tweet from Fritz Jarett: Would love to see billboards throughout North Dakota with the "Welcome to Big Sky Country" and season ticket information. Wouldn't be surprised if season ticket sales jumped 50-100%. 2012 home schedule could be: Central Arkansas, Montana State, N Colo, EWU, Sac State 2013 home schedule: SDSU, USD, Montana, Idaho St, NAU

Grand Forks to DeKalb was essentially all interstate (keep heading south once at Madison). They broke up the trip with a practice some where. UND policy has been that road trips more than 500 miles (essentially to Omaha) must be by plane - except with written exemption. Missoula is around 1000 miles, and depending on the time of the year (like November to May), the roads may be bad.

Weber St will likely push to be in the same football division as Montana, MSU, and ISU. There's a lot of history with those schools (all are charter members). Weber would want SUU as a permanent rival, and EWU would want Montana as a permanent rival. The non-football divisions could also get dicey. Idaho State (Pocatello) has very poor air service with very small planes, so normally the teams bus to SLC, passing Weber State en route. Most likely, ISU and Weber would be traveling parters. If ISU was paired with UNC, perhaps the visitors could fly into Idaho Falls (which has Denver service) and then bus to Pocatello, but that would force Weber St to be SUU's travel partner. Not ideal. EWU isn't that much further from Missoula than Bozeman, so EWU and Montana could be viable travel partners. Bozeman has very good air service, so it might be best partnered with UNC. That might make non-football divisions as follows: Big Sky North E Wash - Montana Montana St - UNC UND - USD Big Sky South Weber St - Idaho St SUU - NAU Sac State - Portland

UC-Davis, Montana, and SDSU are all coming up. Wouldn't be surprised if UND went 0-3, but considering all three of those teams are struggling, wouldn't be shocked by a 3-0 record either. Would be nice to get some respect from Griz fans by beating them as our Big Sky entry gift.

A noon kickoff is way too early for students, especially the night after a hockey game. A losing record and a playing Lamar - which most students except the few from Texas have ever heard of - dampens the enthusiasm even more. Sounded like Goska did well!

First ND high school hockey championship: 1961. UND began intercollegiate hockey: 1946 (or actually much earlier if club hockey included) By your logic, hockey at UND was illegitimately started. UND playing in a league with Minnesota, Michigan, and Michigan State should never have been allowed. Good things are begun by visionaries, not pinheads.

New development in men's lacrosse: Stanford Daily: USC to add women's lacrosse now, men's lacrosse later With the budget crisis in California and in most western states, private schools like USC and Stanford are practically the only ones that can afford adding sports. With USC getting on board for men's lacrosse, there could actually be a western conference: USC Stanford (also rumored) Denver Air Force one or two Texas schools (SMU , UT) (rumored) With an existing facility that is basically perfect for lacrosse in a northern climate (Alerus), a practice facility rumored, 12 schollies max, incredible lax growth in Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and California, the national sport of Canada to provide recruits, the need for a spectator spring-time sport for UND, and the chance to associate with name schools, the time for action at UND is drawing near.

BigRedInsider - Lamar Cardinals Message Board

I'd like to see the first installment of a UND-NDSU game be in the playoffs in the Alerus in 2012. First playoff game for both teams. Big Sky Champ vs 3 rd place MVFC.

Agree. The idea that Mussman is in any danger is ridiculous. He has two more years unless there is a Best Buy meltdown situation. Assistants and coordinators however may be open for change.

Totally agree: those two would be huge. I also wonder how much Big Sky membership would mean to all recruits, not just football. Would they rather travel to San Luis Obispo or Terre Haute? Flagstaff or Fort Wayne? Detroit or Portland? Missoula or Macomb, Ill?

Mussman needs to be given credit for making QB recruiting a priority last year. If Bohl was making the decision, only one QB recruit gets brought in on scholarship.

The first order of business is for UND to pay assistant coaches the going salary for FCS. If we don't do that, any coaching change we could possibly make would never work out because few decent assistants would accept what we pay.

Last year - I think - didn't one of the teams get stuck in Detroit overnight on the Chicago St/NJIT road trip? The reason they went to Fargo is probably because of United and better connections. With United: Fargo - Chicago (game) - Newark (game) - Chicago - Fargo. Four flights. Only one leg before each game. With Delta: GF - MSP - Chicago (game) - Detroit - Newark (game) - MSP - GF. Six flights

From Mineweb on 2007 Newmont Purchase of Miramar

A bit of background: 2007: Newmont Mining buys Miramar Gold for $1.3 Billion Miramar and Hope Bay Gold had earlier merged. The former CEO of Hope Bay Gold was David A. Fennell, former CFL football star and Alberta law school grad and founder of several gold and precious metals companies, who also happened to play football at UND. BA UND 1974

Perhaps Kelley's State of University address contains some clues: A new gathering place or places are in the works?

But the NCAA has also changed the rules for both FCS and DII. There is no longer freedom - institutional discretion - to change divisions. That's been taken away. A school can no longer leave and go to a higher classification without being invited by a current conference at the higher level (a bit like attempting to aspire to a better position in the USSR circa 1960). If you are in FCS - you are stuck in FCS without having a 25,000 seat stadium (or that appears to be the criteria that the WAC, MAC, and Sunbelt use). DII schools are also now stuck there without an invite. If FCS cut scholarships (to just above DII levels), it's very possible that FCS at FBS games would no longer be considered counters - making FCS hurt even more financially. In turn, it would then become almost impossible for FCS schools to financially move to FBS, as the scholarship increase (including Title IX) would be monumental. DII level scholarships would probably also get reduced into the 20's (fewer and fewer DII schools grant the DII maximum 36 anyway). The FBS / FCS line becomes a thick brick wall instead of one with a small window.

Whistler: Opportunity for "free" heating to the Alerus.

Summit to visit UND on Nov 1-2 Hopefully, Faison and Kelley have been rattling their cage. Schlossman's twitter's are classic: