tnt

WDAZ Xtra is going to have the CC vs. Denver game next Thursday.

Do they still have the games too close together where you don't really have time in between games to have a sit-down meal at a nearby restaurant?

Thus the wink! Same can be said of Sports Illustrated, and does anybody really believe in a curse?

The question is can we buck "the Schlossman curse". We had the article on the poor state of Wisconsin hockey then they beat us, the article on Cam Johnson and he became human the game following it, and now we had an article on UND the Road Warriors ... Figure if we can win on Friday, we are good to go.

Yes, the seed doesn't matter much because you are probably going to get CC or Western either way and some line change benefits if the two end up playing at Target Center. However, I don't think anybody on UND wants to have the Penrose Cup reside anywhere but the Ralph, especially not with a school that was so outspoken against the former nickname.

Yeah, it just didn't use the words regardless of schedule being balanced like it did in 3rd tiebreak. I read it "other teams" not "other teams tied" initially. Like I said before, can't let it come down to a tiebreak, but everyone else is fighting for something like home ice or something too!

http://www.nchchockey.com/page/show/878714-tie-breakers If we lose two more games than St. Cloud from here on out, it looks like it would be goal differential with the rest of the league, since we didn't play St. Cloud here. Assume St. Cloud would have that advantage too, due to how they blew Western out of the water every game. UND can't let it come to that, as who wants to share the cup with the Huskies.

That's true but given the sample size of all the teams in our league and how many losses we have total, it seems strange. So they got beat twice by Q, beat a Mankato team 3 times with 2 non-conference wins, and beat Minnesota twice. Seems to me they get huge points by getting beat twice by Q, because we should get more points from splitting with St. Cloud on the road. I guess that is what is all about though, as Duluth is still in the Pairwise equation because they have been losing to good teams in our league. Bottom line is if we win our league, first round playoff series, and do better than St. Cloud at the Frozen Faceoff, we should get a higher seed and hopefully the Xcel Energy regional with it.

I'll end my intrusion on this thread by just saying that if it was just the facility, why does the women's hockey team which is free for season ticket holders draw only hundreds? Seems to me those that can't afford season tickets would love to pay less to be in the Ralph, and the no charge would be a no brainer for the rest, that is where the delusional part comes from as far is it applies to tennis and soccer. Even so, I apologize for it's inclusion in my reply.

You are delusional. Don't think I've ever seen anybody camp over night to get tickets to other sports as was the case frequently in the old hockey arena. You can try diminish the hockey program all you want, but it isn't going to change the popularity of the sport, especially in a hockey city. There is a reason Grand Forks has been so good at hockey in high school, while lacking in other sports -- because a lot of the better athletes have chosen to focus more on hockey.

UND had two of the top 3. Housley was one of the three, but he ended up not playing for Minnesota after he committed like Christian and Parise did for UND.

Don't understand why either team has such poor attendance. How many times were Hakstol's teams at about .500 after Christmas, and attendance remained constant. I know we are at a time where attendance at all athletics is down, but the malaise at some of college hockey's great programs still baffles and concerns me a bit.

Attendance at Mariucci tonight looks about what it has been in all the games I've seen, and no way is that 75 percent full.

No Valley Dairy? Where would we get our hockey sticks from?

Agree, in fact I think that most of the response from gopher fans with the .6 is because of the constant ringing of Holy Cross in their ears.

Those looked like they were stats for the 2014-2015 season, not 2015-2016.

Where do you get that figure. Just about every game I've seen has been pretty sparse. I was shocked at how many empty seats there were against Duluth early in the season.

Book smarts and common sense are two different things. I work with people that have Master's Degrees and they can't grasp simple principles like the bottom line. A lot of times people are taught the bureaucracy that is so prevalent in government, but is the root of a lot of our money problems.

Would love to see figures for actual butts in the seats, as Wisconsin and Minnesota don't have near the number as the paid attendance figures.

Football Bubba said that he appreciates Berry talking to him about the culture in the hockey locker room and the behind the scenes things that go on to create that culture, so it seems the two Bubba's have a pretty good relationship.

Bet that the games against UND will be full next year. To go from UND needing Minnesota to the UND games being the only games Minnesota will have with a full arena is quite ironic.

Let's see, Michigan has a 110,000 plus football stadium that they just upgraded, but have an old arena that seats 6000 for hockey. Duluth and St. Cloud have upgraded much better than Michigan.

Not that this would happen, but the other sports wouldn't happen anymore than they would if we stayed put. You didn't happen to go to the Michigan State game did you? Perfect example of why our current league is better -- great atmosphere at Western Michigan, dead arena at Michigan State.

What isn't hypothetical is the state of these two leagues in hockey right now. Yes, the Big Ten will get better, but if nobody is watching does it really matter?

O.k., then what about the scenario that someone else mentioned, where we accept, then a whole bunch of Big Ten programs start hockey and they decide they want like-minded institutions --- Now where do you go? You just pissed off all the other programs. Remember, some Big Ten schools said they didn't have a choice but to capitulate to the hockey conference no matter how they wanted to stay where they were.