mikejm

Holy cow! That is pretty eerie.

They've been doing this pretty regularly since Christmas. I am really impressed with this team; I'll admit I was apprehensive about today's game vs Denver, but they went out and played Sioux hockey and sent the Pios home. Some serious good karma floating around this team right now. Look at Nelson: knocked out of last night's game and comes back and scores a HUGE goal today. That's karma, there.

I truly believe he is MVP of this team. Completely unexpected success. Reliable.

Some letter that Frank wrote, huh?

Your initial comment mentioned "giving them any advantage" as in a team makes the playoffs and gets home ice. That's what my post referred to.

You say that like you think Big 10 schools (emphasis on the plural) will make the tournament.

You realize that by "moving on" you'll be drummed out of the College Hockey Fan fraternity, don't you?

Interestingly, yesterday's games at Bridgeport outdrew last year's St. Cloud/Wisconsin regional final at the X: 7671 - 7182.

Watching the West and East Regionals on television yesterday makes me wonder what in the heck the NCAA is thinking. Can they really look at half-empty (perhaps that is being generous) arenas and be satisfied? I see attendance figures are now up for the games: Colorado College (CC) vs Boston College (BC) Attendance: 5024 Air Force (AFA) vs Yale (YAL) Attendance: 7671 Nebraska-Omaha (UNO) vs Michigan (MIC) Attendance: 5024 Minnesota Duluth (MND) vs Union (UNI) Attendance: 7671 When was the last season Regionals were held on-campus? I know The Ralph sold over 11,000 seats both nights in '06. IIRC the NCAA moved the games off-campus to create neutral sites, and to evangelize the sport to new audiences. I can't but help thinking anyone looking at these games

You are kidding, right? Is that really how you define leadership?

I'll let you run with this for awhile.

UP Center is not the sugar daddy-in-waiting. And yes, it might fail. At least they are trying to try.

I am not omnipotent. Just really, really smart.

Just keep keeping that attitude. When college hockey is down to 40 DI schools ask yourself 'what happened?' I can't believe how myopic so many people are.

These young men seem really, really focused on a goal right now. Almost scary focused.

I know you'll take this wrong, but for our sake

They are NOT on the hostile and abusive nickname list; which is where UND will likely return if unable to convince the NCAA that one tribe's permission is enough.

This is incredibly short-sighted. UND is a legitimate college hockey powerhouse, among a handful of programs that can probably be counted on to be among the top five each and every year. That being said, UND is a big fish in a teeny, tiny little pond. What you continually suggest is that UND take its ball (or in this case, puck) and go start a new conference somewhere. That's fine, and almost understandable. But what happens to the rest of the WCHA? The Fighting Sioux fill barns throughout the conference. You saw what Sioux fans did at the Final Five. People were suggesting the X would be a ghost town without the Gophers and/or Badgers. Officials have been quoted as saying they actually had 100+ MORE people through the turnstiles every session than last year, and most of the crowd was demonstrably Sioux fans. So you leave the WCHA to start your own gig and watch half of the remaining teams turn belly up? Say four WCHA teams fail. That takes us from 58 down to 54. And let's assume a couple CCHA teams fold as a result of the BTHC. Now we're down to 52 Division I teams. Once that ripple starts washing its way across college hockey, what do you think is going to happen? Do you honestly believe some university administrators are going to look at THAT landscape and decide to invest the millions of dollars it takes to establish a new program? No way. College hockey is already operating a 16-team championship tournament under a sort of "wink-wink" deal with the NCAA; normally they want 60 teams to support that big of a playoff structure. You want to go back to 12? When I was a UND student, the hockey playoff was a four team deal. Is that what you want to see? Fighting Sioux hockey has been a supporter of start-up and fledgling hockey programs since its beginning. "We" played Bemidji as it moved from DII to DI, and look what that program has turned out to be. We played Mankato while they were an independent after working their way up from DIII to DII to DI. I've watched DI college hockey continue to contract, and I don't like that trend at all. I don't really believe the BTHC is about "growing the sport", but I am willing to at least look the other way while those schools go off on their own. I do not want to sit idly by while the sport dwindles further. This is the time to look at the big picture; time to ensure there is a future for college hockey. What good is being that big fish if the pond you are in is drying up? You ever see what happens to a fish caught in a tidal pool? They don't last long.

Whether or not they have any business doing so, they do have a pretty big sugar daddy in line to help fund a hockey program.

And I don't think I'd like 95% of the population making decisions about higher education, either.

Based on several conversations I've had with a very high-up in NDSU's athletic department, a Bison hockey team is a non-starter. And I truly hope MSU-M starts a hockey program. I'd really like to see 70+ DI teams instead of the 58 we now encompass. I don't think that is attainable, but I'd settle for 64. Eight 8-team conferences would be ideal, with 8 at-large bids into the playoff. I worry about the NCAA dropping the hockey playoff back to 12 teams, and if the off-campus regional sites continue to stink it up at the box office, that may happen sooner than later. All this NIMBY talk about conferences and new, weak teams could lead to catastrophic results.

I'd also say we need to keep rolling all four lines. That luxury

I doubt it. The word "hubris" comes to mind.

I think he is only a Sophomore.

Think of the Strength of Schedule ramifications for all the teams involved. I've heard people talking about how the BTHC will get an auto-bid plus another one or two at-large seedings. Imagine what their SOS is going to look like with 8 games against legitimate cupcakes.