jimdahl

UND has said it would want a conference affiliation in hand before reclassifying, and has said it's studying I-AA, so it follows that they must be talking with conferences about the possibility of membership. I'm not sure that quite qualifies as "secret conspiracy meetings" as the Bison fans in your link seem to think. Same discussions NDSU had with Big Sky and other conferences, we just might be getting a little warmer reception now that UND is in the mix (as many have speculated could be the case). Any actual invitation to membership would have to come from a vote from all the league representatives in a real, public meeting.

Yes, and you seemed to agree that the reason NDSU isn't on UND's schedule is because NDSU doesn't want to be. If you'd taken my post in context, you would have seen that I was just responding to a query from someone about why we'd be willing to play a different I-AA now but not NDSU -- the answer is that when the policy changed we expressed an interest in playing NDSU, but NDSU said "take a hike" because they felt UND had been mean to them.

To clarify -- this is the answer I mangled the most, so don't judge it too harshly without listening to it, but I do think I captured the essence of it. What he said was actually about twice as long, but was rather rambling. "Recall that my discipline is philosophy" was actually a joke about how he had gone off on a ramble about how he thinks he's not forcing people to change, he's forcing them to have a dialog from which good people will come to the right decisions themselves....

It's about 20 meg and 40 minutes, you can listen yourself, but here's a summary. This is not a transcript, its my summary, you may NOT reproduce it elsewhere, but may link to it. A good 80% of the questions were about UND -- they get progressively more combative.

From Forum audio clip. If you want it verbatim, click the link and listen. This appears to be before the news release on which the above story was based. This is a summary:

Thanks Dave. Let's try to avoid the partisan political junk and keep the discussion about the name. If people insist on getting in their political views, then the people on the other side are going to feel obligated to respond and pretty soon the discussion about the Sioux is drowned out...

I'm no lawyer, and the crack SiouxSports.com legal team is better at issues like fair use of copyrighted logos, so I have absolutely no opinion as to the legitimacy of any legal claims (though I personally agree with all five points). The most concerning facts to me are: 1) after we threatened a lawsuit the NCAA studied it for 4 months and still ruled against UND and 2) Kupchella is already saying they may have to modify the name somehow and only that they will "consider" legal and other options. We showed our cards, the NCAA studied them, and kept on betting; Kupchella's reaction wasn't to immediately unleash an army of lawyers that had been prepping for months. I'll be very interested to see what UND says and does in coming days.

I try to remind everyone of this now and then... players visit the site, their families visit the site, UND administrators visit the site, local media members visit the site. Some participate, but most just read. I often wonder how different these boards would be if everyone always behaved as if everyone they're talking about were in the room with them...

Thought I'd give the reaction from the school it's own thread. Undoubtedly more will trickle in, but for now we have... (AP Story)

I think what you're seeing is more optimism/hope than actual confidence. I, personally, haven't heard anything that would make me think UND could prevail in a lawsuit, either. I'm no lawyer, but I do know the NCAA stalled this action for the last four months only after UND threatened legal action. That they spent four months studying UND's threatened lawsuits and then went ahead with their sanctions suggests to me that the NCAA is confident that they're acting within the law.

It took me a minute to hunt down the quote from the letter, but redwing77 is the big winner -- having a humble SiouxSports.com post quoted in a letter on the NCAA site: Emphasis mine. I'm still shocked, simply shocked, to learn that Sioux fans are using the Internet to collude to behave politely and respectfully toward Native Americans. If I had only known the message board would be used for this sort of behavior...

Here is Ron His Horse Is Thunder's letter telling the NCAA to ignore Archie Fool Bear's letter. Funny the NCAA wasted no time getting that one online, still don't see Fool Bear's... My favorite quote is: That's just like those Internet people -- secretly colluding not to be abusive or derogatory.

It's true Edit -- update, link improved

Despite growing up in G.F., I was never really a Sioux fan. It was really the underperforming early-mid 90s teams that had some fun players and no bandwagon fans that got me into the Sioux (and started this site). So, to give shout outs to some players from that era... Marty Schriner -- definitely my first favorite player on the Sioux. Tough guy, Prpich might be the closest analogy today. Whenever he stepped onto the ice I kept my eyes on him because that's where something good was going to happen. Landon Wilson -- most hyped incoming Sioux player of the 90s, unfortunately that led the refs to stick to him like glue. He'd get cross-checked and the refs would give him 2 minutes for interference. That, plus promising talent, led to him to leave early for the pros at a time when that was still very uncommon. I truly believe that his contribution made UND more attractive as a stepping stone to the NHL, which has helped us pull in a lot of the talent we have today. Between guys like that, Johnson, Murphy, Bombardir, Naumenko, Hoogsteen, we really had some good teams that could have done something if our goaltending hadn't been a black hole.

Well, let's be careful there -- the strength of schedule impact on playing a I-AA team is different now from when NDSU left D-II; the year they transitioned happened to have the stupidest point scale such that even beating them would have devastated our SSI and likely sent us on the road in the playoffs. Now that playing I-AA teams is less punitive, UND already attempted to schedule the Bison long before this UNI possibility came up, and NDSU flat out refused.

Haha -- if the Sioux could come back on UNI like you guys did against Montana, fans would be demanding a reclassificiation Though I still think we should focus on tournament seeding if we're staying D-II, if we're serious about I-AA, this game would be a great reality check and let everyone know just how big the gap is from UND to an top I-AA team. Reestablishing a relationship with an old friend wouldn't be a stupid way to kick off a transition, either.

If Kessel is on the board and the Caps use the #4 on Mueller (as this guy predicts) I'll be more than a bit surprised. If Caps fans aren't talking about Kessel, I think it's only because we don't expect him to be around. As far as Mueller, even if Kessel is gone I'd think the Caps would take Backstrom or Staal. The consensus picks have to be Pitt. picking up Kessel and moving him to wing and the 'Hawks taking Toews. Of course, Buccigross is right that the Caps generally throw Central Scouting's rankings away, so who knows, but I don't expect to see Toews or Kessel make it to #5.

I'm sick of the new Gopher fans flipping out every time the Gophers are mentioned. The Gophers are UND's biggest rival, will come up a fair amount, and the jabs won't be pro-Gopher -- if you're more comfortable with your Gopher talk including anti-UND and anti-Wisconsin jabs, just go to a pro-Gopher message board. The reason it takes over threads is because any offhand dig at the Gophers results in pages of whining. Further, why do the Gopher fans who obsess over the amount of Gopher talk here always use such grandiose lies and exaggerations? The Gophers are discussed in 3 threads of the first 20, and UND fans were complimentary and excited for an N.D. team to do well when NDSU knocked off Wisconsin. Sheesh. This discussion is done. Seriously. If you want to gloat more about the Western Regionals, do it in a Western Regionals thread. If you want to bitch about how mean Sioux fans hurt your feelings, go somewhere else. If you want to get suspended, try to continue this discussion here...

I kind of wanted to see what the NCAA's response was going to be if UND didn't have tribal support. Now if they let us off with a "tribal support" exemption, we'd likely drop the underlying issue of the the NCAA breaking its own rules and overstepping its authority as "not our problem", like FSU. Don't get me wrong, I want to see the name stay and I want to see it supported by local tribes and UND to have a good relationship with those tribes, I'd just hate to get off on a technicality and leave Illinois alone to fight the good fight... Now, I don't there to be any question five years from now whether UND is still living up to its "end of the bargain" as there was this year. UND reached out and reestablished this relationship with the local tribal governments, now that they've lent us their support, KEEP UP THE RELATIONSHIP.

Stranger things have happened than cancelling a schedule game, but its currently posts on a message board vs. Mesa State's published schedule; maybe they actually mean NDSU but are mistakenly saying UND, as so often happens when you leave the 1-state area. http://forum.siouxsports.com/uploads/emoticons/default_biggrin.png' alt=':D'> Bison even seem to have that date open. Unless we move to I-AA, I'd rather play good D-II teams and work on our spot in the D-II playoffs than try to gain pride by "seeing how we stack up" with an almost certain loss against a top I-AA. (Though I'd certainly get excited about such a game if it were scheduled!)

No doubt Glas left a significant legacy at UND. Though he didn't quite get to go out on top team-performance wise, I think almost everyone respects his legacy at UND and wishes him well in the "big leagues". Some career highlights from the UND release:

When a brand new poster isn't automatically believed, it's not because of some exclusive clique, it's because the poster is completely anonymous and hasn't demonstrated any credibility beyond being able to login into an email account. If you're really just trying to join the community, put your fact out there and sit back and you will gain a positive reputation when you turn out to have known what you're talking about (see this guy's first dozen posts). Of course people are going to question an unsubstantiated, anonymously posted rumor; substantiate it or explain that you can't right now, don't bash them for daring to question it.

When Sioux fans spend pages debating what effect Gopher departures will have on Minnesota and how they'll match up against the Sioux, I think it's entirely reasonable for Minnesota fans to jump in with (sometimes contrary) opinions on the same topic. If you disagree with a post, please argue the content of it, not attack the poster.

Can the school make player-specific bobbleheads / figures? I would think that would fall under the commercial activity prohibition...

(Emphasis mine) -- I believe in Oshie and all, but I'd be truly shocked if he could post that kind of SV% or win a Vezina