jimdahl

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

It depends. Unfortunately, not only on whether you win or lose the game, but on the strength of the opponent. Under the old system, an additional win undoubtedly helped your win% (10-1 is a better record than 9-1) but could easily hurt your SSI if the win wasn't "good enough". That was easy to see, where weak home wins were worth 8 or so but top teams' SSI's were around 10. If D-II moves to a straight RPI, as has been predicted, quality of opponents becomes even more important as win% only counts for 25% or so, strength of schedule the rest. That's RPI's biggest problem -- tacking on a season-ending win over Crookston actually makes you a worse team than you were a week before. A very realistic example, take: UND 9-1, RPI = .650 (Win% .9, Opp% .6, Opp-opp% .5) Add a season-ending win over a bottom dweller with a .100 win%:UND 10-1 RPI = .627 (Win% .91, Opp% .55, Opp-opp% .5)UND's RPI plummets from the extra game because the effect on opponents win% dwarfs the effect of the extra win on win%.

Nope, just started the countdown on that page for testing, ready to revise as needed (I don't have the hockey start time yet, either). Frankly, we're pretty late in the regular football scheduling season and there's some point at which you start looking forward to the 1st game, as currently scheduled.

Some may recall the scorebar that I had up last summer and the first month or two of last Fall. I never quite got the real-time score updates working to the point that I was happy with them, but the countdown works pretty well. It's currently back up at the top of the front page http://siouxsports.com/. I should be able to get that deployed back throughout the site.

You can put that in any thread you like 102 after last night.

This is why we simply have to move eventually. NDSU fans are somewhat right when they say UND is considering it because NDSU moved, but it's also because SDSU moved, and UC Davis, and Montana, and Montana State, and Northern Colorado, etc... Quite simply, UND is no longer in the same athletic division as its peers. Our peers are not the new schools entering D-II, but the schools that have left D-II for I-AA. Either we follow, and resume playing those schools and the Minnesotas and UNLVs, or we gain a new set of peers. Yes, we have to work out a conference and funding, but I'm baffled that anyone still thinks "big fish in a small pond" and Crookston as the new rival is good for UND athletics in the long run.

This is turning into a bit of a bash Bisonville and people over there thread, which I'd like to see stop. If you want to follow up something being discussed on a different message board, do it there. That said, I assure you that moderating a message board is a painful, thankless task; one person I met in Milwaukee memorably remarked, "you can't be Jim Dahl, he's a mean old guy". Sigh. Further, I would note that Bisonville regulars are similarly disgusted with how GDM and I run this place differently from Bisonville (and remind me of such frequently). This thread struck me as trouble from the beginning, but I'll leave it open because another message board dedicated to UND is a topic of genuine interest, but please go there to follow up on discussions over there.

Hmmm.... I'll see what I can do.