jimdahl

Detroit is the one that surprised me. It's going to be about the spectacle rather than the games. The NCAA will have a STRONG interest in seeing Michigan and Michigan St in that Frozen Four (the forthcoming USCHO conspiracy theory threads about regional officiating already boggle my mind). D.C. and St. Paul seemed like safe bets for two. I had wondered if the third would be Boston or Tampa, but as D.C. is barely a non-traditional site, I guess that left the door open for Tampa. Once word hit the street that a fourth was being announced, I assumed it confirmed D.C., St. Paul, and Tampa, with the fourth to give a nod to Boston. Too bad for Philly because it's a decent site, but never stood a chance of winning the head-to-head with D.C.

When BRAC visited S.D., Ellsworth supporters not only fought to save their current B1 mission, but also lobbied to replace GFAFB as the site for future UAV missions. WDAZ: South Dakota targets GF Air Force Base Aberdeen News:

Herald's article from after the report was released reproduces a lot of the number-crunching/speculation from here. And, as discussed:

California has location to its advantage. The perceived threat is now warm/Pacific instead of cold/over the pole. My guess is that we're going to see mostly NE/Midwest locations closed and moved to the Southwest. G.F.'s traditional advantage of low cost and open spaces isn't as great compared to some Southwestern locations. If there's any remaining value to keeping cold readiness / Northern border protection, G.F. and Minot are among the last along this stretch of the border. Another often mentioned standard is usefulness in recent wars (if they're not in use now, why have them?), which would seem to favor G.F. with a strategically important refueling mission; howver, I've also heard of a strong desire to move refueling to the Southwest to be "closer to the action". It seems like GFAFB should be on the list, but I guess we'll see with round 1 tomorrow.

I've been meaning to hunt down the numbers all week, but the STrib article gave these: $379m/year in jobs, construction, and purchasing 7,900 personnel, family members, and civilian employees To benchmark those numbers, UND's budget is a bit over $300m (leading to a total estimated economic impact of about $931m). No one wonders about the economic impact of UND because its right there in the middle of town and its reach is obvious, whereas the base is a bit more out of sight; however, there's no doubt those dollars find their way into the surrounding economies.

Happens a few times a year, major media continues its inability to distinguish North Dakota towns/Universities. Still, you might hope the STrib would know N.D. better...

Conversation moved here because this is where discussion of posting standards belongs. The standard we try to use is that posting something solely to try to aggravate/get a rise from other posters is smack/trolling; a commonly identifiable pattern is an attempt to counter a positive statement with an off-topic negative one (e.g. in a discussion about how the hockey team is doing well, an opposing fan countering, "yeah, how'd your equestrian team do?" == irrelevant smack). Second, I don't really understand the misconception that smack is reduced to non-smack by the addition of smiley faces, but I just don't agree. Rather, I've noticed a strong correlation between smiley faces and the presence of smack. Comments are welcome.

He seems to have the pulse of this UND alum/fan (from the articles Sicatoka quoted). On former NDSU rivalry: On D-I: On how to start the job: His financial experience:

No doubt that if Fargo's gambles in RFID manufacturing pay out like this one did, that will also be great news for the region economically. However, I still don't understand the need to turn good economic development news for the region into divisive Fargo vs. G.F. smack; please confine that sort of thing to the appropriate sites.

This one? [url="http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=91136

Defense analysts weigh in on pros and cons for Grand Forks Air Force Base as BRAC deadline nears

I think there's a difference between arrogance and self-confidence. Most kids grow up assuming they'll someday be rich, or a famous politician, or a rock star, or own a UND athletics web site. While 80% turn out to be wrong and lead nice quiet lives like the rest of us, I promise you that every single person who does achieve greatness came from that pool of always being sure they would. No one plays competitive youth sports without assuming they'll make it to play at high school. I mean, really, you think there are a bunch of peewees out there just enjoying some good exercise and planning on dropping out before high school? Many may not make it, but I think all plan on making it.

A couple of SD's designs also include a buffalo. It's nice to have a monument -- their leading designs are: Mt. Rushmore w/pheasant, Mt. Rushmore w/buffalo, and Mt. Rushmore w/wheat. Rounding out their top 5 are a Bison (looks a lot like ND's!) and a pheasant. Since we didn't get Sioux hunting Bison as even an option, I guess I have to go with Diggler's blank design.

Twins stadium plan approved by Hennepin County. I'm not much of a baseball fan, but the loss of one of its two major tenants could accelerate the fiscal doom of the Metrodome. That, of course, could have significant impact on the Vikings (teetering on the edge of being sold?) and the Gophers.

Rally for the base, May 7, 10am

That was precisely my point -- as I said in my post, it was a "pleasant surprise" to me, too, to notice UND's scores when I hadn't stayed home to follow the game. In the regular season, it certainly didn't include all D-II scores each week (just as it doesn't seem to have all I-AA scores), but it usually included UND. It was much more common in the rotation on ESPN2 than 1, but I can still catch that update at any bar. Could we all drop the I-AA football championship's tv coverage? The whole topic arc is irrelevant smack that the Bison fans are trying to goad you into; UND isn't going I-AA any time soon and NDSU has never and won't for sometime set foot near any such game.

No contract other than for the Frozen Four, but the rise in coverage has been ongoing for a few years and no college games were directly shown in the channels/timeslots of NHL games (even though the college broadcasts would have occurred regardless, you could argue that the absent NHL increased the popularity of those broadcasts). I live way out of the college hockey core market; five years ago there were only two UND games per year even available on satellite and you could barely beg a bar to pull them in. This year, I literally walked into a bar on a March Madness weekend and their tv's (which were marked with what games they would be showing all night) were schedule to be showing two basketball games and a college hockey game at any given time. The FSN's have shown regional college hockey since their inception a few years ago, which covers UND when it plays big market teams like UMN, UW, BC, etc... When CSTV was starting up a couple years ago, it intended from the start to have college hockey as a weekend night anchor, and UND does have significant marquee value in the sport. The only surprise to me this year was ESPNU's coverage, but with them hunting for college sports in a saturated market, adding hockey makes perfect since as it's still considered one of the "big" team spectator sports, even if the smallest of the biggies. My other personal pleasant surprise this year (being out of market) was the addition of UND's football games to the ESPN tickers, which came in handy more than once when I was out during UND's game. I just need ESPNU/CSTV to increase coverage of D-II football (of which UND is arguably one of the marquee teams) and I'll be set

The Capital Times is finally reporting that UW is not going to the Lefty McFadden, but UND is. Apparently Wright St. wants to use the facility to have a midnight basketball scrimmage , so they had to change the Lefty McFadden dates.

The page sprig linked to included a link to this sample. That will let you know how your machine handles their streaming. The other thing that can go wrong is if the web server or data host becomes too congested to handle the traffic its getting, but with Akamai as a host, I'd be surprised if that became an issue.

[url="http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=90068

Wellness Center well on its way (Grand Forks Herald) I don't recall if this has been posted before: Promotional video (big! and a tad self-important, but it is a promotional video)