jimdahl

Actually RD17 has outed himself previously on this board, most definitely not a columnist for a student newspaper at Michigan. The article is actually pretty easy to stumble on with a simple web search..., which RD17 has previously demonstrated he does almost as much as I do. Now, as to Josh = long-time friend, we'll leave that one to long-time friend to defend.

Here's the DakStu's Op-Ed: Betraying students. Featuring such observations as:

Here's what the local rags have to say: Philadelpha Daily News - NCAA considering Philadelphia as site for Frozen Four Detroit Free Press - Ford Field is finalist for Frozen Four Tampa Bay Business Journal - Tampa named NCAA 'Frozen Four' finalist Tampa Tribune - Tampa is one of six finalists for Frozen Four Minneapolis Star Tribune - Xcel is picked as Frozen Four finalist Not so surprisingly, no love from the Wash. Times or Post. Slightly more surprising, no love from the Boston Herald or Globe.

And then there were 6: Washington, DC MCI Center Naval Academy Atlantic Hockey Philadelphia Wachovia Center Niagra/Rider MAAC Tampa Bay St. Pete Forum UAH CHA Boston BankNorth Garden Hockey East St. Paul XCel Energy Minnesota WCHA Detroit Ford Field CCHA[/code] I'd bet we get one or two of St. Paul/Boston, but at least one non-traditional. Detroit is in hockey country, but a non-traditional site. If they do that, I'd like to see only one of Minneapolis/Boston, then one true non-traditional site. I'd favor D.C. > Tampa Bay > Philadelphia, personally, though all the remaining bids are good. The easy money is on Boston, St. Paul, D.C.

I thought Anaheim was great. Everyone points to attendance being ONLY 14000, but I just don't buy being 15-20% empty as a definitive indicator of failure. Regionals at Mariucci and Boston are often that empty, let's see how a non-UND afternoon regional at REA does, and it was just a few years earlier that attendance was lower than that in the "traditional" championship venues (IIRC ) . Anyway, here are all the bids USCHO found: Auburn Hills, Mich Boston Columbus (Nationwide) Detroit (Ford Field) Minneapolis (Target Center) Philadelphia San Antonio St Paul (Xcel) Sunrise, Fl Tampa, Fl Washington, DC

Count me in for Miami in April. The other non-traditional town rumored to be bidding is D.C. I struggle to think of a better non-traditional site: No shortage of things to do in the off-time, everyone's a transplant so full of college hockey fans, super-accessible from everywhere (particularly Boston corridor), 1200 UND grads in the metro area.

Blais' most recent contract was always a matter of public record: As far as the last I saw, Hakstol's was not: Feel free to post updates if there has been news since that; however the public, anonymous speculation about salaries strikes me as rather unseemly.

There is actually advertising; however, wherever possible I try to program it to target only non-registered members (hits 90% of the visitors, but doesn't annoy those who contribute by participating). It's really not a big focus, though, because the relatively scarce resource of mine the site consumes disproportionately is time, not money. I've definitely been pondering merchandise. Not so much as a revenue stream, but just because it would be cool. However, before doing anything like that on a large scale, I'd like to devise a logo of some sort (something reminiscent of the Sioux, but not a UND trademark), which I've just not yet gotten around to commissioning.

Hmmm... if you were at BW-3 on Saturday, there was only group that could have been you. At the first big round table in the bar area was a group that adequately seemed to cross generations (I particularly remember the older gentleman with white hair and I believe a beard and mustahce). If that was you, I was at the very next table. Otherwise, you were definitely there on Thursday when the crowd kept singing and starting cheers. Then Wednesday (karaoke night!) I was at the round table nearest the stage.

Cross-referencing my recap (posted above) with others': I was at the UND reception before Saturday's game, then the Holiday Inn tent; ran into MafiaMan's friend, but no Cratter or Forecheck. I was in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Friday afternoon from about 2 until close, saw a couple Sioux fans (AZSIOUX?) Re: my mentioning Sioux fans hanging at the Platinum Fox, I only heard about it before Saturday's game (again, Holiday Inn tent), but it didn't seem to be open when we went by that night (besides which, I figured most Sioux fans left right after the game). I also spent a fair amount of time at Varsity Club before, between, and after games on Thursday; at outdoor tent (not Holiday Inn) before and after Sioux game on Thursday; the BW-3 by Danny's Platinum Fox to close out each night. Sorry I didn't run into more of you!

Though I usually avoid these lovefest threads, I'd like to join Fedorov's sentiment in thanking everyone who made this message board worth visiting this season -- everyone who contributed an analysis, an opinion, an inside scoop, or some personality. You're not just chatting with the people you know, but also creating additional Sioux coverage for the 90% of monthly visitors who never register or post. I'm not a big sports message board guy and was very hesitant about this one. Some long email discussions with Glenn, Pat, and Kirk (including invaluable offers of assistance, on which I've always taken them up) convinced me that it was possible to address my concerns and create a forum different from most other sports forums. Though it's gotten harder over the years as it has grown and membership has turned over, I think we still have some of that original spirit left. See you all next year.

A first run at some of my thoughts. I'll hopefully be able to follow with some photos within a day or so.

Though a large number of Sioux fans predicted Denver over UND for the final, none of them had every previous game correct. In bracket scoring (in which each round is worth twice as much as the previous, making the title game as important as the entire first round): mynameiscuomo won with a nearly perfect bracket (only two misses, one in the first round, one in the second). In single-point per game scoring: Boomer40AA tied AZSOIUX by correctly picking the title game, while AZSIOUX missed it. Complete leaderboard

They humorously corrected that BETWEEN GAMES, so the 2003 was there for the Sioux-Gopher bout. However, the digits were crooked, spaced incorrectly, and loooked nothing like any of the other numbers on any of the banners. It literally looked like a Gopher fan climbed up there and pasted them on

As to how "realistic" SiouxSports.com fans' picks were (which drew a previous challenge from the Gopher crowd), the consensus picks have correctly called 13/14 games so far, the first miss being Denver's win yesterday. The SS.com picks correctly picked the entire Frozen Four field, and treated even the Gophers pretty fairly, having correctly picked them to advance to the FF where they got beat by the Sioux. The leaderboard is updated with a clear winner now coming into sight. Of the dozen or so who picked all games leading to the Frozen Four correctly, only AZSIOUX correctly picked UND and Denver to advance to the title game.

Done.

I'll be there with 3. We're staying at a Hampton Inn somewhere SE, but will obviously be downtown for all the festivities. Looking forward to seeing a lot of Sioux fans there! If you see someone out with a SiouxSports.com sweatshirt, harass me and I'll buy you a beer.

We've actually had 100673, the discrepency is that the count on the front page doesn't include those that were deleted. The first couple months of the message board, I let posts in the hockey forum expire (doh), so that accounts for most of the deletions. The post numbered 100000 is from ABER on April 1.

FYI - a note on moderation standards. Clearly somewhat a response to this thread to date. Feel free to discuss further over there and keep the threads in this forum about Sioux hockey!

People are questioning what the next two weeks will be like, so here's how I see the world: 1) The board is moderated. Trolls will be dispatched eventually. 2) Disliking UND, claiming some other team is better, or predicting that UND will lose does NOT qualify someone as a troll -- that is legitimate discussion. If you disagree with their post, argue back with why you disagree, do NOT attack the person for being a Gopher fan (filling the board with bickering garbage instead of talk about Sioux hockey is the exact goal of a real troll!) 3) Being a new user with one post in one new thread that reads "hahah sues sux" (particularly after a loss), DOES qualify someone as a troll (notice the lack of any substantive discussion or argument). GDM or I will take care of it; your best bet is to ignore it until we get to it (see #2 above). 4) Merely being unable to spell Sioux or Gophers correctly does not constitute reason for banning; it just makes the poster look young/stupid and thereby weakens their argument. I don't understand why someone would intentionally do that, but we will discourage it if it becomes ridiculous to the point of distracting. 5) New members are very welcome. Stopping new Sioux or Gopher fans from posting on SiouxSports.com during the part of the season when people are most interested would create an old-timers club atmosphere of exclusivity that I'm not interested in. While a lot of the people jumping on the bandwagon now may fall right back off, we're not going to prejudge people for having decided to sign up in March instead of February. Comments / arguments?

The remainder of last night's results are (finally) in. Not looking good for me.

The link is good, just at the time I mentioned it on the message board there was a problem with the page that prevented it from rendering in IE (worked fine in other browsers). It should be good now. Wow, over half way in, but still no upsets -- hopefully tonight will break that trend!