jimdahl

Fascinating. I actually suggested to Leonsis last Spring that one reason the team, which had always been a playoff team for 20+ years, has struggled since 2000 was because they had abandoned their philosophy of offensive development and were turning too much to free-agency (read: Jagr). I even pointed out N.J. as an example of extensive scouting and development, including college players such as Zach. He responded that they had one of the league's best pipelines, particularly in net with Ouellet and Daigneault, and that they're not opposed to college players (Werner from U-Mass, who also played for Eaves on the NTDP, is a lot like Zach -- great presence but not very physical) but that they draft based on their evaluation of the talent, not what league they're coming from. Then McPhee gets rid of Jagr and starts scouting N.J.'s college players. Definitely seems like the right move to me. Unfortunately, they're still paying half of Jagr's salary for 4 more years. The potential trading of Gonchar is scary, particularly after the loss of Klee, because it looks like a firesale and would leave them pretty empty on D. Plus, defensemen can take a long time to develop. The rumor on the street is that Washington is looking for both Zach and P.Mart. or Hale, which would be a great trade, though would probably nix the deal. The article quoted above even indicates that the impasse is that the Devils refuse to trade Parise. This could also all be really smart prep for the lockout/future salary caps.

It doesn't seem like Sunday afternoon is too early to start this. Saw this mentioned on USCHO, check out the WCHA scoring stats: 1 Junior Lessard Minnesota-Duluth SR W 24 1.50 17-19-36 Brandon Bochenski North Dakota JR F 24 1.50 16-20-36 3 Zach Parise North Dakota SO F 22 1.45 13-19-32 4 Evan Schwabe Minnesota-Duluth JR C 24 1.25 10-20-30 5 Brady Murray North Dakota FR F 22 1.32 15-14-29 6 Thomas Vanek Minnesota SO F 22 1.27 15-13-28 Tyler Brosz Minnesota-Duluth JR W 24 1.17 9-19-28 Colby Genoway North Dakota JR F 24 1.17 6-22-28 9 Tim Stapleton Minnesota-Duluth SO C 23 1.17 12-15-27[/code] 8 of the top 9 WCHA scorers will be facing off this weekend in what could be the battle for the crown.

One caveat, USCHO's PWR and bracketology treat Mass.-Lowell's forfeited wins as if they were wins. The NCAA hasn't yet announced how it is going to handle the Mass.-Lowell forfeits for the purposes of tournament selection, but I would be stunned if they left them as "wins" as USCHO does throughout its site. From my weblog musing, if Mass.-Lowell's forfeited wins are counted as not having been played, their forfeited losses are maintained, and you use an RPI bonus of .005, .003, .001, B.C. is already ahead of UND in the PWR. I can understand why USCHO is hesitant to put any adjustment in place until it's known, but it makes it quite likely that thier RPI/PWR numbers will turn out to have been different from those the NCAA uses for tournament selection. FYI, the RPI and PWR on this site are calculated with the assumption that Mass.-Lowell forfeits will be handled as I described above. I've also newly updated both screens to list the number of bonus games for each team (if the math is tough, USCHO has a handy bonus calculator that does the math for you, but using their forfeit assumptions).

I'll add our good friends at: Pride on Ice

Not much ticket exchanging happens here. For Sioux specific events: REA's ticket exchange has the critical mass For a more general NCAA crowd: USCHO ticket forum is popular. NCAA tickets could be difficult because a lot of people expect B.C. to do well in the tournament, which makes the secondary market a lot tighter and full of speculators.

You don't want to know my record; I've actually had to spend some time rationalizing to myself that my attendance does NOT affect team play for the worse. I too, would like to apologize for the debacle that Friday night will bring. The good news is that I won't be making the Saturday game, so the Sioux should have their first good Saturday night in a long time.

You can view 2003 UND home attendance on UND's football statistics site. The Sioux-Bison game is by far the single biggest moneymaker for UND, as it is for NDSU. Some people want it continued, others don't; regardless, the game is definitely on hiatus, and discussion of why has been beaten to death, but can be reviewed in the past few pages of topics including such threads as: Why UND can't play NDSU NDSU vs. UND not very likely

The link is http://134.129.201.95/hockeym. How to fish: you could have found it on the SiouxSports.com hockey page on the left column or from FightingSioux.com under broadcasts.

If non-fossil fuel generation were ever allowed to reach zero, that would certainly be true. Economic feasibility might require diversity of generation that would provide minimum wind-power outputs (the wind is always blowing somwhere). The concerns about environmental impact are very real. However, N.D. is ideal in that in addition to being windy, it's giant and very sparsely populated. I suspect you could set up quite a few giant wind farms that would never be seen or heard by anyone other than their employees. I'm the first to admit I know very little about power generation, which is why I'm studiously trying to avoid debating the actual economics; but as a hot topic in N.D. for many years, I have found it very interesting to read the expert opinions of both sides.

The most common anti-wind energy argument seems to be, "the wind isn't always blowing". That implies an assumption by wind power supporters that wind power would completely replace dino-power. While that may be the ecological dream of some ill-informed greens, I'm talking about this from a purely monetary perspective. The real question is: can wind power (when available) substitute for dino-power at a lower price? If so, then you generate as much wind power as you can, thereby saving money when it's available, but you're still generating dino-power to fill the demand gap, dependent on both demand and wind availabilitity. I'd be stunned to see us efficiently store large amounts of power in fuel cells/hydrogen/etc... any time soon. We've been trying hard for a long time (well, not me personally, but you get the idea).

Wind energy in N.D. has certainly been studied forever, and N.D. has gained a dozen or so projects since 1997. However, those projects are miniscule, like the Minnkota project cited which produces only 0.9 MW. The reason always given for lack of large projects is transmission problems. What's fascinating about Mr. Henry's proposal is he claims that if you build a supersized farm, say 1300 turbines producing 2000 MW, that the economies of scale will actually self-fund installation of a new transmission system. Other experts, cited in the Herald article, disagree.

I remember hearing a bit about this guy when he was brought into the business school last Fall: Mammoth wind farm could make North Dakota world energy leader (GF Herald) It really is amazing when you think about how much wide-open uninhabited space N.D. has, most of it quite windy. N.D. making that sort of bold economic development investment would certainly be refreshing. However, questions about transmission would need to be answered: And on the other side of the coin, N.D. is a leader in coal energy production, and Mr. Strinden correctly points out that wind energy isn't a panacea that will supplement, not replace, traditional sources: Strinden: Traditional energy sources are crucial (Fargo Forum)

I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say. You were complaining about lack of discussion about the men's game, so I pointed out that you were incorrect and that it does actually exist. I also requested that you continue to contribute meaningfully to the discussion (in which you do seem interested, as per your 1:17 post) and avoid senseless name-calling (as in your 1:47 post) that really is detrimental to the conversation. I suspect your problem is with the latter, but why don't you be a little more direct and tell me exactly what your concern is and we can deal with it accordingly. Preferably drop me an email or PM so we don't have to pollute the forums with even more off-topic banter.

First, what's clinched: UMD hosts 1st round game Mankato travels for 1st round game Denver, CC, AA, Mankato, MTech will not win the regular season What next weekend means? UND can clinch a home 1st round game with 1 pt Gophers drop out of the hunt for the regular season championship with fewer than 3 pts Remaining games? UND still looks to be in the drivers seat. Despite being down 2 pts to UMD, the schedules favor UND: UMD Feb 20/Feb 21 at Colorado College Feb 27/Feb 28 North Dakota Mar 5/Mar 6 at Wisconsin UND Feb 20/Feb 21 at MSU-Mankato Feb 27/Feb 28 at Minnesota-Duluth Mar 5/Mar 6 Michigan Tech Each team, however, completely controls its own destiny because the difference between them in the standings is less than the number of points available from the head-to-head in Duluth. Final standings Using my original (January) what if picks corrected with the actual results to date, I now predict UMD to take the conference. Obviously, the slightest shift in either team's performance would change that: UMD 40 UND 39 UMN 34 UW 34 SCSU 30

Apparently you didn't look very hard -- the thread directly below this one currently is 250 posts of discussion about men's basketball, including the most recent loss to SDSU. BTW -- stop with the homosexual/personal slurs; that stuff doesn't fly around here.

Anyone is welcome to come into these forums and talk about the sports -- cheer for the Sioux, cheer against them, doesn't matter. However, take the hatred of an individual sport somewhere else; one person's dislike of a sport is not an interesting topic of conversation in a message board which is largely devoted to that sport. If you're truly not interested in hockey, it's asinine to tell us about it in every thread. If everyone just sticks to the topics that do interest them and to which they have something to contribute, it will be a better place for everyone.

I tried to make this point once before, and I think it's critical, so I'll repeat it -- getting REA and all those fancy gadgets involved would help a lot. I know if you read back through these forums, you'd find that such things were discussed a couple years ago, but it's still a good idea. I'm going to keep dwelling on Wisconsin because the Kohl Center makes REA seem like a crypt. The "1...2....3..." chant is led by one enthusiastic old dude, but as soon as he starts it, it's up on the big screen. The sieve chant is coordinated by the big screen. Getting the arena involved in cheers lends an air of legitimacy and helps draw in the crowd. Though I'm not particularly on either side of the students vs. the man debate, I do know that negotiations that begin with the assumption of enmity that I see here never lead to a win/win outcome.

Actually, the FSN announcers just explained that UND can't win games like that 6-1 because we don't have the offensive defensemen to control the play on big ice. He furthered explained that he wasn't trying to be down on North Dakota, but that we don't have the goaltending to get it done either

See this thread.

About halfway through the 3rd, sitting in the stands with Kiork among others, I definitely had the feeling that we were going to get something going. The Sioux certainly found some intensity but seemed to be shooting straight into Bruckler (my instinct is to give Bruckler credit for making it seem that way). I actually felt more optimistic at that point on Saturday night than I did when it was 3-2 on Friday night. That may have affected polls, in which we're ranked second, but goal differential only plays a part in Eric Carlson's CCHP and CHODR, of the major computer rankings. I have to start sending in a weekly memo explaining the rankings

For those who don't follow the NHL, GM's propose big changes. I find it interesting that Blais started pushing the NCAA to adopt the 1 pt for making OT rule, just as the NHL is considering revamping to give 3 pts for a win, 2 pts for an OT win, and 1 pt for an OT loss. The nice thing about that change is that it would return hockey standings to match win% (which they currently don't).

They keep moving things on me. Thanks.

Call me a cynic, but I wonder if any of those will prove fraudulent? A lot of people placed a lot of bids on multiple jerseys -- I wonder if they all really wanted to win that many?

There has been some discussion in this forum in the past (particularly following the UNA game) about fan behavior. I just wanted to alert everyone to a discussion about this issue, including some comments from the A.D., in the hockey forum. Though the letter is an attempt to influence fan behavior at hockey games (hence the forum), the A.D. specifically talks about football games, including the championship game. I know there are some D-II football fans who visit this forum who aren't necessarily UND fans, so wouldn't have seen that discussion in the hockey forum. Though it's certainly true that there are bad fans everywhere, this is an issue about which the administration and the majority of fans are concerned.

Coming from UW last weekend (best home crowd in the WCHA, in my opinion), I look to the Kohl Center as an example of how it can be done. Though there certainly was some profanity ("A-hole" against Blais, etc...), it was overwhelmed by the other cheers. The amazing thing about the "clean" cheers is that the ENTIRE arena participates. Instead of 2000 people swearing, you get 15,000 people counting, "1...2...3... we want more", or singing Varsity. PCM's example of M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A is another good one. Let me assure you, as a guest in an unfriendly confine this weekend, that the entire crowd chanting/singing a cheer (for which a preqrequisite is that it be clean) is much more intimidating than the students swearing. Clearly the students will be a little edgier at times, but they're also the only group that can be the leaders of trying to improve the atmosphere and get the rest of the crowd more into the game.