jimdahl

Kupchella's alma mater contacted him and he's interested in interviewing, according to the Grand Forks Herald. Why is this significant in the Sioux Name forum? Upon the arrival of each of the last two new Presidents, the name-change crowd has raised a furor, recognizing that they have a new, possibly more sympathetic, audience. Baker soundly supported the name, though I believe that's when the Blackhawk logo was dropped and the "be racially sensitive" announcement began at sporting events. Kupchella had not completely made up his mind, but was apparently not leaning "pro-name" enough, when the State Board of Higher Ed intervened and demanded that UND keep the name. It will be interesting to see what evolves IF Kupchella leaves and a UND gets a new President (still a very speculative situation, at this point).

Here's a thread discussing what is known so far.

Maybe I just haven't made my question clear. You (WYO) said: What I've been asking and still want to know, so I and other readers can properly weight what you've "found", is what are these experiences that have let you comment on how well known UND is? Every response of yours has seemed to be misdirection away from and avoidance of that question. Have you actually been asking a substantial sample of people about whether they recognize UND's name so you could compare it's name recognition to that of NDSU, or is your comparison based entirely on your own conjecture about how well known you think UND should be?

The student senate's concern (based on the GF Herald article only) seemed to be the loss of lower bowl seats. The senate's proposed "compromise" did include specified non-standing seats for students, so that doesn't seem to be the sticking point. Why didn't the originally negotiated deal give the students a couple more rows in section 110 (so students would have the same number of lower bowl seats)?

Yeah, kudos to you on questioning it/noticing that there was still one step to go. Like I said, I assumed it was a done deal because the Student Body President brokered the deal. Apparently the Senate has other ideas. I wonder if the Senate has any new demands for a deal they would ratify, or if they're going to participate in future negotiations, or if they're just going to sit back and evaluate deals after they're made. There could also come a point at which the student government starts to look petty for not accepting the deals it has brokered (though I'm definitely not saying they're to that point yet).

No one answered because we didn't know anything more. The Student Senate is a mysterious organization that few of us alums have connections into (too much turnover). The Dakota Student article did mention that the Senate would review it this weekend, but since the Student Body President was among the drafters of the agreement, I just assumed the students would go for it. I wonder what'll happen now. It seems like letting the students agree to a move is just a courtesy (unlike in the old Ralph where the students actually owned their blocks of seats). However, at this point, doing anything without a compromise will be horrible PR.

Repeating your claims a second time doesn't make them more convincing; why don't you actually assuage my doubts by addressing my questions as to how and why you gathered data on how well known UND is? I understand why you talked about NDSU, but why were you polling people on whether they've heard of UND? If you weren't, how can you possibly know how well-known UND is relative to NDSU? Either you are VERY obsessed with UND to the point that you actually polled a useful sample of people about how well they know UND, or you're just making it up. Also, my only reference to hockey was agreeing with Kent that it's less popular than FB and BB. What I did say was that 90% of the people who are fans enough of D2 football to have heard of NDSU for winning some titles back in the 80s will have also heard of UND who has been much more of a recent success in D2 football.

I agree that being affiliated with a school should increase paid attendance over what a junior league team gets. Here's a question to which I should know the answer but don't: Do small programs like the CHA schools charge their students for admission? Students will clearly play a role in attendance, but I don't know if there will be much of a revenue impact from that attendance.

The quote I was responding to wasn't from your post, Kent. I (as any reasonable person would) agree 100% with your point that football and basketball are infinitely more popular than hockey outside of N.D. However, I'm still calling B.S. on Wyo's blanket statement that NDSU is better known nationally than UND. I just don't believe his UND obsession runs so deep that he actually gathered the data. It wasn't my point, but as far as football notoriety, 90% of the people who follow D-II football enough to know that NDSU won some titles back in the 80s will have heard of UND who's been a D-II football champ much more recently.

This really sets off my B.S. meter. I just don't buy that you said to multiple people at Clemson football games, "I went to NDSU," they responded "oh, good D-II football team." And that you then proceeded to say, "Ever hear of UND?" To which they responded, "Nope, I knew there was an NDSU but have never heard that there was a University of North Dakota". How can a Bison fan claim that they're not jealous of UND's national reputation, but then also claim that they were sampling people in other regions on whether they've heard of UND? I believe that you talked about NDSU because you went there, but if you were really grilling people on whether they've heard of UND, your obsession runs deep, my friend.

OK, no surprise here, but the WCHA unanimously admitted UND's women's hockey program to the conference for the 2004-05 season. Notice that the WCHA annual meeting was held in Marco Island, FL. What, not Grand Forks or Minneapolis in April? What WCHA office is in Florida? Is this a hint -- will the 'Noles be joining the WCHA soon? I've gotta get myself appointed a WCHA official somehow...

I don't know, but I have an Internet USHL.com tells me that Stampede average attendance is 4129.

Here's a reference for the student seats being assigned in 110 and standing not allowed in today's Dakota Student. *Like all DS articles, it will expire in 5 days (May 6).

That's what I think is great about having a starting framework based on similar programs (thanks for all the legwork, star2city!) We now realize that they'll either have to sell 5000 tickets at $15 in year 5, or they'll have to somehow reduce costs below $1.7M to break even. I actually feel like this framework has reinforced my point that hockey is an expensive program to run. Most cost-cutting solutions (e.g. scholarship reductions) can also hurt revenues. Sure, lots of schools manage to make money by selling more than 5000/18/$15 (such as UND's obscene 11000/24), but it's certainly no guarantee in SD. USD's 2002 football attendance was only 4000 and BB was 2500.

It's true that the students in 111 will be able to stand (with a few empty rows at the top of the section). The student seats in 110 will be assigned via a lottery system, and seat owners will know that standing could result in the loss of the assigned seat.

I disagree. And: All from the Forum. I repeat: NDSU administration was hoping very much that other NCC schools would follow their lead.

To claim that the NDSU administration didn't greatly desire the elite of the NCC to follow NDSU to D-IAA after their announcement is to deny history. At the press conference announcing the move they even announced that they were voluntarily waiting an EXTRA year before the prohibitively long probation period in the hopes that other NCC schools might reconsider.

That's what I said -- the Big Sky is a weak mid-major conference so they'd get thumped by any good D-I basketball team or D-I football team (which is why they play D-IAA football instead of D-IA). In fact, my point was that despite being a mid-major, they're the dream target for even lower schools looking to move up to that level. Similarly, I say the argument that USD shouldn't consider joining D-I hockey because they wouldn't be in the WCHA or immediately be competitive with UND or UMN is ridiculous.

I guess I don't see the point. Yes, CHA is a weaker conference than the WCHA. If the argument is that USD shouldn't consider joining D-I hockey because they wouldn't immediately be competitive with UND or UMN, that's ridiculous. To bring the topic around by using an analogy, Big Sky is a weak mid-major conference, yet it's considered the dream destination for regional teams thinking of moving to D-I. If they could get into Big Sky, should NDSU (or UND) not consider moving to D-I because they'd be playing in a conference that can't compete with the ACC in basketball or the SEC in football? You can't demand everyone belong to a top conference, at least 50% have to be in the bottom half.

That just might be true. I think as all D-II schools in the area have done, USD is just looking at all the D-II schools with profitable D-I hockey programs in ND and MN and wondering why they're not getting a piece of that pie. It happens to become profitable for popular schools like UND and UMN because the large schedule allows tremendous revenue opportunities (24 home games for UND last year). As I've pointed out before, UND would need an average attendance of about 40,000 per football game to get the same annual gate as they get from hockey. However, just starting up a hockey program doesn't guarantee fans will show up, and there's no inherent NCAA promise that hockey will be profitable. In fact, it's quite a gamble because hockey can be a very expensive program to operate. FWIW -- I don't see that the Forum article really reported on anything new, other than pointing out that a new D-I hockey school would join the CHA. This is just part of the old statement that USD was "evaluating its athletic programs compared to its peers" which everyone knew meant studying D-IAA, but apparently only we knew meant studying adding D-I hockey. I'll be surprised if they do either, though I honestly think they'd try hockey before D-IAA (unless UND moves first).

I agree 100% with this underlying point (and had coincidentally edited my post above to make a similar point while you were composing the quoted post!)

(Edited 9:25 to be a little more concise) ON TOPIC: I agree that some sort of display in the Alerus Center is a good idea. Bringing the recruits around to what's obviously a general purpose events center with no UND markings makes it seem like we don't have a home field. It really was shortsighted that this wasn't part of the original plan. How did UND fail to anticipate that this would be an issue? Fortunately, it sounds like the wheels are in motion to study the issue and figure out how to get it done. I hope the line about the web site was meant to be funny KENT: I think you're being a little unreasonable and bolstering your argument with intentional misrepresentations. Lennon went to the Alerus commission on Wednesday and requested Sioux displays in the Alerus Center. The commission anticipated such a request and agreed to form a joint committee with UND to discuss where to create space and who will pay; that commission will be bringing the message to the people who can raise the money. A Herald staff writer wrote an article about those developments on Thursday. Let's face it, in North Dakota a committee to create an athletics display is newsworthy. I don't see it as public begging, but reporting on publicity/financial issues of the local public university. However, contrary to your claims the Forum has similar coverage of NDSU's athletics budgetary requests (NDSU hockey arena, D-I funds). Your opinions on UND budgetary issues/football would be more credible and viewed less as anti-UND antagonism if you had made it through a single post in this thread without hyping NDSU (completely off topic) and slamming UND football, its facilities, its coaches, and other UND athletics. People who want to read reflexive naysaying of everything UND can visit some Bison board.

Traveling from DC to NY isn't really a huge change of culture -- both cities think they're the center of the universe . Having spent a lot of time in NYC as a tourist (visiting Leif!) and on business since Sept. 11, I find it every bit as nice as anyplace else. Rather than niceness being regional, I think some people perceive a difference in niceness between urban and suburban areas. I attribute that perception to a different pace of life. The urban areas in which I've lived have had people every bit as nice, but who seem in more of a hurry, are a little less patient in some ways, and so are perceived as "less nice" to people from more suburban or rural areas. I have also lived in Minnesota for a couple years (Twin Cities) and didn't notice people to be appreciably "nicer" than anywhere else. I guess it all depends on your frame of reference.

You see it all the time in all sports -- it's fun to be winning because you can declare yourself the best and you can accuse anyone who dares point to contrary history of living in the past (remind you of some fans of any college hockey team ) It's indisputable that the West has dominated the Stanley Cup playoffs since the new conference format. These things happen, remember when the NFC had that streak of dominating the Superbowl? As of now, the West is winning more championships in the NHL, indisputably. However, to think that's a permanent imbalance in power is ignoring history and setting oneself up for future disappointment. My favorite team being on the list to deride really had nothing to do with my response; I agree that the SE is the weakest division in the NHL. In fact, a lot of people credit part of the West's recent dominance of the Stanley Cup to the fact the SE represented the East in 2 of the last 5. (Though I shudder to imagine the riots in Minneapolis if the Wild do as well as the derided Canes did last year). About Washington, even though the Caps have made 17 of the last 20 ( ) playoffs, I also have to admit that they always manage to lose.

He takes potshots at a lot of people (far more than the original column that so upset everyone). He insults by name: players -- Belfour, Forsberg, Foote, Housley, Kovalchuk, Mogilny, Osgood teams -- Avs, Leafs, Wings, Rangers, Canadiens, Kings, Caps, Canes, Panthers, Islanders conferences -- the entire Eastern Conference I think this letter writer is just as much a homer as the original columnist. Rather than just putting down the Wild's opponent, he wildly and ramblingly derided everyone who happens not to have made it this far in the playoffs this year, including a lot of players and teams with a lot more success and history than the Wild.