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jimdahl

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Posts posted by jimdahl

  1. As anticipated, NDSU has decided to move to Division I-AA in football and Division I in all other sports. I'll have more news as it develops (though I guess there aren't really many other details worth reporting).

    Though the decision had already been made, Northern Colorado also announced their intent to leave the NCC today.

    Done with the news, and on to the opinion front:

    If NDSU and UNC are successful in D-I, it seems likely that UND will have to more seriously consider moving within a few years.

  2. Since UNC is actually further along (having already decided to go D-I), they will finish 1st.

    NDSU, being next closest to a D-I team will clearly finish 2nd.

    UND, as a non-supporter of the D-I movement, will finish 4th at best, behind schools with bigger visions.

  3. So wait....  Goon.  You're trying to tell me that you just go to the message board WITHOUT reading the site?

    I'm a little off-topic here, but Glenn will probably let it ride.  I find this whole "NCC is falling apart" thing fascinating.  UNC is gone for sure.  Looks like NDSU also.  It's crazy.  I've been working on an article analyzing the financial impact for UND to jump to D-I, but it's been a tad more complex than I initially imagined...  I'm quite curious, because I certainly haven't made up my mind yet whether UND should jump or not.  The Hurled hasn't exactly been covering the issue well, either.

  4. That little glitch was my fault.  The normally low level of reliability around here gets even lower in the summertime when I get to experiment more.  Unfortunately, a new program wiped out the whole site so I had to restore it.

    That involved two steps:

    Pull it off a May backup (hence the part 2)

    Reapply the incremental changes since then (should now be complete)

    I promise to be more careful in season ;)

  5. My understanding is that those numbers are the amount of revenue that the venues guarantee to the NCAA.  If that's the case, it makes sense for smaller market venues to make higher guarantees.  The NCAA has few fears that a regional in Minneapolis will make it enough $$$.  A regional in Grand Forks, on the other hand, has to make higher guarantees to appear competitive.

  6. It's nice to see a well-funded organization primarily devoted to hockey.  UND is (finally) doing a pretty good job on it's web site, but the guy still has to split his time between all 16 or whatever varsity sports.

    Sports schedules wallpaper - clever.  A monthly calendar that included all sports, but changed each month, would be pretty cool.  Though clearly outside of REA's interests.

  7. I'm a big fan of the reduced crease size (I understand it's being changed to become identical to the NHL crease instead of the current half-circle crease used in college).

    It's way too easy to get a crease violation yet be nowhere near interfering with the goaltender (the entire point of marking the crease).  Right now, if you're coming from behind the net to the non-action side for a setup, you have to consciously skate around the crease that's jutting out to the side of the net.

  8. I definitely agree on the "big losses at home" and "big wins on the road" being poor indicators.  I don't see how either of those provide additional insight about the quality of the team.  

    The fact that it was a win or loss is already recorded in winning percentage.  The strength of the opponent is already reflected in RPI.  Why over- or underweight a game because it's subjectively considered "big"?

    Of course, bringing in worse teams who manage to win the "big" games does make the tournament more exciting (and, hopefully, thereby increases revenue).

  9. I actually interpret the proposed rule changes as removing some of the current bias toward weaker conferences.  It makes sense to make such changes now that CHA was granted a berth (there's a BIG gap between WCHA and CHA in talent).

    The proposal to change RPI from 35-50-15 (wins, opponent wins, opponents' opponents wins) back to 25-50-25 makes strength of schedule more important.  The increased weight on strength of schedule will favor middle teams from the big conferences over top teams from the small conferences.

    Similarly, changing the definition of TUC (teams under consideration) to .500 RPI instead of .500 record will also favor the big conferences.

    The other considerations (such as adding a strength of schedule to the last 16 games criteria) also seem to be part of the movement to favor teams who play a more difficult schedule.

  10. They do specifically mention hockey as one of the nine "sports with large, loyal and passionate audiences".  However, as they mentioned, they seem to be making deals on a conference-by-conference basis.  That seems likely to favor the supports that are played under the umbrella of the basketball conferences (i.e. Big Ten).  

    I wonder if having it's own conference schema hurts college hockey in its ability to negotiate television contracts.  Big Ten can make a collective bargain for all of its supports, whereas WCHA comes to the table with only one sport (or two, if you want to count it that way).

    Anyway, a place for more obscure sports to get airtime is always a good thing :D

  11. This is clearly premature after just one .500 season, but I was pondering how long it would take for the Sioux hockey bandwagon to unload?

    I remember going to games in the early 90s when they could barely fill half the 6000-seat Old Engelstad.  The new Engelstad is a sellout because of both the recent success of the team and the novelty of the new arena.  How long will the REA continue to sellout, and moreso, require large donations to the Fighting Sioux Club to get good season tickets?

    It strikes me that a county of 66,000 people can't support selling out a 11,500 seat arena in perpituity.  Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing some of the fair weather fans shakeout so it becomes possible to pickup tickets to a weekend series when I visit G.F.  However, it could be genuinely depressing if in two years the attendance at Sioux games is 3,500 people in the new Ralph.

    Of course, when the Sioux put together a winning season next year, this is all moot.

  12. I think I want one:

    http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%7E458922,00.html

    Wednesday, March 13, 2002  - The Fightin' Whities, an intramural basketball team of American Indians at the University of Northern Colorado, has been flooded with requests for T-shirts since news broke of the team's satirical mascot protest.

    On Tuesday, the student basketball team set up an e-mail account to start taking orders - even though players have not yet figured out exactly how to mass-produce their shirts.

    ...

    Many are clamoring for T-shirts bearing the team mascot - a 1950s-style caricature of a middle-aged white guy - and the phrase "Every thang's gonna be all white!"

  13. Gotta say, I'm not offended:

    http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....ities_2

    A bunch of students at Northern Colorado have decided to name their team "fighting whities" in an attempt to offend white people who don't understand how native american names are offensive.

    Personally, I find it demonstrates just the opposite -- I'm not offended at all.  Frankly, "whities" is kind of a stupid name, but I would be similarly unoffended had they gone with a white ethnic group ("Fighting Norskes", "Fighting Irish", etc...).

  14. I understand putting in single-season players.  The goal, after all, is simply to name the best players who ever played in the WCHA.  One would expect some of them to have left early.  If you start to draw a line, do you disqualify someone who left after 3?

    On a related point -- if there's no bias against single season players, how did CuJo make the list but not Belfour?

  15. My biggest fear of moving to D-I would be the budget.  UND would clearly have to cut a lot of the negative revenue sports because the costs would go up dramatically and football/hockey/basketball would not be able to subsidize them.

    I think UND is doing the right thing by sitting and waiting.  Let NDSU/SDSU/UNO/etc... dip their toes in the water and see what happens.  If NDSU comes running back to D-II, it will have been an expensive and embarrassing mistake they made.  If all of UND's premier competitors go D-I successfully, then we can more easily and confidently follow.

  16. Well, the UND Alumni site simply states:

    This weekend's hockey games will be available on Fox Sports Net-North or on Direct TV Channel 641.

    Makes it seem like there won't be a regular satellite transmission (they usually give the coordinates if there is).

  17. I have to agree.  Whining that the fix is in before the game even begins is a little weak.  To me it looks a lot like he's just preparing to lose, but putting his excuses in place.

    In any game, if you go in on a witchhunt for bad officiating you can usually find something to complain about (in either direction).

  18. It actually may not be so easy to catch the games in the Twin Cities:

    Gophers hockey fans might have to be at Mariucci Arena on Friday night if they want to see the team's opening game of the WCHA playoffs against North Dakota.

    The Gophers-Sioux matchup, which will be seen on tape-delay on Fox Sports Net after the Wild-Stars game, also might not be broadcast live on radio.

    If the Gophers men's basketball team wins its opening-round game in the Big Ten tournament Thursday, then WCCO (830 AM) will carry the Gophers-Illinois matchup at 8 p.m. Friday. That would shift the Wild-Stars game to WCCO's sister-station, KCCO (950 AM), and bump the Gophers-Sioux game out of the mix.

    It's likely KCCO would air the Gophers hockey game after the Wild on tape delay.

    http://www.startribune.com/stories/503/1908444.html

  19. I have to agree that looking at Denver's recent games alone can provide a glimmer of hope.  Certainly UMD's 3-3 tie is the biggest cause for hope.  

    The recent losses are pretty tight games against CC/MN/SCSU.

    It's worth noting that Denver also split with MN in their December meeting and that the SCSU series were the first meetings between Denver and SCSU this season.

    Though Denver did drop two to CC recently, the games were tightly fought 2-3/2-4 losses.  In the previous meeting this season, Denver won equally tight games 3-2(ot)/3-2.  I'm not sure the recent string of losses actually reveals a change in the Denver team, rather a really difficult stretch of the schedule.

    That said -- I no absolutely NOTHING about the Denver injury situation which could certainly change things dramatically.

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