jimdahl

Honestly, regardless of the offer's relationship to "face value", the rude and vulgar response was inappropriate for this forum.

Good point. I was more focused on indoor vs. outdoor, but off-campus vs. on-campus is a very important dimension. For students to live around, and be able to walk easily to and from, the football stadium is a big part of the game-day experience. Tailgating at the Metrodome was never quite the same as hitting Regent St. (Madison) at 9am on game day.

Whatever fan base makes it decisions based on weather ("today is a nice day to sit outside, so I think I'll wander over to the football game") would need to be similarly subtracted from late October-November attendance projections. At best for outdoor attendance, I think weather is a wash; more likely, it's a net negative. I think UND's attendance woes are, alas, the risk we a lot of discussed when NDSU first proposed moving -- UND is playing a bunch of unknown teams (for home games) and achieving a mediocre record doing so. There's just no draw for the casual non-fan. NDSU's different experience came from outperforming on both fronts: 1) they managed to hype lousy opponents as "the next level", e.g. the opening game against Valpo, 2) they put together some of their best performances in recent memory during their transition. I don't know if UND didn't try as hard on point #1 or if GF'ers were already conditioned not to appreciate the novelty of "D-I" (by hockey, NDSU's move, or four years of prominent anti-IAA propaganda); #2 is just the way the ball rolls sometimes, but is also certainly a product of four years of losing recruiting battles against neighboring FCS teams. I personally prefer outdoor football overall, but North Dakota is in a unique situation weather-wise. I would find it hard to be optimistic that a move outdoors would increase attendance, overall.

The other respondents are correct that there are lots of ways to do it -- e.g. I think if you upload full size to flickr, it's downloadable full size. However, I'm also always happy to help out with this sort of thing. If you want, drop me a note and we can figure out how to get them all posted all full res...

I've been (sort of) keeping up! I actually came here today to do another update, looks like you beat me by about 20 minutes

As far as inserting links, anything that worked before still should. There's a link button that looks (to me) like a little chain, just to the right of the smiley face. However, now you can also just paste in a link (that starts with the http) and it should automatically turn it into a link. http://www.yahoo.com To check your PMs -- I think I now have it correctly popping up a dialog (like it used to) when you have a new one. You can also see how many new notifications you have waiting in the dark gray bar, just to the right of where it says "signed in as jimdahl" there should be a number with a little down arrow. That number is the number of PMs you currently have waiting, clicking on it should show you a list where you can click on any message title to view it. Finally, to get into your "messenger" you instead click on your name (e.g. "signed in as jimdahl") and one of the choices there will be something like "Messenger (0 new)". You can go there to either to read messages, or from there you can hit "compose new".

My understanding of the agreement is that all licensed merchandise will be pulled from the shelves on June 30, 2011. "Retail" refers to the sales channel, I think, not the pricing scheme. Basically, UND issued the last "Sioux Head" license renewals on July 1, 2010, with explicit instructions that they were one year licenses and that licensees would pull all merchandise bearing that imagery at the expiration of the license. Given my own interactions with UND's licensing agent in the past, I would expect them to police that pretty carefully (e.g. I would expect them to have agents walking store aisles in N.D. the first couple weeks of July making sure all merchandise is gone). UND Merchandising Timeline -- UND University Relations

I don't understand -- why would the number of non-conference games necessarily shift Minnesota away from ~60% home games? Say Minnesota was part of a BTHC, and decided it needed to play UND to fill out the schedule. If UND would only agree to a home/away series in consecutive years with Minnesota, as speculated, half Minnesota's games would be travel. That's pretty much what the WCHA currently mandates, teams play home and away series (except for the missing series and the whole natural rivals thingy, which I think also evens out). Or is the theory that UND getting non-conference home/away series out of Minnesota would lead the Ferris St and Union's of the world to demand the same?

Penn State receives $88m to jumpstart hockey programs/ -- InsidePittsburghSports.com I haven't followed this thread daily, but I remember star2city hinting at this earlier -- is it possible for Penn State to join the CCHA, and the Big Ten's desire to declare a Big Ten champion be satisfied in parallel with other formal conference affiliation? Like the Ivies? That is, could each school remain in their respective conference, but also be required to play each out-of-conference Big Ten team every season?

From Kevin Pates' Duluth News Tribune article, WCHA could lose Gophers and Badgers: I know when I think of what big rivalry games Minnesota might lose under a BTHC, UMD is the first that jumps to mind

Sep 8 Before UND's 2010 season-opening loss against FBS foe Idaho (UND's 2nd consecutive season opening loss, but also 2nd since 1992), the Fighting Sioux were 66-20-1 in September season openers. North Dakota opens 2010 against Vandals Sep 9 Who coughed up $660 to become a Fighting Sioux Club Captains Member in 2009-2010? these people (What a deal! It's now $725) Sep 10 Want to chat with UND Assistant Athletics Director, Media Relations, Jayson Hajdu? His cell number is in the weekly hockey release... (701) 740-7659 UND Hockey Weekly Release Don't tell him I sent you... Sep 11 UND athletics television coverage has skyrocketed in recent years. When I moved from G.F. to D.C. in '96, UND sports were watchable: 1) if UND made the Frozen Four, or 2) once a year at an almuni event. Now I get at least half the hockey games, quite a few football games, and a lot more. Apparently DirectTV fans were able to enjoy the UND feed of the UND-Minnesota hockey game last year on 658. SIOUX vs GOPHERS Friday Gameday Sep 12 Sioux great, John Marks, played 657 NHL games, all for the Blackhawks. He scored 275 points (112g, 163a) in those 657 career games. John Marks

This is it... 2(?) shots at the end zone from 27 yds out.

On that same set of downs, NIU just broke 500 yds of offense. Ugh.

Ummm.... apparently, yes. NIU 23 - UND 14 14:54 4th

On the tv replay the pass looks pretty high to me -- great pull-in by Hardin. UND 14 - NIU 16 1:45 3rd

Nice. Thanks Dave!

Aug 28 In UND's 2008-09 placement survey, 672 of 695 respondents (97%) reported being either employeed or currently a student. Placement report Aug 29 Ah... the glory days of UND women's basketball. In this early 2007-08(?) poll, UND Was ranked #1 in the nation with 671 points and 23 of 26 first place votes. While moving to D-I brings lots of new exciting aspects to UND athletics, it's difficult to imagine a basketball team ever again having a #1 ranking. Sioux remain atop USA TODAY/ESPN poll Aug 30 Tony Couture, UND hockey player from 1988-91, went 34-16-3 at UND for a lifetime winning percentage of .670, 7th all time. He was honored with the Tom Clifford award of the UND Letterwinners Hall of Fame in 2009. UND Letterwinners Hall of Fame announces Class of 2009 Aug 31 Former UND hockey head coach Dean Blais entered his 10th and final season as coach of the Sioux with an NCAA-best .669 coaching career winning percentage (232-107-30). Dean Blais Sep 1 Former UND volleyball standout, Megan Langseth, finished her career with 2952 assists, good for 4th all time. In her sophomore year (2007) she led the Fighting Sioux with 668 assists, which she follow with two 1,000+ assist seasons her junior and senior years. Megan Langseth Sep 2 In Dave Hakstol's six years as head coach, UND has posted a .667 winning percentage (94-39-15) in games played after Christmas (including playoffs), compared to a .569 mark (49-36-9) prior to Christmas. (Stat from before 2010 Final Five quarterfinal game Sioux tangle with UMD in Final Five quarterfinal) Sep 3 Among the 11 Idaho players who caught a pass in a UND's 0-45 loss to Idaho was Maurice Shaw, who was the runner-up returning receiving leader with 666yds in the 2009 season. Idaho Vandals release Sep 4 To see UND take on Cal Poly on Oct. 22-23, you can fly with the UND football team for a mere $665. Will this be UND's last game at Cal Poly as conferencemates? Fly with the Fighting Sioux football team Sep 5 UND basketball great, Phil Jackson, was an All-American in '66-67 with 27.4 PPG, still a school record. Phil Jackson Sep 6 UND won its 2nd D-I hockey championship on 3-16-63 by defeating Denver 6-5. 1962-63 NCAA Champions -- UND Fighting Sioux Sep 7 During Dave Hakstol's 4 years as a member of Dean Blais's coaching staff, they led the Sioux to a 101-47-19 (.662) overall record. Dave Hakstol

There was a bug with some versions of IE, now fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.

Done. The "SiouxSports.com Skin" is now the default.

Spent some time on the "skin" today -- lightened it up quite a bit, removed a lot of (IMHO) unnecessary and overbearing gradients and extra decorative elements. The new one is quite a bit simpler, cleaner, and more like the old one. I also fixed the few remaining bugs I knew about. You can check it out using the skin selector in the lower left corner and switching to SiouxSports.com Test Skin. I'll switch everyone over to it in the next few days.

It's been pointed out to me that the behavior of PM notifications has changed. Instead of the old popup, it now just notes the number of waiting notifications in your status bar near the top of the screen. The older behavior is still available, it's just no longer the default (a change for the worse, in my opinion). To get popups for new PMs: Click "My Settings" in the status bar near the top of the screen Click the "Notification Options" tab on the left Check the box next to "Show popup when I receive a new inline notification" Email notification of a new PM is still the default, so if you have an up-to-date email address you will receive notification that way, regardless of the above.

Yep, I described it a bit in this post. It's a mobile skin for the SiouxSports forum (the rest of the site is under way). When you go to the regular forum URL from a recognized phone, it gives you a phone friendly skin automatically. It's still a little buggy (I sometimes get the wrong skin on iPhone, but a reload always fixes it), and I haven't been able to customize it much (it's more blue than I'd like ), but unlike the old lo-fi version it's a fully functional, same URL, mobile-friendly version of the forum.

Yes, but it's much improved -- instead of being a separate URL, it's just a different "skin". That way there's a single address for each post, forum, etc..., but each client can view it however they need to. Plus, since it's now just a skin on the regular forum, it fully supports all the functions of the normal forum, including posting. There are two ways to access it: 1) If you're coming in from an iPhone, Blackberry, etc..., it should autodetect that and provide you the simpler, more mobile-appropriate skin by default 2) Even from a regular web browser, in the lower left corner of each page is a skin selector that currently says "SiouxSports.com Default Skin". Change that to "IP.Board Mobile" to get the lightweight skin. The mobile skin still has a bit more blue where I'd like green, but it's a brand new feature that still has some bugs that are preventing from fixing it. Hopefully in the next month or two it will look more like a lightweight version of the main forum.

Just tested with 7 and it works. Poor MS has been begging companies to move off IE6 for years. I would guess that everyone is finally going to give up on XP and move to 7 within the next couple years, which should get rid of 6 once and for all. The product notes did note that things wouldn't work perfectly under IE6, but for now, just under 5% of our traffic still comes via that browser, so I'll definitely do what I can. Point out anything else you see.

Testing CNN Hmmm... good for me. What's your browser (and version if you know it)?