Couple of things....
1 - Sioux fans like dagies, Goon, Scott etc.... have been posting on POI for quite a long time. They are able to talk about the Gophers, the Sioux, and WCHA hockey without getting the other Gopher fans on the board all riled up. In fact, I would call them friends. U2bad comes on the board and gets the boot in a matter of months. Why is it that all these other Sioux fans can play nice, but U2bad can't?
2 - Regarding banning people on POI: there is no doubt that there is a pro-Gopher slant to our board. We intend to keep it that way. But there have been just as many Gopher fans locked out of the board as there have been non-Gopher fans. Plus, there are plenty of St. Cloud, UMD, and UND fans that get along with everyone just fine. So this prideonice = Iraq stuff doesn't fly with me. I know that you guys have a civil discussion on this board. Please don't blame us for wanting to keep the discussion civil on our board. There have been tons of new people coming to the board since last season, many of which want to try to wreck what we have going at prideonice.com.
3 - Feel freel to rip Koalska, Potulny, or Vanek, but please stay away from Roberg. He is a good friend of many people at POI and he finally got his moment to shine as a Gopher. Apparently U2 bad meant his comment in a positive way. The vast majority of people on POI didn't take it that way. Also, U2bad provided absolutely no context for his comment. That coupled with the fact that it is hard to find another circumstance where he had anything positive to add, I am not surprised that it got the reaction that it did. He had some interesting info on Sioux lines for the Gopher series, but I am not sure why he decided to hang around after the series. There didn't seem to be any desire to add anything positive to the discussion.
4 - U2bad didn't put a valid email address in his profile. Thus, it was not possible for us to contact him and resolve the differences that we had. Plus, people who just want to stir the pot in internet message boards generally want to remain anonymous. This board requires the user to enter a valid email address when they register. We do not. This opens the door for anyone to come in off the internet and post anonymously on our site and generally be a jerk (for example, that gfpuck guy who got booted right after the UND/UMN series).
Like I posted on POI: I don't want our site to become know as the place where newbies or non-Gopher fans get booted. On the other hand, we are willing to boot people who we perceive to be a threat to the future of prideonice.com. In other words, it is our goal to prevent POI from becoming a place like USCHO, which if filled with nothing but trash talk.
If U2bad would like to get his account reactivated, I would be happy to talk to him about it. I would like nothing better than to patch things up, and get on with talking college hockey.
Here is my name, email address and phone number. Please feel free to contact me if you wish.
Kyle T. Baron
952-210-9848
kyletbaron@yahoo.com
UPB