UND92,96

Current ND numbers: Ages 1-39: 660 known cases, 0 deaths. Ages 40-69: 424 known cases, 3 deaths (.7% mortality rate, although may prove to be significantly lower once antibody tests show true infection rate). Ages 70-plus: 107 known cases, 22 deaths (20.6% mortality rate).

My apologies if this was discussed earlier in this thread, but the current virus numbers from Singapore show a mortality rate there of .09%. If accurate, that would be pretty amazing.

How is this issue being dealt with in daycare facilities? Or are they not operating anymore? I believe they are, but admittedly I don't know that for a fact.

Interesting articles on how the controversial Swedish approach to the virus is going: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-19/sweden-says-controversial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective https://uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-sweden-stockholm-herd-immunity-144733606.html

A lot of people have been asking about how essential LM is/was, but Governor Burgum said in the press conference yesterday that the feds (Office of Homeland Security) consider them to be essential, and as such they would have been operating regardless of what state they were in.

It appears that northeast North Dakota has fared better than nearly any other part of the country so far in terms of positive tests. Collectively, Grand Forks, Traill, Steele, Griggs, Nelson, Ramsey, Walsh, Cavalier and Pembina Counties have a population of about 120,000. There have been a total of 17 positive tests so far, and the rate of positive tests is just 1.23% (17/1318).

I certainly can't vouch for its accuracy, but there was article yesterday (sorry, no link but it was re-printed in the Herald) whereby a Minnesota state health economist said there is reason to believe that the true number of infected in MN is actually 100 times higher than the number of positive tests. If true (a big "if"), the mortality rate so far in MN could be as low as .04%.

Mandy Pearson from UMD seems to have done a very good job there. Might be a name to watch.

Agreed, UNLESS the school board finally faces reality and changes the high school boundary line. If the east half of Grand Forks went to Central and the west half to Red River, and then eliminate or at least severely curtail the ability to attend the school outside your district, and things would even out quickly and probably permanently. And it wouldn't just be hockey that would even out. The difference in girls team sports between the schools over the past 20-plus years is pretty astounding.

Central beat Bismarck High 12-1 today.

Sounds like UMC is also going to drop football, per another David Brown tweet.

He was mentioned as a key returnee for Central in the Herald preview for local high school tennis just 10 days ago, so evidently this was a very recent development.

I have no problem with this choice. Although it does make the specifics of the job listing curious. Let's hope he has a staff lined up that can recruit the twin cities better than what has been done recently.

I am out of the loop when it comes to NSIC basketball. Is there a general consensus with regard to who the top few NSIC coaches are at present?

I would love to see what Thorson could do recruiting in the twin cities metro. He's got the connections.

A boundary which equalizes things for hockey would actually serve to equalize things for all other sports. As I've mentioned before, as long as South and the southerly portion of Schroeder middle schools are entirely in the RR district, RR has a massive advantage athletically in everything other than hockey, which is obviously a unique situation right now. Put Schroeder entirely in the Central district, and have Valley Middle School be the one where there's a split, and everything becomes evened out. Maybe now that RR is the one at a disadvantage for hockey it makes it somewhat less controversial to force a change, since both schools would potentially be benefitted in some way?

I don't know a lot about wrestling in particular, but it seems as though Central has had some success in a few sports where there is a good coach and it's not necessarily a huge disadvantage if kids didn't start competing at a pretty young age. School-sponsored sports begin at 7th grade in GF, and that's just too late for most kids to catch up to their peers in sports like basketball and volleyball, among others. The most notable example of success is girls cross country, where GFC is usually among the top five in the state. Few kids start seriously running prior to 7th grade anyway, so there's no particular disadvantage compared to Red River or any other school.

In girls hockey, there is currently one girl from Central on the team, and another 8th-grader who I believe will be going there next year. That's it. And as mentioned, there are only three or four boys on Central's team who actually reside in the GFC district. The so-called open enrollment policy is probably about the only thing preventing a forced combination of the two boys programs, assuming no significant boundary changes. Despite many studies over the past decade or so on the issue, I guess there just isn't the political will to make any significant boundary changes in Grand Forks. They'll change it just enough to keep enrollments from getting too far apart, but the basic concept is the same now as it was in 1967--the north half of Grand Forks goes to Central, and the south half goes to RR. Between the flood, downsizing of the base and probably 90% of new home construction since the 1980's being in the south half of town, that stopped being fair a long, long time ago.

I was told all but three or four kids reside in the RR district. For those outside of Grand Forks who don't know the policy, basically anybody in town can petition to go to Central, and with very few exceptions it will be approved. But you have to reside in the RR district to go to RR, with a few exceptions for cases where a family moves into the Central district and an older sibling is already at RR. It tends to be a mixed blessing for Central. Obviously it works great for boys hockey, and some of the sports hockey players tend to play, such as tennis, golf and soccer. But what doesn't get talked about as much is the fact that the traditional Central parts of town simply don't produce many athletes anymore, which in my opinion is a direct result of the privatization of youth sports pricing out a lot of families. If the policy were to all of a sudden change and kids from the RR district weren't allowed to go to Central anymore, or even if an unpopular coach were to take over at Central, they would go from being the biggest hockey power in the state, to struggling to even field a team. Girls sports at Central tend to really struggle relative to RR, because very few girls from the RR district are choosing to go to Central, in some cases even if their older hockey-playing brother is already at Central. There pretty much couldn't be a bigger disparity between girls basketball at Central and RR right now, and Central hasn't beaten RR in volleyball since about 1997. In my opinion, things would be more or less equal between Central and RR across the board if Grand Forks would alter the boundaries so that South Middle School stays entirely in the RR district, Schroeder becomes entirely within the Central district, and Valley is split, with the westerly half of the Valley district going to RR. Since most of the athletes in town at present are coming from South and the southerly portion Schroeder, i.e. the RR portion of the Schroeder district, RR is at a major advantage in most respects, other than boys hockey and the two or three fall and spring sports those kids tend to play.

Agree regarding GFC goaltending. However, in a hypothetical situation where they were playing as a MN Section 8AA team, I assume Kaleb Johnson would have come back for his senior year. Would Caulfield still have left early?

Since Brewster's in his seventh year and four-year contracts upon hiring and four-year extensions were common when Faison was here, I'm guessing he has one more year left on his current contract. But that's just a guess. For whatever reason, it appears there was nothing or almost nothing reported in the media when he got an extension, as I've been unable to find anything online about it.

Since I believe all but a few of Central's players actually reside in the Red River district, I have a question--could Central even field a competitive team if Grand Forks discontinued its in-district transfer policy and didn't adjust the school boundaries? I am not trying to be flippant, as I am a Central grad and my daughter attends Central right now. I'm just curious whether it's common knowledge outside the Grand Forks hockey community that things could change very quickly with one policy change.

Comparing UND and USD in women's basketball during Brewster's tenure is pretty striking. USD is 148-60 over the past six seasons, with half of those losses occurring in the first two of those years. They have not had a sub-.500 season since the second year of the transition. Brew is 101-86, with two sub-.500 seasons. USD's last four seasons have all been better than Brew's best season record-wise. USD has also had two head coaches hired away by bigger schools in the past seven years, with their current coach well on her way to being the third after a 29-7 season this year. Brew seems to do just well enough to stick around, but not well enough to make anybody else want to hire him away. The standards for women's basketball at UND are significantly higher than being a little over .500 after six seasons, particularly given what's going on with the two SD schools. Things need to improve and quickly.

I suspect it will help some, but even if it gets to the point where GF has enough players to hypothetically field two teams, 80% or more of them will likely be at Red River, so it would still probably be necessary to have one combined team for the foreseeable future. Unless the boundary changes, anyway. And I'm not holding my breath that that happens anytime soon.

I can't speak for other towns, but there is zero chance Central would ever be able to field a separate girls team with the current high school boundary in Grand Forks. Boys hockey is a different deal due to the fact that GF produces such a large number of good players (the vast majority of whom live in the RR district) and a lot of them choose to go to Central despite not living in the district. You generally don't see that in any other sports. The disparity between Central and Red River is most obvious in girls team sports, such as basketball and volleyball. Unless the boundary changes to split Grand Forks east-west rather than north-south, the deck will always be stacked against Central and in favor of Red River.