PCM

I'm sure everyone would agree that Patrick is indeed one sick puppy.

From the Green Mill, it's the Fighting Sioux Coaches' Show with UND hockey coach Dave Hakstol and hosts Tim Hennessy and Scott Swygman. TH: The Fighting Sioux had a couple of good wins at Mankato last weekend. They were wins on the road and they were fun. DH: There was a little bit of everything in that series. The games were very entertaining. Looking back, we really didn

If the polls mean anything, the majority either do or don't care one way or the other.

It's about time you got one of my points.

C'mon, that's not a reasonable response. Hockey isn't played in a vacuum and nobody here is telling you how to play it. Professional sports wouldn't exist without fan support. Different sports constantly tinker with the rules in efforts to attract more fans or keep existing fans happy. Leagues also change rules to make games more fair and more safe. Professional sports ignore fan input at their peril.

I was going to bow out of this, but because people are still responding to points I made, I'll say a bit more. Asking current NHL fans whether they favor fighting in the game is a bit like asking those at the 9 a.m. church service if they like going to church at 9 a.m. If they didn't like it, they wouldn't be there. It doesn't tell you anything about how many more people might potentially attend a 10 a.m. service. If the church is just fine with the number of people attending the early service, then there is no need to attract more people. But if the church is only half full and hurting for revenue, there might be some value in exploring the idea of a later service. What's interesting to me about this discussion is that I've proposed what I think is a very reasonable solution to cope with the problem of cheap shots in hockey. I thought perhaps that it would get some to see that there were other options besides fighting, but nobody seems to be interested in discussing that possibility.

He was asking about next season.

I'd like to think that I at least have some understanding of why hockey players and others closely associated with the game think about the sport the way they do. However, because of their close connection to the game, I'm not sure that they can be very objective about it, especially when it comes to viewing the sport from an outsider's perspective. My reason for getting involved in this thread was to help people understand how the outside world views fighting in hockey. I understand the theory behind fighting and what it's supposed to accomplish. I remain unconvinced that it actually achieves that objective. I believe that equal enforcement of the rules, combined with severe punishment for players who demsonstrate a pattern of jeopardizing the safety of others, is the best way to protect the health and safety of all, not just those high-paid few assigned enforcers to protect them from legal and illegal hits. So I will shut up now and let the experts duke it out. I've had my say.

Yes. It's just like hockey. The biggest dog gets to dictate the unwritten rules.

Marc Ranfranz, former Fighting Sioux goalie and the son of a past president of the Flandreau-Santee Sioux tribe in South Dakota, said it best:

I could turn the dog loose, but then I'd have to give up my verbal superiority. Besides that, it wouldn't have any effect on THETRIOUXPER. His dog is bigger and badder than mine. He just laughs at my dog while he verbally checks people from behind.

Watch it there, buddy. Don't make me go verbal on your a$$! Nope. Still doesn't sound right.

Somehow, that doesn't sound quite right.

If we're going to starting fighting over spelling, grammar and sentence structure, you could be right. On the other hand, this could work to my advantage because I'm quite certain that in my lifetime, I've written more words than anyone else participating in this thread. I think that gives me the right to verbally abuse anyone who disagrees with me.

That's another thing I don't get. Why should someone who makes a clean, legal hit have to fight anyone? What in the heck does that have to do with enforcement of the rules or preventing cheap shots? If you're truly interested in playing the game under the rules, then a player who makes a legal hit shouldn't have to worry about having some goon smash his face in. How does that many any sense? Ummm...you did it again. You've admitted once more that fighting doesn't change your behavior. The only thing that alters your behavior is if the other team has a bigger goon than you, which was the point of this post. I know the sports are different because I've played them all. That's not the point. What I'm saying is that if the concept of player enforcement of the rules works so well in hockey, why not apply it to other sports in which cheap shots occur? That's a rhetorical question. I already know the answer.

Wrong! What we need is to make it legal for real hockey players to come into the stands and beat the crap out of clueless fans.

But unlike you, I have played the game. Granted, I played on a crappy club-level team, but at least I played. So just shut up and let me do all the talking.

So if Paukovitch unloads a Boogaard-type punch on the biggest, baddest player the Sioux can put up against him, you're telling me that the Sioux team will be satisfied with the outcome? What reason will they have to believe that Geoff learned a valuable lesson that will result in him cleaning up his act? It seems to me that if that happened, the exact opposite lesson is more likely to be taught. And because nobody on the the Sioux team can control the outcome of a fight or what Paukovitch and his teammates are supposed to think when it's over, the entire situation could just as easily become worse, not better. Some sucker punches are obvious and sometimes what one person considers a sucker punch, someone else won't. As you said, it's an imperfect world, and because it is, you have no control over how one team might perceive another team's actions. You just contradicted yourself. And in doing so, you proved my point: There's no guarantee that a fight will result in a change in a particular player's behavior. There is one way to guarantee a change: Call all the cheap shots as they occur in a game and assess the maximum penalties. Levy fines and suspensions to the worst offenders. And if the officials miss cheap shots in the course of the game, use video replay to hand out suspensions and fines after the fact. Make the coaches feel the pain of losing key players for important games. It'll be only a matter of time until coaches figure out that they can't win by using a goon to take out the other team's best players. If those measures aren't effective, suspend players without pay for several games. If they don't get the message after that, ban them from hockey for a season. If they come back the next season and cheap-shot someone else, throw them out of hockey for good. If the NHL, the NCAA, the WCHA or any other league is truly interested in protecting players and ending the cheap shots that threaten seasons and careers, there's no doubt in my mind that they could do it through the rules systems and the strict enforcement of that system. But apparently you haven't been enough fights to change your behavior on the ice. Because if you had, you wouldn't keep getting into fights. If you're thinking twice, why do players on the opposing team think they need to fight you to adjust your attitude? I know. It's just your opinion. Look, I realize that a lot of stuff happens in the course of a game that the officials don't see. It also happens in football, and, to a certain extent, it goes on in basketball, which is supposed to be a non-contact sport. So how is it that hockey is the only sport in which enforcers are needed? If the concept of player enforcement works so well in hockey, why don't we apply the same concept to other sports to clean them up?

What, exactly, is it about this statement I made in this post that's not short, sweet and succinct enough for you to understand? "I don't think fighting is out of control in the NHL."

Except how do you know that whoever fought Paukovitch would have beat him? He's a pretty big guy. What if he beat up the Sioux player who challenged him? What if they fought to a draw? What if, in the eyes of the Denver players, the Sioux player KOed poor Geoff with a sucker punch? Then what? What does the "unwritten code" say should happen next? Whether this situation happened at the college or pro level makes no difference. You're claiming that allowing a fight in retaliation for one player's cheap shot on another will lead to some sort of neat, rapid conclusion to the misbehavior that everyone agrees to. You're simply assuming that if a Sioux player fought Paukovitch, the Sioux player would win and Paukovitch, properly humbled, will end his cheap-shotting ways. There's absolutely no guarantee that the neat, tidy outcome you envision would actually happen. But there are "true enforcers" in the pros. So tell me, how did a cheap-shot artist like Claude Lemieux survive for so long in the NHL where enforcers rule the rink? Who do I believe? You or my lying eyes? Until you or somoene else can provide proof of this, I can only go by what I see happening on the ice.

I remember Canadian fans singing this song during the 2005 World Junior Championships at the Ralph.

I've also seen eagle feathers depicted on the side of a Grand Forks bus as part of an ad for a tribal casino. The bus, and thus the eagle feather artwork, was spattered with mud and covered with road grime. I never heard anyone protest this as an abuse of tribal religious symbols.

This post I wrote as part of this thread proves that Slap Shot's interpretation of what I've previously stated is flat wrong. If I wanted to say that fighting in the NHL is increasing, I would have said it. That is not and never has been my point. For Slap Shot to claim that he knows my own mind better than I do is patently ridiculous.

Logo preference, like music preference, is extremely subjective. Nobody's ever going to agree on the same thing. That being said, I'm also in favor of ditching the interlocking ND logo in favor of something unique to UND.

Before you judge to quickly and too harshly, are you familiar with what the poster known at "grahamkracker" did to a member of this community?