PCM

Wow! Someone made an animated GIF of me! I'm flattered!

Great article. It's nice to see Lennon get the recognition he deserves. Thanks for posting the link.

There is such a thing as a legal check, you know. Big hits, if clean, don't draw automatic penalties. I'm thinking that Bill Clement, Gary Thorne and Darren Pang would probably disagree with you. (Remember the "men against the boys" comment?) Big hits can to a lot more than cause turnovers. Some players take hits better than others. Some players take stupid retaliation penalties after being on the receiving end of a big hit. I've seen big hits energize a team and change the momentum of a game.

It's hard to say. I'm trying to imagine what an overhead view might have shown. If Mannino gloved the puck right on the line or just in front of it, I doubt that an overhead view would have proved anything. Even if it showed the glove in the net -- unless the entire glove was in -- it would have been difficult to change the on-ice ruling. However, if the puck entered Mannino's glove just behind the line, it might have been possible to see that from directly overhead. Unfortunatlely, camera angles, especially when telephoto lenses are used, can be very misleading because they compress distance and interfere with depth perception. Even the ESPN inside-the-net camera, which can be seen in Melissa's photo, didn't show anything conclusive one way or the other.

A.J. Thelen?

That's why Greene should get the job. Nobody would dare throw a badger at him.

So there's going to be a special coaches' show tomorrow night just so you can make your call?

Marto?

People who spoke that I remember: Scott Hennen Phil Harmeson Tim O'Keefe Earl Strinden Dave Hakstol Matt Greene I think it would be cool if Greene got the job. Strinden is the acting arena manager. Are you sure that he's not who you're thinking of?

Melissa Wade, who sometimes posts here as "devsrule" has some great photos from the DU-UND championship game at her hockey photography Web site. Among them is a sequence showing Erik Fabian's non-goal. This photo is especially revealing: I'm not trying to blame the officials or claim that the Sioux should have won because I agree that there wasn't enough conclusive video evidence to overturn the ruling on the ice. As the photo shows, Fabian and Mannino were probably the only two people on the ice who knew whether or not the puck was in. However, I still wonder why there was no overhead view for video replay. That was the one angle the might have settled the issue one way or the other.

I think they're both worth having. Say what you will about Virg Foss, but few people know more about Sioux hockey or write better about it. I hope you can find a copy of Fight On Sioux if you decide to replace. I thought I'd lost mine several months ago and couldn't find a new copy anywhere in Grand Forks.

I don't care who started it, my dog picture is supposed to finish it. And don't make me come back there!

Dang! Scooped again!

Here's the article from today's Grand Forks Herald on Bowenkamp signing with the Vikings.

Diggler does, but that's another story.

Ralph publicly admitted that the parties, the painting of him in the Nazi uniform and the "Hitler was right" bumper stickers were stupid. He apologized and offered to donate his entire collection to the Jewish Holocaust Museum. But also remember that the parties were private, not public, events. Engelstad said that they were held to thank those involved in his museum project, which he tried to keep secret until he had collected the cars he wanted for his historic collection. He said the parties were in bad taste and a dumb idea. Nobody disputes that.

No, that is incorrect.

As I said in one of my previous posts, there's more to the story than what is typically summarized in media accounts. For example, in one of the Herald stories, it said that Engelstad had a World War II era bust of Hitler in his office. That fact alone might make some people suspicious. But, as the story noted, Ralph used the statue to hold his golf caps. In other words, it was his way of belittling Hitler, not glorifying him. There are many people who collect Nazi memorabilia and regalia. While some of them probably are Nazi sympathizers, most have legitimate collections for historic, sentimental or investment purposes. When I was a kid, a World War II vet in our neighborhood created a miniature museum in his basement. He had many Nazi insignia, medals and weapons engraved with swaztikas. We thought it was cool when he'd invite us in to view his collection. Nobody I knew considered him a Nazi sympathizer. As an amateur military historian myself, I once had many books in by library (before the 1997 flood wiped out a large part of it) about Nazi Germany. Someone could have come into my home, put all the books together and said, "Just look at what he's reading! He must be a Nazi sympathizer!" If you ignored all the other World War II books in my collection and all the books from various historical periods, it probably wouldn't have been difficult for someone to portray such an image of me to the outside world. Anyway, the point, is, there's a lot more to the story than is typically reported. And very seldom do any of the stories state Ralph's side of the issue.

I can't speak for why other people think what they do, but the FBI investigation over a four-year period "failed to produce any 'solid evidence' Engelstad was a Nazi or had 'such beliefs.'" I never thought Engelstad was a "Nazi sympathizer," but this served to confirm it. I resent the fact that people continue to level this false accusation against a man who's no longer around to defend himself. It's just wrong. I can forgive the the average person who only knows what the media tells them about Engelstad, but for journalists to continue to do it is totally irresponsible.

That's good to know. Thanks for setting me straight.