DAR

This whole situation has taken on a life of it's own. The sooner this situation is resolved the better for the team. Losing Parise and Bochenski, by far the two best forwards on last year's team to early departures is a tough pill to swallow. Hakstol would not dare pull Bo's scholarship money and allocate it to another player without being 100% sure he was going to sign. I seem to remember a quote from him some weeks back that said he would not be surprised if he signed but also would not be surprised to see him back.

The Sioux will not dominate the WCHA this year without Bochenski. It would be a big assumption to expect Massen, Canady etc. to pick up the scoring slack when they did nothing last year.The team will have to use defense as its strength because there will be few proven scorers. Bochenski adds a proven scoring element to the team that no other player can duplicate. Without Bochenski I highly doubt the Sioux will be picked to win the WCHA.

I do not see any way on earth that Ottawa gives him a million dollar signing bonus. That is about what Parise got. If he expects a million dollar bonus he will be back in school.

Since school is soon starting at least at UND, I think the U starts later. Both players are really leaving their coaches and teammates hanging IMO. If you are going to go, then go but don't put your teammates and coaches in a bad position. If Bochenski does leave it will be too late to replace him and the team will be short a forward. Same for Vanek.

I highly doubt Ballard will ever drop the gloves in the NHL. He will not be able to be a cheap shot artist in the NHL like he was in college or he will get his face smashed in. He is the type of player who will take shots behind the play but will not stand up like a man.

I guess this is the attitude I thought Bochenski would have coming into this season. Here is a quote from Michigan's Al Montoya who decided to stay in school even though he was like the 6th pick. "It comes down to it, I've got some unfinished business at school I want to take care of," Montoya told the Journal News. "For development purposes I'm on the right track at Michigan to get to Madison Square Garden some day." That is very refreshing, props to Montoya. Yeah unfinished business like a good shot at a NC and working toward a college degree. To each their own but I think he is making a big mistake. Maybe he should call up Bryan Lundbohm another high scoring forward who left early or maybe Travis Roche.

Give me a break Bina is not going to play over Smaby!!

This is really going to hurt the depth of the team. This year's team is not going to be as explosive as we would have hoped. It just puts a sour taste in my mouth as a fan especially when a guy is going to leave college to play in the minors with a very minimal signing bonus. I think there is something deeper here, maybe he did not want to go to class anymore. I am just speculating though as I do not have any idea what kind of student he is. Parise I can understand leaving this makes ZERO sense to me! Why would you not want to get your degree and play another year of college hockey and a shot at the hobey and a NC. I think some of these guys underestimate how hard it really is to make it to the NHL

This is the part of college sports that I hate as a fan. It must be really frusturating for the coaches to try and plan for the upcoming season when players bolt like this. There is no loyalty at all with these guys anymore. Usually when a rumor like this starts it turns out to be true most of the time. Good luck in the AHL.

There will be a lot of pressure on an unproven coach, hopefully he is up for the job. I just feel that not having Blais is going to really hurt recruiting especially against Minnesota. The arena and the facilities are going to have to make up for it until Hakstol becomes a proven commodity.

How would they know he will be the captain of this year's team. I think Schneider remains captain w/ Jones and Bochenski wearing A's.

I thought it was quite surprising when I looked in the paper this morning and did not see Radke's name. I had thought he would have been about a 5th round choice.

I cannot believe they are putting up netting for next year's season. I HATE the netting. I have sat behind it at a few Wild games and it absolutely sucks. Why are we the only arena in the wcha that is going to have the netting. There are risks associated with flying pucks, you know that when you attend the game, there is no reason for netting. WPOS is absolutely right this whole thing was a knee jerk reaction by the NHL to one unfortunate incident.

I don't really see that Bochenski has anywhere to go. I have heard nothing that Ottawa is even really interested in signing unless he wants to accept a piss poor contract with little or no bonus. He was a late round draft pick and I don't think Ottawa is interested in giving him much money. We shall see.

I disagree that that team was lucky to win the NC. That was one of my favorite Sioux teams of all time. If last year's team had the character of the 97' team they would have at least made it to Boston. That was as gritty of a Sioux team as I can remember. If they had played Michigan that year I think they would have given them a run for their money.

You can have those four, everyone knows the two that are the most important of all. WCHA titles and NCAA titles. Those are the two that put a stamp on a good season!

I highly doubt he would opt in. He is only 18 years old and not even close to being ready to play in the NHL. I don't see it happening.

Who are they without? James played according to a previous post.

No ripping needed here, you are 100% correct that is a bunch of BS. Money hungry is right!

This REALLY SUCKS! I had pretty much moved past the disappointment but this re-opens the wound. Go DAWGS, I hope they win 8-0

Wow, I actually agree with Rosemary (I mean Basil) on something. There is no doubt that colleges recruiting such young players is going to result in some cases like this. It is unfortunate, but that is how competitive the recruiting game has become. None of the big programs want to miss out on the next star recruit and that is leading the coaches to go after these guys at a younger age to try and get a competitive advantage on a rival school. Looking at the stats it would seem clear that Beaverson is not developing as UND had hoped. He is not offensive at all and has one of the worst +- ratings on the team. That is not good, especially if you are a defensive defenseman as he is. I think this is performance related more so than the fact that UND has a log jam of d-men for next year.

Hopefully that means that Zajac will put up similar numbers to Murray in his freshman season, which would mean the team will be potent once again.

Bottom line though is Vanek has a ring and Parise does not. I agree that I would take a Parise type player (relies on talent and hard work) over Vanek (relies on natural talent). However Vanek led the Goofs to the promised land and Parise could not. I would have to say Vanek had the more fulfilling college career.

If this is true, and I think it is a matter of when he signs not if he signs, this will even the playing field with us losing ZP. If we do not lose anymore players the Sioux will be favorites to win the league again.

I agree that Murray will be OK without Zach, however there is no doubt that his rookie numbers were heavily boosted by playing all year with Parise. Teams will be giving much more attention to Murray with Zach off of that line and it will be a BIG challenge to match this year's numbers next year.