Big A HG

....but I'm not entirely saddened by the passing of Myles Brand. "Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch! Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead. Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed. Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. He's gone where the goblins go, Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out. Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low. Let them know The Wicked Witch is dead!" http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4478889

The only times over the past couple years the Ralph struggled to fill the building was during holiday weekend games. And even then, there were plenty of people in the house.

I would agree solely in hockey, but in all combined sports (like it seems you are suggesting), I doubt it. No one outside of the upper midwest gives a hoot about Minnesota in anything other than hockey. Not sure who that designation would go to for sure, but it doesn't really matter either.

In fairness to the green cuffs (which at first I hated), the Blackhawks have similar black cuffs on their home jerseys, and many posters on here are correct, they aren't that visible in game situations.

Ditto. The Sioux name/logo is special, but if it has to go, there's not much that can be done. I would like to see the whole uniform on ice, especially to see if they go really retro with green helmets and pants....although I doubt it with the amount of black in the jerseys. I'm curious to see the black ones. I'm guessing they are just another similar design of the blackhawks striping on that as well. Three stripes, two green with one white and same logoing on front and shoulders. One other thing....if the Sioux do similar vertial 3-stripes on the sides of the breezers, the whole uni could look pretty cool

Thanks Shawn!

I have to admit that the pictures I've seen on here as opposed to Brad's Blog look much nicer. Still not awesome, but not as bad as as I thought.

Those make me want to cry, they are so ugly. I like old school, but these don't even look old school to me. They look like cheap $30 style jerseys you'd pick up at Wal-Mart or something. I was very excited to see what we'd get, but am truly disappointed. The green "cuffs" on the home jerseys need to go, it's just way to gaudy. We went from the nicest jerseys in hockey to some of the worst.

Depends....probably not so much this year as most. On an average year, around $500-750 (if you don't count apparel). Two years ago I splurged a little and went to Boston, Michigan, Madison twice (regular season and regionals), and Denver, as well as all the home games. This year, I won't get season tickets being out of state now, but I'll probably buy some games on the internet, and I hope to get to the Twin Cities for the series there and hopefully one series in GF. Also, I plan on going to the Notre Dame tourney in Chicago. If they make the Frozen Four, I'll see if I can make that since Detroit is only about a 7 hour drive, but that's a bit too far into the future to plan for.

After thinking about it, and debating back and forth in my own mind about whether or not I approve of the imagery, I find that I'm ok about it. Everyone has the same goal in athletics, to win. Does this imagery help a team win? No...but the mindset about wanting to beat your opponents is nothing new and every team finds ways to depict their opponents in a negative mindset. UND does it with anyone they play in recognizable sports, so it's somewhat hypocritical to think otherwise when it comes to the TT situation. Does UND itself publicly depict imagery like this for our opponents? Not in recent memory (other than the Jumbotron-gate against Minnesota last season in hockey with the bubble thoughts pictured above Gopher players, and even then it didn't put down their logo, just their athletes, which is worse in the situation). But, the entire fanbase is relentless when it comes to teams like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Denver, North Dakota State, etc. Also, their mascot caricature is no better in terms of the southern, old-west style stereotyping. It's an old, ugly dude with a nasty porn stache that has a chip on his shoulder and has somewhat of a drunk attitude to him. Any caucasian could as easily be offended by that, but aren't. Do I enjoy seeing our team depicted the way they did in Lubbock? No. But, what they did wasn't wrong in my opinion either. I understand the PC sensitivity on the matter, but as a school, we have to expect these things and not take them seriously. All we can do at UND is help better that image of Native Americans across the US (and Canada), but not force our ideas upon them, especially over something that wasn't all that bad. It sounds harsh, and that's not my intent, but it's just my opinion. The bigger the deal we make of the situation, the worse the nickname looks. If we said, "ok, cool, they have to go to the lengths of putting down a new D1-AA school to make themselves look better while we collect a paycheck, great!" If anything, it makes the nickname seem more intimidating since they went the direction they did in trying to put it down (doesn't make sense, I know, but think about it). Anyways, I hope something like this doesn't do as much harm as it seems it could because I don't think the issue is that big. If UND, it's fans, it's athletes, it's supporters all come together and stand strong about what WE believe, issues like this shouldn't matter. One more thing in a lenthy opinion....think about the saying "Go Sioux!" and what that really means when thousands and thousands of people say it over and over for every home athletic event. Everytime someone utters that phrase, they are putting their full emotion into support of a whole nation of people, and if some people refuse to see that, it's unfortunate.

I understand that, but Blais has that x-factor. A smooth talking, "kick you in the ass and get going" type guy. I don't know Steve & Co.'s coaching/recruiting history as well as I do Blais. That's the reason for the comment. I'm not saying Steve can't do it, but Blais has a history of bringing in big time players and knows how to push a kids buttons.

That sums it up pretty well I would imagine. It works for me though. Too bad it's double-bad that Blais is coaching at UNO now (1. Not as much recruiting help down in Fargo, 2. he'll be coaching in our conference next year and recruiting some of the same players).

Wow, this is pretty awesome news. Here are a couple links that pertain to his signing with CC, but they are good reads nonetheless and don't pertain much to CC usually. 5 minutes with . . ." USHL stats via hockeydb.com Someone get the kid a new sweatshirt!

I kinda want to know how the coaches ended up finding, and taking this kid out of all the other potential options out there? Tate seems very deserving, I'm just curious as to how it all went about.

I am willing to bet Hakstol won't have a set lineup until January again. It seems that Hak likes to switch things up until the holiday tournament, then he goes with a pretty standard lineup through the rest of the year.

Come on Shawn, it's called "The Calm Before the Storm" And if there's a storm, that's good for pro-Sioux nicknamers.

On Brad's Blog: "Former NPHL goalie Tate Maris has been added to UND's roster as the third goalie. Maris did not play hockey last season, but posted a 2.53 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage for Bozeman in 2007-08. He went 18-5 that season. Maris also was a three-time all-state selection in Colorado. He is unlikely to see much, if any, time this season behind Aaron Dell and Brad Eidsness." www.areavoices.com/undhockey WELCOME!

That's exactly why I said "forward"

He'd be the 2nd Sioux forward in 4 seasons if he won.

Still got a couple jerseys, the gloves, and some patches.

I think it serves its purpose well. It's an alternate jersey. Alternates generate more revenue through additional jersey sales. What it also does is give fans who don't like the other jerseys a completely new look, instead of a tweaked version of one of the other ones. Too much green and red combined looked goofy, and I like the toned down red with a vintage look. Much cleaner and it doesn't scream Christmas.

I hate all their other jerseys, but these new alternates are actually awesome in my opinion.

Really....not trying to be an a-hole here, but I'd like to know how or why. Or, were you just trying to say something nice? (no fault for that) I understand Denny has been with the program longer than pretty much anyone and has seen more from the UND hockey teams than almost anyone will ever see, but the guy drove a zamboni. Who would you rather have, Ryan Duncan for another year or Denny driving the zamboni another year?

I don't think you can say with any sort of certainty for a few of them. And the ones that you can, you really can't say with any certainty on how that will translate to the college game.

No doubt. From all the knowledge gained about Mattson over the last 4 months or so, I'd say he definitely needs another year before coming to UND. On the flipside, as already mentioned, Knight seems much more college ready.