southpaw

This is a side-bar from thoughts on the betty that came up. below are my reasons for adding whockey at UND, compared to other title 9 sports. the comparisons to gophers women's hockey are innacurate. the amount of money the umn has to pay per-game for ridder arena is a lot more than UND pays to use the ralph. during the 03-04 athletic year, the umn women's hockey team lost $413,788.* i don't know the numbers for UND's women's hockey but i'd imagine it's at the most double that. now, remember that women's hockey is still an infant sport. as the sport grows at UND more revenue will be added (wcha playoffs, ncaa frozen four, fan attendance). the attendance figures at ridder arena (umn) also cannot be compared to UND. there are a variety of factors that affect how many people go to games, but a major one is corresponding sporting events. ony any day in the cities during hockey season there is: t-wolves basketball, gopher men's hockey, gopher basketball, vikings football, gopher football, wild hockey, storm lacrosse. on any given day in grand forks there is: sioux men's hockey, sioux basketball, high school sports, sioux football. there are a lot more options for people in the cities, so i'd imagine that unless you appeal directly to the niche women's hockey crowd, you're not going to get a huge fan-base. in grand forks, you don't have to appeal just to the women's hockey, you can go after all hockey fans or all girls, and bring in an ok attendance. finally, the difference in UND whockey and umn whockey is ticket prices. gopher tickets are $162 for the season, UND tickets are $50. the low price brings in the fans for the beginning of the sioux whockey phenomenon. prices will slowly go up as the team gets better, but getting a base set of fans who love sioux whockey early on is important. as the team gets better, ticket prices goes up, fan support goes up and revenue goes up. simple math kids. people have complained as to why the UND whockey team can't be successful right away, when low and behold wsoccer is successful. lets look at the competition and be reasonable. d1 women's hockey vs d2 women's soccer. in whockey you're playing the best in the entire country, in wsoccer you're playing the ncc. look at most high schools in our region and they have wsoccer. look at most high schools in our region and they don't have whockey. recruiting is less of a burden and the level of competition is lower. Some have suggested adding other revenue-gaining sports (or at least sports that don't lose as much money as whockey). After some quick searching, i found the gophers info, i couldnt find UND's budget after a short search. but this is the amount of money that gophers women's sports LOST during the 03-04 year* volleyball ($552,346), tennis ($201,690), golf ($201,858), gymnastics ($309,254), soccer ($340,720), softball ($362,678), swimming and diving ($381,629), women's track ($514,786), hockey ($413,788) and rowing ($468,653). looking at those numbers, the only sport we could have added is gymnastics and rowing. i'll throw rowing out the window now for obvious reasons. gymnastics has a two-part problem. one is finding teams to compete against and two, is having a place to practice. you'd need an almost full-time gymnastics practice facility. i see none in sight. the costs for the startup of the sport would be much higher than for womens hockey (see rea already there). *source: http://www.startribune.com/507/story/68370.html

wow... everyone just settle down. i'd hate to see what happens if we have any more sell-outs. perhaps the world would explode? if you think the betty wasn't designed as a non-conference/volleyball/practice facility then you weren't around last year. the betty was used for: non-conference basketball games, volleyball and as a practice facility. none of the ncc games were played in the betty, all were in the ralph. please explain to me then why you can't believe that it was intended as a practice/volleyball facility. i'm going to give the UND administration a little bit of credit by choosing to have the betty rather than renovate the old ralph. financially, it made sense (cost was higher to renovate than build the betty), promotionally it made sense (anyone remember getting into the basketball games free with your hockey ticket on a friday or saturday night last year? get people hooked and you'll attract them to more games, which means more money for you). it worked for me. i hated basketball, but with a game before sioux hockey, i was able to get in some basketball before a hockey game. after the first couple games, i never missed a basketball game that year. still, the only basketball i watch is the sioux, but i'm willing to drive from fargo to see a big game (sioux v scsu). all because they promoted getting into basketball for free with your hockey ticket. originally here i made arguments for whockey, but i've decided to get it out of the "thoughts on the betty" thread. i've created a new whockey discussion thread and placed my comments there.

i'm guessing, but i believe that the system for playoff hockey for women is the same as the men. right now, UND doesn't get any money if their men's team makes it to the frozen four. this is because we are not a d-1 school. if UND goes d1, then that will change. the same can be expected with womens hockey. consistently there are 3-4 womens teams each year (umd, um, ohio state, etc) who can be expected to be in the wfrozen four. when (not if) UND makes it to the frozen four, not only will fan attendance be up, but we will start to get money from participating in the event. UND makes the jump and the two sports that were d1 before any other north dakota sport will start bringing in more money. womens hockey is a feeder sport. it's like lacrosse. most high schools in north dakota don't have womens hockey teams. many in minnesota do. with THE major university in the state adding the sport, it will only add to the number of teams at high schools. the sport is relatively young and much like lacrosse can only gain support. give it some time, you can't expect the team to be making the playoffs in the first 5 years, maybe even the first 10.

moorhead playing centennial on fox sports net right now... mhs up 2-0 with a goal 8 seconds in and a shorty a couple seconds ago.

i breezed through the posts above this, so i'm sorry if i'm repeating someone. i'm not sure where to start because there are 3-4 different issues going on with the betty. i think the decision to hold the game in the betty was a bad one, but i also can see where the admin was coming from. from what i understand, and up until this year, this was the case: the betty was built as a volleyball arena and a basketball practice facility. if you look back to last year, the non-conference games were held in the betty and the conference games were in the ralph. i believe that was always the intention when the betty was built. during big games (like thursday was), the ralph would be rockin, and the atmosphere would be amazing. last year attendance wasn't as good as it is this year and so the ralph seemed dead. way too much space with way too little fans. a lot of complaining by fans and coaches got all games moved to the betty for this year. i think that was the best thing that could have happened. the games are way more exciting in the betty because you're so close and it's a small-town atmosphere with big-city amenities. up until thursday, the betty had never had a sellout. sure you can say it's a huge game and there is a chance it will sellout, but at the same time, it could be a horrible turnout for some odd reason (the weather). it would have made sense to have this game in the ralph, but i can see why they didn't. i'd imagine in the future, they will be better prepared. the betty was never intended to be the new hyslop. it was for non-conference basketball and volleyball. only after complaining last year did the betty turn into the full-time basketball arena.

characters, it's been a good night... unforunately i work tomorrow night, so i won't be able to join all of yuo. it's been a pleasure, go sioux.

sioiux alwyays get hosed... it's like an east coast bias except the entire ncaa has an north-eastern north dakota bias. we always get screwed. w000 sioux goal w000 duncan w00

time for mory's three minutes into the 3rd period trivia. whoever answers this first gets something as long as someone else ponies up a sweet reward. what is the sioux's record this year when leading after two periods?

ummm, i may have been drinking... but if cc scores the next goal... they would still be down one, which means it would still be 3-2, which would mean the next goal wouldn't win.

boring... couple chances here and there, but nothing overly exciting.

so i go make another drink and they score... seems like i need to drink this one a lot quicker and make another one so they score again.

someone do something that involves UND scoring....

a, dropping the gloves is a no-no, even if you don't throw a punch.

170-86-19 and UND leads 124-70-9. booooooooo

oshie... what a stud 2-1 sioux w00000

w00000w0w0w000w0w00w0w0w toews is such a stud... might as well give him and oshie the co-roy

once i read all of this tomorroww, i'm going to be so mad at all of you. p.s., mom and dad don't read this.

everyone wait 30 seconds after something happens before you post, so i don't get confused by the posts before i can hear it over the internet. thanks.

my math for the game was wrong tonight... i thought i started at 6 and not 8:30. so i started drinking at 5:30... needless to say i've been hanging out with the cap'n a bit so far.

GF needs a 10x10 block area of rental/student housing. people who buy the houses know what type of area they are getting. put a park in the center, much like university park, because students like to spend time outside. i'd imagine it will need some police patrol, but at least that way the cops know a general area, rather than how it's spread out now. some restaurants could build on the fringe to attack students and it'd be like a small village on the outskirts of grand forks. as long as the houses are average to upscale, i think the "right" type of students would move in.

Perhaps, charge more for lower bowl and less for upper bowl? That way you get more die hards down low and the people looking to find a post-game party up top. Main problem is that for a lot of students money is an issue. I know I probably wouldn't be able to throw down $200 for tickets, but for some students, including those non-die hards, that may not be an issue. First come first serve general admission. That gets the die-hards out there. The ralph can keep the bad kids out by de-activating their student id's if they get kicked out. Sure there are students who will just borrow their friend's id, but it will still cut down on some of the bad students at the games.

Just like the select few students who feel they are entitled to the world... this type of attitude is just as non-productive. it's this attitude that makes the students feel like they're back in 3rd grade being told what to do by their parents and teachers. just because you're old enough to have watched hockey for 50 years doesn't mean that you are any more of a hockey fan the me, who has watched and played some form of hockey for all but the first 3 years of my life. PCM, I want you to realize something, hopefully this will help. You should take the standing problem and the swearing problem and separate them. to me, standing is a cheering issue, swearing is an appropriateness issue. i know there have been some bad apples who willingly throw f-bombs left and right, but it's not just students. anyone in their right mind knows that students dont have a right to swear. obviously, you can't expect no swearing period, because there are just some people, students and public, who feel the need to swear. it's the organized chants that need to stop. agree with that whole heartedly. Now, to the standing issue. My first year of college was the last year in the Old Ralph. I "sat" in the same seats for every game, I was there at least four hours before every game standing in line to get those seats. Part of cheering for me, was standing and pounding on the glass. At high school games prior to college, I would stand with all of the other students and cheer. So obviously, those first couple years in the new ralph, it was tough to swallow the "sit down" pill. It's still natural for me to stand up when something exciting starts to happen. It's natural that you cheer louder when you're standing. The number of students who were used to standing in the last years of the old ralph and the first couple years of the new ralph is diminishing... but there are still a lot of people, like myself (i'm out of college, but still make it up for about half of the games) who stand up to cheer or see exciting things. I don't think i have a "right" to stand, but I think any reasonable person who goes to a hockey game, whether they pay $70 for season tickets or $1,000, should expect people around them to stand and cheer. Not throughout the game, but during exciting times. With three minutes left in a one goal game, I'd like to think most of the arena would be standing and cheering their heads off. That's not the case. If you ask me, that's an appropriate time to stand and cheer, but if you ask the average person in sections 107 and 110, I bet they say it's not. Thats the big difference, is that for some people it's appropriate, for others it's not. Who is to decide what's appropriate? Just because I paid less for my ticket, does that mean I can't stand and cheer for my team? Again, it's not because I'm standing because I have a "right," it's because I'm standing to cheer on my team during a tense part of the game. Sorry, it got so long, but that's the difference between the swearing and the standing problems and why you can't just lump them together. The occasional f-bomb will slip out, but cheers with swearing shouldn't be tolerated. Standing for the entire game shouldn't be tolerated, but I think the students should have a little lee-way with when they get to stand.

effing tj oshie what a stud.... oshie from parise

realistically, this is what i think it will end up being. UND 28 40 UW 28 32 Denver 28 29 Mankato 28 27 MTech 28 27 AA 28 26 UMD 28 25 SCSU 28 25 CC 28 25 UMN 28 24 mind you, this means that the gophers get swept by wisconsin and then neither of those teams gets a point the rest of the season.

I agree/disagree. I agree that US Sioux fans should be thankful for what we have. The betty, despite a few small inconveniences is hand over fist better than most ncc basketball arenas (except maybe mankato's). St. Cloud's arena was horrible. It could be that I'm spoiled from the Betty, but when I have to stand up, not because of the play, but because my butt hurts from the uncomfortable seats... it's not a good arena. That place could use some major renovations.