southpaw

I agree it would be nice to see curling sponsored as an NCAA sport but you idea of using the Olympic rink as a curling sheet won't work. You either need an off-site facility like NDSU does in the Fargo Curling Club, or you need a rink dedicated to curling. It's not as simple as changing the Olympic Arena to a curling arena whenever there might be a match. Hockey ice is not curling ice. There are big differences and for it to make sense you need dedicated curling ice. Surely, there are many northern cities that have curling clubs and it would just be a matter of finding an agreement similar to what many university club teams already have. It would be a good sport to sponsor but other than every 4 years, I don't see it being a big draw that would be worth the investment in scholarships.

A quick look at their roster shows it's pretty balanced throughout the years but they definitely have a lot of overseas guys. Would be interesting to see a map of all their players, from Cali and Florida to Norway and Ljubljana.

This reminds me of someone, but I just can't put my finger on it.

What happened to the WAC doing a favor for the Big Sky?

If someone in the NCHC deserved to win it, I'd have to give a nod to David Carle, even if I don't really like DU. The number of interactions I've had with him have all been great and it's sometimes tough to cheer against a team when you get to know some of the staff around it.

I agree but why even chime in the first time?

I think if UND had a better coach, they could have had more success which would have saved the program. There was definitely talent but they never seemed to put it all together.

Let's take the extra money UND will receive from NDSU's win and use it to buy out Jones.

And which coaches were different in 2016 when UND had an incredible year in athletics? I assume his donations went up after that year because they're based on the results of teams...

It would be smart to move the MVFC officially under the Summit name to prevent those issues. Adding UNC stretches the footprint a lot to the west, but if Augie drops FB, that brings the number of teams to 12 and allows for east/west divisions with 3 crossover games for 8 total games per school. Unfortunately, the west division would be killer with UND, UNC, NDSU, SDSU, USD, and probably UNI. That leaves the east as MSU, the ISUs, Southern Ill, Western Ill and Youngstown St. I'd much rather be in the east than the west but at the same time, you could have an NCHC-type situation where the west's strength of schedule helps more teams with average records get in. If Augie doesn't drop football and gets into the new summit football league, you don't really need UNC, as DU doesn't want to be a travel partner with them anyway. Your west becomes the Dakota 4, UNI and Augie. The east stays the same, which is still much easier for them. No clue if it happens, but it would keep that stability in 6-8 teams that aren't likely to leave each other and make the conference scramble.

CC has agreed to build a new parking lot for 100 vehicles as well as a parking garage for the new arena. Parking at CC is already pretty limited, so both will help clean up some of the on-street parking issues in the Old North End area. There shouldn't be too many additional cars from visiting fans, except for some from DU and UND, as most visiting fans will stay in hotels nearby and can walk the 8-10 blocks or use planned shuttle buses. It's a good idea to fix a known problem that will only get worse once the arena is built and hopefully will ease some of the current issues facing property owners in that area.

Just like the Big Sky hired Andrea Williams to help with the FBS transition?

Saw a twitter post from an ndsu fan saying they're jealous of UND's FBS schedule. Has Matt Larsen scheduled any fbs games? Seems like they have many gaps in future years.

Certainly it's more than two.

Something that has happened at every other university in the last 12 years and for every school other than DU, it was this decade. DUs two misses were the two years immediately following their back to back titles. Did they suddenly no longer become an elite program?

And Brad knows all of them, which is why it's mighty helpful to be a good friend of his. And why Stoney should be a highly trusted poster about unreported issues.

So what you're saying is that getting a win over Wyoming is nothing special because it is easy to do? Tell me, how has NDSU fared against the Cowboys?

The goal of the U.S. was to make it to the moon. They achieved that goal, but times change and it doesn't make sense to continue to keep that as your goal. Same with energy. You don't need to scrap those fuels all together right now, but you need to supplement it with something that is sustainable. A couple hundred miles from me, a city that was built 400 years ago is going to be destroyed because of the push for coal mining. That makes zero sense. You don't need to expand the use of fossil fuels, every country should be expanding the use of renewable energy and working toward making that sustainable.

and yet here you are...

Better yet, just don't return.

Do you realize what a budget deficit is? When you need to cut things just to get back to breaking even, you don't suddenly become "flush" with money.

My thoughts exactly.

How does your NDSU afford the move to FBS? They can't increase attendance without building a new stadium and this time won't be able to do it with the city's help. Sports 2-4 are floundering and have been a mess recently. Attendance can only go up slightly, but you see that happening with a new schedule of MAC teams that nobody in Fargo cares about? The savings from the Summit/MVFC are big for the Dakota schools and if NDSU goes FBS, they'll lose that in order to play games against exciting teams like Eastern Michigan, Kent State and Buffalo. Take a look at the average MAC home football schedule against FBS opponents: -Syracuse (ACC) at Western Michigan, on Aug. 31 (CBS Sports Network); -Cincinnati (American) at Miami on Sept. 8 (at Paul Brown Stadium); -Kansas (Big-12) at Central Michigan on Sept. 8; -Maryland (Big Ten) at Bowling Green on Sept. 8; -Utah (Pac-12) at NIU on Sept. 8; -Miami (Fla.) (ACC) at Toledo on Sept. 15; -Western Kentucky (C-USA) at Ball State on Sept. 22; -Army (Independent) at Buffalo on Sept. 29; -UMass (Independent) at Ohio on Sept. 29; -Army (Independent) at Eastern Michigan on Oct. 27. I don't think moving up makes sense for any of the local schools because attendance can't grow with the cost of the move. Even with new stadiums, you'll run out of people to go to games. Throw in a few down years, the ability to not play for a national championship and games against teams people have never heard of and you're not generating the millions of dollars it's going to cost to move up.

Yeah, it was a commitment to spending the resources to remain relevant in hockey. At the time the NCHC was formed, Mankato was considered one of the budget-conscious schools in the WCHA.

The main thing that gives me hope is UND has a pretty good goalie and that's all it takes late in the season and playoffs. He has given this team a chance to win every night and I could see him putting together a string of dominant performances.