jdub27

Last time this happened, Drake went from first line to healthy scratch the next night. Not sure what to make of it, but its how it played out.

Little Orphan Annie? You make it sound like these teams don't already put as much if not more money into their programs than almost everyone else already does. Just because the B1G hockey programs are the 3rd or 4th biggest sport at the majority of their schools doesn't mean there is less money going into their programs than there are at schools where hockey is the 1st or 2nd sport. Their athletic budgets are many multiples of alot of the other schools and the TV revenue you keep dismissing just adds on to the overall amount of money they can spend within their athletic department that the majority of the schools don't get the luxury of having.

My guess is a minimum capacity requirement is so far down the list of things to consider, it is a non-issue, particularly when looking at what the landscape could and will look like over the next few years. I'm not saying there isn't an important conversation to have regarding football facilities and what UND should do, but I am saying that I wouldn't be concerned about that being an issue in what UND does decide to do.

Seems to me both were thinking and looking at the same thing: $$$$$$. At the time, the cost of D-1 was unknown and there was no known conference. The landscape is definitely changing more now so there is a better idea of the costs. On top of that, you can't move up without a conference invite now. Big differences, but both decisions more or less boiled down to the same thing. Money. That being said, with hind-sight being 20/20, UND should have moved up earlier.

I feel dirty sticking up for UM, but to think there is nothing more to the conference power and the realignments than athletics is just delusional. Minnesota is highly regarded across the board. Try and figure out what Maryland and Rutgers added to the B1G. It definitely wasn't based solely on athletic performance. Probably not even in the top 2-3 reasons.

I don't disagree with you on that one bit. But Rocco on the 2nd line gives the opponent more to think about than him on the 1st line. Again, just commenting that the point made was the exact same thing that Hakstol publicly stated was the reason for the move.

This was specifically mentioned by Hak as one of the reasons they were split up. They weren't lighting the world on fire like everyone seems to think they were. One goal in five games gets every other line combination crucified around here. He also alluded to the other team being able to match up in a way to neutralize basically the only scoring line. Putting Grimaldi on the second line gives UND a good option on scoring against what should be a weaker line for the other team. If Grimaldi had a some better puck luck and had buried some of the I-don't-know-how-many chances he's had in the last few months, this likely isn't even a conversation as you have 2-3 lines that are clicking and putting points on the board. Hak sees the players practice day in and day out. Critics see the results and then make comments after the fact. All that being said, if it is crunch time and UND needs a goal, the top scorers will be on the ice regardless of what line they've played on for the beginning of the game. May even be some mixing of lines during the game with the extra timeouts. NCAA tournament hockey is a little bit of a different beast.

I believe that Detroit would have to sign off on Oakland joining the Horizon, which they have not been willing to do in the past. Oakland has made it very clear they would like to join the Horizon. Here's an article from last year that kind of touches on all of it.

YSU going to the CAA hypothetically opens up a spot in the MVFC, though they would be able to go back to each team playing everyone once a year without them. We know that there are always spots open in the Summit. Would the MVFC allow the Summit to pick up a team that also has football? Or does the MVFC stick with 9 to get back to even schedules? Adding a team to both the Summit and the MVFC would give the Summit teams 5 out of 10 votes in the MVFC with the other 5 being in the MVC. Would the MVC teams want to give up that decision making power?

Alot of teeth gnashing going on about how terrible Wolters/SDSU and Montana/Big Sky are. They must have forgot they scored 2 more points against WIU than Montana did against Syracuse (cherry picking games is fun). Barely a peep about Akron though.

In his defense (doesn't feel good saying that), Fargo does not have a plan let alone an approved plan. What good would state funding do?

Fair question, but the only win that will matter anytime in the near future will be one in the Big Sky Championship game. Upsets against ranked teams and majors are nice and all, but they get you nowhere when you are in a one bid league. Ratings-wise, last year the win over SDSU was probably the best followed by Montana.

UNI going cold, lead down to 10.

UNI in the bonus with 11+ minutes left in the game. Yikes. The UNI -16 looks good right now. The +/- of 138.5 still up for debate.

Kept getting it within 4-6 and then UNI goes on a 6-0 run. Not the consistency you hope for this late in the year.

Really tired of hearing "KABOOOOM".... Lucky to be within 5, seems like they are outplaying us and getting a little help from the stripes. We need to defend the 3 better.

We do not look good early.

Webcast quality looks like it will be pretty decent. Just getting ready to announce the starting line-ups. Sounds like the audio is the UNI radio feed.

He had a list of schools sorted by their distance from the nucleus of the conference and highlighted with different colors to represent their chance of getting invited.

Webcast available here. I believe you need to sign up but it is free. Link to game will appear closer to game time. (Link stolen from @UNDSID)

You didn't read his color coded list. It clearly was a travesty.

So which is it?

Again, if he wanted to make an Invitational tournament by not having to rely on an invite, then he should have won the Summit. Other than RPI, which 75% of has nothing to do with whether you win or lose, what point does he have? And NDSU wasn't even the highest ranked RPI team to be not invited.

Wish they would have shown his comments while he was explaining his color by numbers to the media. WDAY barely had a thing on it. Convenient. Someone should tell Saul that he could have played in the NIT if they would have won the Summit instead of coming in third. Good luck to UND tonight. UNI is a tough draw, but this game will be much closer than it was earlier in the year. Play like they did last week and UND has a good chance at pulling it off.

UND is currently sitting at a 16 point underdog.