bale31

They said on the football broadcast that 15 guys had the flu. None were out last night and Hastings said he got the first call at 530 this morning. Pwr has nothing to do with it. Princeton wasn't much of a matchup last night

As the resident Maverick fan, I'm not sure the Kato would benefit from joining the NCHC in present format. MSU really wasn't hurt in attendance as much as I thought (less than 200 per game). Admittedly, there were no "premium" games that carried a higher price tag, so revenues had to have gone down a bit. From a competitive standpoint, MSU is in a good position in the WCHA. I would love to see some of our traditional rivals (for lack of a better word), but we've got UMD, UNO and MN on the schedule this year and I've heard rumblings of negotiations with UND, SCSU and WI. It's not like we're in a horrible position from a scheduling standpoint. Realistically, college hockey right now is more about reducing expenses than it is raising revenues. Thus, all of our old conference mates NEED to schedule us to keep those expenses down. For both parties, standing pat might be the best option for a bit. That being said, I'm fully confident that the conference shifting isn't over. I don't know if that means that MSU and BSU moves. I don't know if that means that Ferris and BGSU moves. Those are the most likely candidates. Either scenario would be pretty tough for the rest of the WCHA teams. I won't say disasterous, but it sure would make things even more perilous for the remaining teams. If you are worried about the strength of college hockey as a whole, my thought is that the conferences better stay the same OR there needs to be a scenario where the NCHC gains teams, but they also give up a couple of teams. I don't think the WCHA can survive just having teams leave and only having at 8 team league. To me that could carry some pretty ugly consequences.

Exactly, I left my job at 3:00 to get across town on Friday, but it's totally different for people that have to take off at 11:00 or 12:00. I guess it doesn't surprise me that people are that self-important though. Gopher fans have had it pretty good for years and will because of the money involved. It's jsut the way it is at this point.

Welcome to Mankato. People bitch about everything. People were complaining that these tickets were included in the season ticket package because they didn't want to have to pay for a series that wasn't in town. In fairness to people, they would have essentially needed to take a half/full day of work off to get to the game by 4:00. Same with UMD which didn't attend all the well either. The necessity of having MN in the 7:00 game on Friday night makes it easier for their fans to show up and not need to take work off. They had the 2 teams that are the furthest away play the early game on Friday. That doesn't excuse Saturday, but does explain some of Friday's attendence woes. We're bitter too. Trust me, I think people in Kato dislike UND more now than ever after the conference split (I'm not trying to get into an argument about fault, just relaying the reality of the perception). I would much rather see our old conference than the likes of Bowling Green, NMU and Lake State, but these are the cards we've been dealt.

Fair point. They were talking about it being a different vibe which was a bit over the top, but again, it's a different vibe for a first year, mid-season tournament. Is it the same as the Beanpot or event the GLI? Is it the same as a post-season tourney? Of course not, but again, you're talking about media types. It's not fans. Also, to a "T" the players and coaches were raving about it. Obviously, take that with a grain of salt, but they were very excited about it. Give it time. It's got the makings of a pretty awesome yearly event, but it's not going to be the very first year of its existence.

A bit of an unfair comparison though.You're comparing a first year, mid-season tournament (that drew from 4 fan bases) to a established, post-season tournament (that drew from 10-12 fan bases). I don't think that I've really heard anyone comparing the two other than people trying to marginalize the NSCC, people saying that it won't ever compare to the Final Five, or media that is trying to pump it up.

Because they are the "Big 3". His belief is that MSU and BSU are lesser teams because they are part of the WCHA. He certainly doesn't understand the games limit that the NCAA has and doesn't understand that the other 4 schools involved in the whole thing aren't doing it for the good of the Gophers. For some reason the media types in the TC think that the other schools should be happy with being mentioned in the same breath as the U. They fail to realize that our main goal is not to make MN successful, it's to make our own school successful.

It's amazing how few people in the TC media truly understand the set up or why it's happening the way it is. I listened to Ruesse yesterday and his hair-brained idea is that MSU and BSU should trade off each year and SCSU and UMD should be grandfathered in. Jess Meyers either doesn't get it or didn't want to spoil Ruesse's bit. Randy Shaver didn't even understand that it was a tournament this morning. It makes me distrust most of what they say simply because they are talking as if they are an "authority" and they're just flat out wrong.

That's 100% correct. The team not included gets a home series against the Gophs. The two teams in the opposite side of the bracket from the Gophs travel to Mariucci. The team that plays them in the first game gets nothing more. The 4 teams in the tourney get to split the revenues. Everyone is happy. The state schools get to split money when the Gophers are involved (which is a windfall for us all). The Gophers get 2 home series a year in which they don't have to play return dates and get 1 very inexpensive travel date per year. And the state schools get to have a home series with the Gophers every 4 years which again is a financial windfall. It's NOT perfect, but everyone does get something out of it. It's not the state schools giving in and playing just for 'the privilege" of playing the Gophers and it's certainly not the Gophers doing it out of the goodness of their heart. This whole thing is about money. Nothing more, nothing less. It may become a bigger deal in the future (and everyone hopes it becomes Beanpot-like in popularity), but the reason it was formed was financially motivated from all 5 parties.

38?

Meh... nothing to see just one dbag beating up another dbag.

Not surprised to see that from him. He's able to downplay any recruit, play or team that isn't the Gophers and able to find a way to make the Gophers look perfect in every way all the time. The old "we didn't want him anyway" line is a pretty common theme for him. I would venture to guess that he found a way to say that about Parise, Backes, Toews, LeBlanc, etc.

You can conveniently disregard what he said, but the reality is that the rumor is that the money was coming from BTN. BTN money is split evenly between the member schools. To say they would bend those rules for hockey seems pretty silly. As for football at those schools, I'm pretty confident you haven't seen the financials of Mankato. From everything I understand from speaking with the admin, MSU has an athletic department that breaks even because of football, basketball and hockey. We're in a conference that limits the number of scholarships to hold down costs and don't travel long distances to games. As for "resenting" St Cloud and Duluth, that is far overstated from a fans perspective. Were people happy about what happened? Of course not, but saying that Kato "resents" them is a reach at best. And again, MSU just did a viability study of going to D1. It was a resounding theme that it wouldn't and shouldn't happen in the near future. Maybe in 10 years, but that's even a stretch. The situations in SCSU and Duluth are not much different either.

First thing, that rumor of each hockey school getting $2 million per year has been debunked by the Wisconsin CFO. Secondly, as for MSU, Duluth or St Cloud, you're making a ton of assumptions. They have all done some pretty extensive studies on the D1 viability. From Mankato's standpoint, my understanding is that there is very little ambition at this point. The funding in the state of Minnesota to anyone outside of the U is very lacking. For that matter, St. Cloud almost folded their football team just a couple of years ago. I doubt they would be able to swing it either. With the way things are structured in today's world, I don't think you're going to see too many schools jumping up to D1. The money commitment is huge and the risk is just as huge. For Omaha to do it, they had to fold their 2 most successful programs in the athletic department. I'm very skeptical of those types of expectations.

Nope, in fact the civic center has all been paid with local money up to this point. All of the other arenas in the state have used state money though. The local businesses have pretty much put their foot down and said that they can't afford to pay any additional taxes though. The reality is that things like civic centers and other public buildings get built by or at least contributed to by the state. Mankato didn't have the luxury of waiting around for the state to act like Duluth, Bemidji and St. Cloud did. If Kato wanted to get into the WCHA, they required a new rink, so the city stepped in to build the arena. Unfortunately for MSU, they required a lease that is one of the worst in all of D1 hockey. Now MSU and the city have gotten to the point where they seemingly have enough leverage to get something done (after being turned down for the last 7 years when Duluth, Bemidji, St. Cloud and Rochester all got funding for their civic center/arenas).The precedent has been set so that's the way that we have to go about things.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. All the rumblings that I hear are the he and his family love Kato. Add to that, his kids are getting closer and closer to high school age and they likely won't want to uproot their family once they have gotten into sports, groups of friends, etc.

On campus facilities aren't going to happen. While it's not the nicest building in the world, it's not even 20 years old and we can't get state money to renovate this one let along build a new rink. Now I will say, that I think they have chipped away enough to finally get some state funding for renovations next year, but you never know. I honestly don't know that a on campus facility would help that much anyway.

What's more shocking is that a viable news source would use "RateMyProfessors.com" in an article. MTU, RPI, Milwaukee School of Engineering, and various other schools that have pretty good national academic reputations are on the list. If anything, this shows which schools have the biggest egos and think they know more than their professors more than any others.

Today was MSU's last day before Spring Break. If we play at home next weekend, it's going to be even worse. I'll say though, the last 4 years of losing has really killed the student section atmosphere. The momentum they had in 08-09 was killed and now more students sit with their thumbs up their butt than stand and cheer. The same goes for the MSU fanbase in general. The fanbase has been virtually beat into submission the last couple of years. I said over on USCHO that our fanbase is the NCAA equivilant of the Vikings. We get our hopes up and they've been killed over and over....except it's only been preseason expectations and not even regular season success.

I thought this was a poorly played game tonight. I can't speak for UND because I haven't seen them play more than one game this year, but MSU was lazy. The middle two goals were the direct result of two lazy and undisciplined plays by the defensemen. MSU missed a couple of open nets that should have/could have been goals. Williams did keep MSU tied in the second period with a couple of pretty impressive saves. This game was ripe for the picking and MSU blew it. The refs certainly swallowed their whistles on a couple of occations, which I'm good with on most occasions. Just an observation. I obviously saw a couple where UND probably should have been called (as I'm sure most UND fans saw some that should have been called on MSU). Interesting game, but I can't help but be a little letdown by the MSU effort.

Just say Minnesota State. I only really get annoyed when people that are in the media use it. I'm convinced they are the reason people don't know it's Minnesota State. For God's sake, they are professionals that are paid to get information correct. They are the ones that should know better.

Who's Mankato State?? I actually don't think MSU will move. Maybe I'm reading things incorrectly, but our AD and President relish the position MSU is in. They have made lemonade out of the proverbial lemons and have taken MSU's programs to the top in not so ideal situations. They also get a lot out of being the "leader" within this group of schools. It's all going to depend on the politics played within the conference though. If schools are committed, MSU will stay. If the other schools are wishy-washy and might be willing to leave everyone else high and dry, MSU will be more willing to leave. That's not based upon any inside info, just based upon my observations about the way that the administration works.

The irish bar is gone and Whiskey River is in St Peter, but other than that..... If you want pizza, I personally love Pagliai's. Downtown has about 10-12 bars in a one block area. For food there is BWW, Pub 500, Pagliai's, Rounders, and Blue Bricks. After the games, the Underground has 2-for-1s until 11:00. The bars of Front Street are all the same to me. They have different names, but it's the same people that go from bar to bar. It's a decent bar scene overall and has something overall.

WCHA composite schedule for next year. http://www.wcha.com/men/pres1213/201303/mar7wcm.php

I think MSU probably has one of the more broad mixes of kids you will see in hockey. They've got kids from MN, WI, BC, SK, AB, MI, OK, MO, IL, CA, MA, Latvia, PA, ON, and AK. Lots of kids from juniors so they are coming from all over the place.