KSSioux

It is a concern, but for a D-man (regardless how good) to leave after one year is an anomaly. Ottawa would have to be concerned that he would not be developing to have that happen. Now after next year, very likely. They have too many young D-men in their system to push him into the lineup. He is going to be very good, but I think he will benefit from Poolman to develop some more muscle to be even better on the defensive side. I think Ottawa is well aware and will keep a watchful eye on him and not rush him.

Yep, my Apple TV says the game is not available yet. I cannot even stream it from my IPad to the TV through the Apple TV - only audio.

My Apple TV just started working after I e-mailed Sidearm and copied the NCHC.TV. The change in the app still sucks and does not leave me a lot of confidence.

My new Apple TV using the NCHC App does not work for the live game. I click the game and the archive of this afternoons comes up. I watched it on my Ipad and not the Apple TV this afternoon, so I am not sure what is going on. Sidearm is a real disaster that should have been done away with. I have been an all-league pass holder form the beginning and they always have an excuse that does not play very well with being a good source for streaming.

There was a NCHC App Update today that I downloaded and it still did not work. The App on Apple TV was changed and it was horrible the last couple of days to move around the site. I also have had to use my computer.

JBD

Sidearm is responsible. I always copy the NCHC so they know the issues that everyone is having. I really doubt Sidearm is being transparent with all the billing problems. They updated the Apple TV app and actually made it worse. The movement around using that is sketchy at best now.

The game is listed as being on ESPN3 and not ESPN+ on their website. That means you do not have to have a subscription to watch the game, should be free online for those wanting to see it. Unless I missed something. Let's have a good start to the season!

This is what happened to my subscription. They said the current subscription did not auto-renew when they had listed (early October, I believe October 3rd), so I had to re-subscribe. They said that was the only way to keep my subscription up to date. I paid for that, and they said it would be at the lowered rate. It was not and now the other subscription auto-renewed at the right rate. I e-mailed them and they verified this. They also sent me five emails saying my subscription was cancelled. When I responded back to say that I just wanted my money back for the early subscription at the high rate, and to be subscribed with the other rate, they said that was the case. Not sure why I got five cancellation e-mails within a 10 minute time frame. Also, I pointed out this issue back in October and it did happen as I thought. That is why I paid attention to my e-mails and my credit card statement.

I would suggest that you make sure that your NCHC pass was billed correctly by Sidearm. I was just double billed by Sidearm sports for the service. I had an issue watching in early October, so I contacted them and they said I needed to renew to continue pulling up the archived games that I wanted to watch. They billed me then, and just billed me again for the all-access pass (at two different rates as well??). I have had an all-access pass ever since this started and this is the second time that this has happened. Their site is extremely poor for billing and does not auto-renew the way it is supposed to for the customers. Sidearm has still not fixed access to Apple TV, as I just got the newest Apple TV this summer and cannot go back to view many archived games further back than January 2020 on that product. I have watched games on many different browsers (IE, Edge, Safari, Chrome, etc.) and it is different on all of them as far as the serviceability. Not sure how the newest Apple TV will work for live games, but it is time for the NCHC to put the hammer down on these guys to improve their customer service and overall performance. This "pod" system will put a huge strain on Sidearm that I do not think they will be able to handle.

I am hopeful for the season to start as expected. Hopefully with fans, but Nascar is starting mid-May without fans. We will see how that goes. If there are fans at NCAA fall/winter sports, I would expect face coverings to be mandatory at least through the end of 2020. In regards to that, why is the Sioux Shop not selling face coverings/masks with a Dakotah Legacy logo or Fighting Hawk logo? If fans have to go to a game with face coverings, it would be awesome to at least wear it with some pride. Also, they could make a special face covering/mask for the Nashville game. If we would have to wear masks to games, at least we can show some togetherness and spirit. How about giving part, or all of the profits from the masks to the local hospitals/clinics or Red Cross?

I believe the player of the year award(s) are all out after the ballots have been in for the Hobey by the real voters. That trend I do believe does hold for the Hobey, as too regional focused by voters and not taking into account the season rather than career numbers.

I want to start out by saying that I really do not care a great deal about the Hobey, because the voters have been too regional about their viewpoints and not followed the standards for the award which are a combination of character and hockey IN THAT SEASON. I have been to all but one frozen four in the last 32 years and enjoy all of the conversations that I have had with folks over the years regarding games and Hobey candidates. There are many players that are deserving of the Hobey that have not won. Since it is a seasonal achievement of hockey/character, I do believe it should no doubt go to Kawaguchi. I do not think it will, as voters will likely look at career and not season and the character part is very overshadowed. Also, please do not kid yourself, the team the player plays for also has an effect on voters. MN-Duluth has won 5 Hobeys, but I do not think many voters know that. The Hobey also does not translate to success in the NHL. Here are the five players from Duluth that have won the Hobey, and the number of NHL games that they played: Tom Kurvers - 659 Bill Watson - 115 Chris Marinucci - 13 Junior Lessard - 27 Jack Connolly - 0 , for a total of 814 games for all of the MN-Duluth Hobey winners. I was in Boston for Zach's Hobey hat trick season, and his loss to Junior Lessard was one of the biggest injustices that I have seen. It was great talking to Zach and I wished him success as he went forward to his professional career. My personal opinion is that it was a senior vs. sophomore issue, and Zach did not have to be "the man" every night but was a consistent performer. By the way, Zach has played in 1015 NHL games (200 more than the 5 MN-Duluth Hobey winners) and has scored far more goals/points than the five of these candidates together. From a character standpoint he has always represented the university and team very well. You can see by the number of times he has worn a "C" or "A" for his teams, he is well respected. I am not saying this because I am a homer with green glasses. If Ehn would have won the Hobey instead of Duncan, I would have been very happy for him. He was a great guy on his team, member of a service academy, and an awesome player that year. I do wish Jordan luck as we watch the Hobey presentation and I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

For those who thought the NCAA would "fight back" against the states, they just folded. No matter what the NCAA tries to say, it is pay to play. Kids will get agents to get paid for signing autographs and their imagery while attending college. I assume the NCAA will try to set up some guidelines on this, but good luck with that. Colleges will now likely hire folks to help the athletes navigate this course of action. You can find this on your preferred news channel, but here is the official info from the NCAA via this link: http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/board-governors-starts-process-enhance-name-image-and-likeness-opportunities The NCAA has now gone down a very bad path in my opinion. Very bad precedent, but the NCAA will likely look to make dollars from this.

Michaud

I loved what one of the Russians were quoted about Comtois (before the tourney), comparing him to a soccer player rather than a hockey player. He is too good of a talent to do what he is doing, and even the Canadian announcers were a little tongue tied on a couple of his antics. I think you will see a different Comtois in the quarters, and it will be interesting to see how focused they are. If the US gets both Hughes brothers going, and stop the D Hughes from trying to do too much, it will be a great Canada- US game for the gold.

Thanks for your comments on the bidding owl auction. I was lucky enough to win the first Morelli that was put up for auction a while back, and will definitely say the quality was exceptional. Not sure if this is the second or third of the extras that they have offered for auction, but the winner will be satisfied. Watching the game Saturday, I agree the sweaters did not look as high of quality, but still obviously awesome sweaters. You will notice that the Saturday sweaters did not have the "Sammy Sioux" logo. There were also some other differences that you will see comparing the bidding owl Morelli with the ones Saturday.

After over 50+ pages of "discussion" on this issue, I wanted to find out how UND compares with other universities regarding the sports revenues. Do other schools actually make money on the sports they provide? I was tired of seeing the trashing of donors, other people wanting to tell them how the money is spent, and the biggest joke that the university would be a better steward of that money. What I found out was not surprising. There are very few of the universities in the NCAA system that are making money off of sports, which looks like around 20 schools out of the more than 1000 colleges and universities that are part of the NCAA. Here is a link to the Politifact article to back that up: http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2014/dec/22/jim-moran/moran-says-only-20-colleges-make-profit-sports/ The NCAA pulls in right at $1Billion dollars in revenue and a great deal of that revenue goes to P5 schools. They do not allocate funding evenly across the board to all schools. A better picture of the issues with college athletics is in the following Washington Post article which also verifies that very few schools "profit" from athletics. They spend more money on athletics than they take in from athletics. These large schools can pull in $125 - 200 million dollars in sports revenue, but spend it as fast as they make it. That also did not surprise me, as I do not think UND would be any different. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills/?utm_term=.7800ce2592cc You can look further and find out that a large portion of money comes from sales of merchandise. That obviously varies from school to school. If you have a program like hockey at UND that drives a big part of merchandise sales. Ticket sales are not the prominent driver of revenue for any school. We should be glad to have donors that fund athletics, as that is not the purpose for colleges and universities, but are a benefit to those universities and help to drive the attendance and passion for the school. There may be some issues with the contract, and contracts can be negotiated, but the university needs to understand the value of donors. Other sports do benefit from the status of hockey at UND by merchandise sales along with keeping donors excited. A large donor should have more say in how their money is spent. The Engelstad's have given money beyond athletics to UND, and that should be appreciated. I know any donations that I make now to the university are going to be very specific, as they have in recent years.

This shutout must have gotten him a contract with the Flyers. He is the backup for one of the Flyers split squad games against the Islanders. Very surprised to see this.

Check the game Lyon is starting in goal for Philly. Check the team stats and Matej is listed as the backup. Click his name and his picture will pop up. It is definitely him in the picture.

I assumed he is signed by Philly since they drafted him. Then I do not believe he could play in another pro league while under their contract. Could be wrong on that.

You cannot. He is definitely the backup in one of Phily's games tonight (playing split squads against the Islanders). There are only a few international spots available in major junior, so he will have to go to the ECHL or AHL, if he does not get one of those exemptions. Pretty young kid to do that. Very surprised.

Did I miss Tomek signing a pro contract? He is the backup for Phily tonight playing against the Islanders. I am really surprised at this being how young he is. Thought he would go to the USHL this year and another school would pick him up for next year.

Here it is, and the tweet came from UND Football as a gamer.

It is the old font and has nothing to do with "stretching". It is not the font associated with "North Dakota" in the "Fighting Hawks" rollout. Not even close. It is an old North Dakota font.