Siouxperfan7

If the BTHC was smart, they would adopt the same type of post season. They have shown that not even a conference Championship game 8 miles from U of M's campus when they are playing in the game can draw a crowd. WCHA made a smart move. We will see I guess ig the BTHC will learn anything from it. Of course from a NCHC fan standpoint, obviously we all hope the BTHC adopts a similar conference playoff so the Frozen Faceoff can move to its rightful place back to St Paul.

So you are telling me the 3rd weekend of March, there will be an empty arena with no tournament being played at it, meanwhile the NCHC is playing its conference tournament across the river in a basketball arena!!

Maybe he identified as having a Uterus that day.

Happy Hawk!!

Pretty much sums up this entire thread!!

BREAKING: Nick Schmaltz to inform UND coaches whether he will come back for his Junior year sometime between now and the beginning of the season. Stay tuned!!!

http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/und-hockey/4033095-college-hockey-famed-referee-derek-shepherd-retires-recalls-career Well, now who are we gonna hate?!! One thing you could always count on was if you were going to a Sioux/Gopher game, good ole D. Shephard was going to be out there in the stripes. Definitely added excitement of the game. Lots of people hated him, but I think he embraced the heel status he brought to college hockey officiating.

And, he should have won the Hobey Baker his Sr. year as well!! No argument from me here.

I am sure the Goofer faithful would much rather hang gold banners at the Mooch than maroon ones. How excited are the fans really going to be when they raise that B1G banner to the rafters next year? Sure they won a conference title. But it will be a constant reminder of a season where they missed the NCAA's and their neighbors to the west won the whole thing!!

Wait, threads aren't allowed to go off topic? Do the moderators know about this? Relax man. Scrolling for an extra couple minutes is not going to ruin your day. You got time to look on a message board during the day, you got time to scoll through off topic posts in a thread. Just killing time till the Schmaltz news comes out.

I agree that there was a time where MT and MT St were looking at moving up. One of the reasons that the Big Sky expanded when they did. But I am talking about recently. Has Montana or MT State or any Big Sky School for that matter actually talked about perusing FBS? I guess this tread has been going on for too long that speculation has been accepted as fact!

Thank God we got teams like Bemidji and Minnesota to help our Pairwise ranking!!

The title of this thread is "UND and the Big Sky could go FBS." The question should maybe be Does UND and the Big Sky want to go FBS? I really have seen no indication that either have recently shown and signs that they are looking into the possibility. So the scenarios that SiouxVolley are laying out could possibly come to fruition, but the biggest question of the desire of the the Big Sky and UND has really not been proved to show they have interest of making the move. Unless I am missing something.

With Stecher signing this year, and Boeser set to sign next year, Vancouver has to look pretty appealing to Cags.

Also one of the best photos of former players that played in the NHL in the concourse of the Ralph ever!!

Canucks!!

Per Tom Miller: "The Ralph Engelstad Arena’s Twitter account posted a photo Wednesday of UND’s Betty Engelstad Sioux Center and the current scoreboards coming down. The scoreboards will be replaced with video boards, made by LED Daktronics. The estimated $600,000 project, shared by the REA and UND, is expected to be ready by fall. The video boards are expected to be 20 feet wide and 10 feet tall.

Can someone please answer the big elephant in the room question? With all these budget cuts UND is making, how the heck can UND afford to move up to FBS?

The biggest mistake UND can do in ragards to a rollout of the new logo is to do it slow and half assed. They need to absulutely flood the market with the name and logo. Much like what happened in 2001 when the Brien logo came out. After a week, there shouldn't be anyone wondering what the new logo looks like. You can either to a slow rollout and sorta kinda release a logo around campus and to the athletic teams and hope not to offend those pesky Sioux forever folks, or you can fully embrace it and own and and get it out there for everyone to see. The later is going to be the most beneficial long term for UND. Get the merchandise out on everything. Get the logo up all over campus, in the Alerus, HPC, and yes...even the Ralph!! I only hope UND has the same idea.

Hey, maybe we could finally sell out the Alerus with teams like Michigan and Ohio St. coming to town?!!

All I am saying is that I guarantee that there will be fans who will show resentment towards those that embrace the new name. Especially those in the "Hockey only" crowd. Walk into the Ralph next season wearing a Fighting Hawks shirt and hat and yell "Go Hawks" during the game. I guarantee that you will get looks from self proclaimed "Sioux Forever" fans and may even get heckled or booed. That is reality. If you think it won't happen, you are delusional. The fact that a UND fan sitting in our home arena would be treated like an outsider for cheering for the schools current nickname is beyond unacceptable. But it will happen. You want to yell Sioux and pretend that it is still the nickname of UND, you have every right to do so. But you are not helping the situation.

I fear the same thing will happen at UND. And having thousands of references to the old logo at the Ralph definitely isn't going to help with transitioning to a new name.

And I think you missed my point. I am not going to sit here and tell people what to wear and not to wear and what to say and what not to say at UND sporting events. My point is that we are going to have a divided fan base. Some fans will cheer "Sioux", some ill cheer "Hawks", and some will cheer neither. Same goes for merchandise people wear as well. The debate is whether that is going to be just fine or if that is going to cause division in our fan base. I believe it will cause division. And to be honest, makes UND fans look really dumb.

Couldn't disagree more. So having some fans cheer "Go Sioux", some fans cheer "Go Hawks" and some fans cheering "Go North Dakota" or nothing at all is a good thing? A divided fan base? Fans yelling Hawks and having people get mad at them "giving into the PC crowd" or fans yelling Sioux and having other fans telling them to move on is going to be good for this fanbase? The next few years are going to be completely miserable for UND fans. I really believe that. This will be the hardest part of this whole nickname debacle. There will be a new nickname and logo. It will be everywhere. Yet there will be fans cheering for 2 different nicknames at sporting events. We will have a divided fanbase. It's going to happen. Only question is how long it will last. No matter what, it is definitely NOT "what it should be about"

So the real argument is what is best for our athletic teams, student athletes and the University. 1. Accept change by embracing the new nickname at the same time respecting the past nickname. 2. Reject change by boycotting the new nickname by holding on to the past nickname. Obviously there are many levels in between those that fans are currently at. But I have yet to hear an argument that justifies option #2.