fightingsioux4life

If the Hobey was about being a perfect choir boy, then nobody would ever win it. I don't care how perfect and angelic those east coast players look, they probably have had their moments on campus and off of it. Frattin has reformed his life and it is showing on the ice. He is way more dominant than he ever was before he was kicked off the team. During the 1990's, the award developed a bad reputation of being more of a beauty contest than a true representation of the best player in the game for that year. The award always seemed to go to players who played in big east coast media markets or to big-time, all Division I schools. I noticed that after Panzer was robbed of the award in 2001, the award magically started being given to small school players like Peter Senja (Colorado College), Matt Carle (Denver) and Junior Lessard (Minn-Duluth). And we all were proud of Ryan Duncan winning it in 2007. So the award has garnered more legitimacy over the past ten years. But I still don't totally trust the process and I wouldn't count on Frattin winning it. But I think raising #8 in the X would soothe any of those wounds!

I think Frattin deserves it as much, if not more, than anyone. But I have a feeling they will just hand it over to some east-coast, cake-eating media darling like they are prone to do. A buddy of mine likes to call the Hobey Baker the "Duncan Hines Award" because of this. I do think that Frattin is a virtual lock for WCHA Player of the Year.

This reminds me of when standout nosetackle Mark Callahan, who helped the football program get over the hump in the mid-1990's, got second and third teamed to death when it came to All-American selections. In my opinion, he should have been a first-team All-American every single year he was at UND, period. But these rankings are secondary to team success and the twins would tell you that themselves. What a bright future this program has!

Okay, fair enough. If you had included the stats in your first message, I would not have responded like I did. I think part of the problem for Dell is that our defense doesn't give up many shots. So if Dell gives up 2 goals on 15 shots, it hurts his save percentage. He almost has to give up 0 or 1 goal every game to improve his save percentage and that is just not realistic with the talent he faces in our league. My rant on Gopher goaltenders was focused on those fans that think the Gophers have solid goaltending despite obvious evidence to the contrary. KFAN is so biased on this topic that I have stopped listening to 1440AM in Grand Forks altogether. Obviously, you are not one of them. I also think it is strange that a storied program like Minnesota cannot get top-notch goaltending. You have had that problem since Robb Stauber won the Hobey Baker Award.

Idalski has proven himself in a very short period of time after taking over a program that was beyond rock-bottom thanks to Shantel "I can't get any Olympians" Rivard. All she did was whine and moan and complain about how bad her team was and how she couldn't get "The Olympians" like Minnesota and Minn-Duluth did. Idalski has gone out and hired assistant coaches that have recruiting connections and that is starting to pay some big dividends for us. We have locked up a majority of the top recruits in Minnesota's Section 8 and that will help establish a talent pipeline that will continue to supply our program with talent for years to come. And people forget, this is a very young team and will only get better. I can see a year when both of our hockey teams win NCAA titles. That seemed impossible just a couple of years ago.

I feel good about this year's squad. They have good, balanced scoring upfront; a solid group of blueliners and good, consistent goaltending. They have responded to adversity well during the ups and downs of a long season. And they are ramping up their game at the perfect time. All we have to do is focus on the business at hand in our next four games and the Cup will be ours for the second time in three years. GO SIOUX!!!

This is one of the regular Rodentia Talking Points that they stick with year after year. They believe in their heart of hearts that Gopher goaltending is ALWAYS better than Sioux goaltending, even if the stats prove otherwise. During the rein of Kellen "Five Hole" Briggs, Rodentia always yapped about how "solid' and "steady" Briggs was and that J.P. Lamoreaux was "unreliable" and "shaky". They pointed to all the "big" games Briggs "won". They pointed to the 2004 Final Five MVP award Briggs won despite giving up 8 goals in two games (the ultimate example of the Brad Schlossman Rule). They will conveniently ignore the fact that Briggs probably cost his team any chance at all of a "Three-peat at the Fleet" that KFAN was yapping about until Duluth shut them up in the regional final that year. They also conveniently ignore the soft goals Briggs gave up against Holy Cross in the 2006 West Regional in Grand Forks. I will contend that the Gophers won DESPITE Briggs, not BECAUSE of him. And that goes double for Adam "Doogie" Hauser. I am happy with Aaron Dell, thank you very much. Now go trolling for backlash comments someplace else, please.

It wouldn't take much to top Sweeney at covering hockey games on television. Just not telling endless stories about old minor league hockey teams in Minneapolis/St. Paul would do the trick.

I think that if something is in the ND Century Code, that has to be the guiding principle for the ND Legislature, the Executive Branch and all county and municipal governments in the State of North Dakota. The ND Supreme Court is the body that interprets the laws. If the "dry" provision was not in the Century Code and the Legislature voted to make all campuses dry, then the campuses would be required to "dry out" since there is nothing in the Century Code to prohibit the Legislature from governing that issue. However, in the issue of the nickname and logo, the ND Supreme Court has already ruled that the SBoHE has the authority to tell UND to get rid of the name and logo. I would imagine they used the Century Code as a guidepost to help make this ruling. If the Legislature doesn't like the Century Code as is, they certainly can take appropriate steps to change it. But right now, as far as I can tell, they will have no choice but to adhere to the Century Code whether they like it or not. But I guess the courts will have to figure it out; that is what they get paid to do.

Here we go again with the myopic, extremist, "Hockey is ALL that matters and everything else can go to H-E double-hockey sticks" position. While I don't think I can change your mind, I have some questions for you and everyone else that thinks like you: 1) If hockey is all that matters, then why did we move all our other programs to Division I? Hockey would have continued to survive just fine if we had stuck with Division II for all other sports. But now that we have made the choice to move everything else up, we can no longer focus on just one sport and the heck with everything else. We have spent millions of dollars and will spend millions more to move up to Division I and we did it for both basketball and football. If we decide that never hosting another home football playoff game again is not that big of deal, then we should just make football non-scholarship and join the Pioneer League. Because if we go down this path, recruiting top athletes will be next to impossible anyway. Might as well shoot for straight A students and getting beat 50-0 by established FCS powers in "money games". If you are going to lose, lose in style. 2) What will you say when other schools refuse to schedule us because of the name and logo? And please don't give me that whole "They will have to schedule us" crap. Unless it's an NCAA tournament game, they can and will refuse to schedule us. There are other NCAA hockey powers besides us that don't have "offensive" nicknames. Once the Big Ten Hockey Conference happens (and it will now that Penn State is adding hockey), PC schools like Minnesota and Wisconsin will simply schedule other hockey powers and tell us to pound sand you-know-where. I love the hockey match-up with the Gophers and I would like to maintain it even if it's non-conference. And I wouldn't put it past the dictators at the NCAA to "encourage" schools not to schedule us. I love the name and logo, but is it worth all this? At what point does the perfect become the enemy of the good? 3) Does having one big revenue sport mean all the others don't matter? I say absolutely not. Every successful athletic program has one big revenue sport so they can fund everything else. NDSU has football. Duke has basketball. And both of those schools have other successful programs because they have the money to fund them. NDSU has had success in basketball. Duke has had success in lacrosse. Even the University of Florida has had great success in both football and basketball. That, I think, is the ultimate goal of an athletic department, especially since we are now Division I in everything. We should shoot for a wildly successful athletic department in as many sports as possible. That means hockey programs (men and women) that annually contend for national titles, a football team that annually contends for national titles and basketball programs (men and women) that regularly contend for Big Sky titles and NCAA tournament appearances and even pull off some March Madness upsets of their own. That will be the measure of a successful athletic department, not having one main sport and throwing all the others under the bus over a legal dispute with the NCAA. 4) If the ND Legislature really cared about this issue, where were they during the 2007 and 2009 legislative sessions? This is the same, tired old political grandstanding I have come to expect from this backwater, bushleague institution. They could have been proactive about this and made a real difference. Instead, they wait until there is a bad legal settlement in place (I did not like the settlement any more than anybody else) that makes it very difficult to get the NCAA off of our backs and put forth legislation that very well may be unconstitutional under the North Dakota Century Code. To those that would say the legislature can just delete Higher Ed funding if the SBoHE doesn't do as they are told like good little boys, I would ask you this: The ND Supreme Court ruled that the SBoHE has the constitutional authority to require UND to change the nickname and logo. Will the holier-than-thou, self-righteous Legislature cut their funding too? I don't think so, because they can and will respect the rule of law. As will the Attorney General, who has sworn an oath to the Constitution, not the legislative leadership. The Legislature will lose this in the courts, have egg on their faces and make the entire state look bad in the process. And while they do all that, UND will suffer. Again, at what point does the perfect become the enemy of the good? I have been a Fighting Sioux fan since I was 6 years old. I have went to hockey games for just as long. I think the legal settlement was pure capitulation. But I also am a pragmatist and a realist and I don't want UND to suffer irreversable damage in this fight if the ultimate outcome will be the same or worse. If someone can present a clear and rational legal path to victory against the NCAA cartel, then I might change my mind. But until then, I cannot sanction going down in a blaze of glory just to prove a point. Flame away all you want, but that's my story and I am sticking to it.

Or a 9-1 record over their last 10 (2-1 first round, 3-0 Final Five, 4-0 NCAA). But I won't be holding my breath.

I think he is saying that if you have the #1 seed in the tournament, that means you won the MacNaughton Cup and that means you get to hang a banner. Of course, other schools (including a certain school in Minneapolis) hang banners for runner-up finishes and AAU titles from the 1930's. But we hang banners for WCHA and NCAA titles only, along with one banner that has all of our WCHA tournament titles and another one that has all of our Frozen Four appearances on it. I think we'll be hanging one green banner in a few weeks and possibly another white banner come April!

The Rodents are not that good and it's very hard to win both the MacNaughton and the Broadmoor, so that is what I based it on. Omaha is sneaking under people's radar and they shouldn't. Blais will get the most out of them, especially in the playoffs. As long as we don't choke in the NCAA's again, I will be happy.

Not this year. Tech is absolutely putrid. I think that upset win over Denver on the road was their last win (and last league points) until October sometime. The boys will be on a mission this time; no upset losses, no underachieving, no playing down to lesser teams. If we were playing Anchorage or even St. Cloud, I would be a little bit concerned. But not MTU.

Here is my predicted order of finish: 1. North Dakota 2. Denver 3. UM-Duluth 4. Nebraska-Omaha 5. Minnesota 6. Wisconsin 7. Colorado College 8. Alaska-Anchorage 9. St. Cloud State 10. MSU-Mankato 11. Bemidji State 12. Michigan Tech First Round Match-Ups: #12 Michigan Tech at #1 North Dakota: UND wins 2-0. #11 Bemidji State at #2 Denver: Denver wins 2-0. #10 MSU-Mankato at #3 UM-Duluth: Duluth wins 2-0. #9 St. Cloud State at #4 Neb-Omaha: Omaha wins 2-1. #8 Alaska-Anchorage at #5 Minnesota: Minnesota wins 2-1. #7 Colorado College at #6 Wisconsin: CC wins 2-1 (Upset Special!). WCHA Final Five: Thursday, March 17th: Quarterfinals #3 UM-Duluth over #6 Colorado College #4 Neb-Omaha over #5 Minnesota (So long, Rodents!) Friday, March 18th: Semifinals #4 Neb-Omaha over #1 North Dakota (prove me wrong boys!) #2 Denver over #3 UM-Duluth Saturday, March 19th: Championship #4 Neb-Omaha over #2 Denver (Blaiser is back, watch out for Omaha in the NCAA tourament!). Thoughts?

Yes, very true.

This would clinch at least a share of the Cup with Denver (I think Duluth and Omaha would be out of the running). But I don't want to have the Cup presented to us before we've cliniched it outright; it will encourage the boys to take the foot off of the gas pedal and I don't want that. In 1997, we clinched a share of the title with back-to-back shutout wins at home vs. Anchorage and McLeod presented the Cup to us on Saturday night. We then proceeded to get swept at Denver and had to share the Cup with the dirty Rodents. I think the odds of getting swept at Tech are very slim, but I've seen stranger things happen. Let's get it done first and celebrate second.

Looking at the final two weekends, if we sweep Bemidji at home and Tech on the road, we win the league no matter what anybody else does. Just get it done boys and we'll be celebrating with the Cup at home on Saturday, March 12th after sweeping our first round series against Michigan Tech. Then it's on to St. Paul to defend our Broadmoor Trophy and then onto the NCAAs to reclaim what we haven't had for 11 years. I love this time of year! GO SIOUX!!!

To go back even further and put even more detail into this, in October 1996, the Rodents swept our Fighting Sioux in Minneapolis. The first game was a 3-2 final, the second game was a 10-6 blowout. On Saturday night (which was the same night of the now-defunct Sioux-Bison football tilt in the Fargodome), the Gophers held a 10-2 lead going into the third. The Sioux outscored the Gophers 4-0 in that period. At the time, it didn't look like much of anything, but it ended up giving us the #1 seed in the WCHA tournament. That helped us beat the Gophers in OT in the title game in the old St. Paul Civic Center and helped us get one of those first round byes in the West Regional, which helped us get to Milwaukee and the Frozen Four, where we won our 6th NCAA title. It's amazing how small, unforgotten details can have huge, unforseen impacts later on.

"I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before with the goalie in the net". Proof that these Denver suck ups ignore the rest of the league; they must have been hibernating in 2007.

Good points Jim, thanks. I guess I am just really concerned about our programs and their continued future success. All this legalistic PC crap is giving me perpetual heartburn.

I don't see the NCAA sticking with that "neutral site" rule; they will find it almost impossible to draw enough fans to make any money on the regionals and we all know that is one of the top two priorities for them; the other being political correctness. Division I basketball is at big regional sites, so that is definitely out the window. I can't answer the football question, that is something the athletic department would have to tell you. All I really want is for our hockey programs to have every edge they can get; winning in the playoffs is hard enough as it is without any extra hurdles. As long as REA and UND work together for what is best for our programs, I won't have any problem with either of them.

I looked up the cute little phrase you put at the end of your message ("Such is life") and this outcome is completely and totally unacceptable for our hockey programs (men and women). The hockey-only crowd is a funny group: on one hand, all they care about is hockey and that's it. But on the other hand, they genuflect to the all-powerful and all-important suits at REA management on anything and everything. Even on an outcome such as this that would permanently harm our hockey programs forever. That's consistency for you. The whole, entire purpose of Ralph Engelstad using a large chunk of his fortune to build a $104 million hockey palace was to benefit the hockey program, the UND campus as a whole and the City of Grand Forks. If the suits that currently run REA decide that flexing their muscles as a "private organization" is more important than giving our teams every chance in the world to host regionals and national tournament games, then they are part of the problem and are not fulfilling the original mission of the arena. I know it's almost a sin on this forum to criticize REA for anything, but I don't really care. Not giving our teams a home ice advantage whenever possible tells all of us what is really important to them and it's not UND athletics. Period. Flame away all you want. Not hosting these events will also hurt REA's bottom line (I believe the 2006 West Regional sold out all three games). And there is something REA should keep in mind as this process moves forward at a glacial pace; they need UND as much as UND needs them. Sioux hockey is the unquestioned main tenant of the arena. What would they do without our teams; bring in a Major Junior franchise from Canada? That would never work in a college hockey town like Grand Forks; I wouldn't give the time of day to something like that and most of our fans wouldn't either. I think the solution is for UND and REA to sit down like the adults that they are and work out an agreement that is fair to both sides and that is good for UND athletics without being burdensome to REA's financial situation. But I suppose in this world, that might be asking too much.

I guess I don't care how ugly it is (two 1-0 wins will work just fine), but we need the 4 points. Even if we don't win the league, we have to finish in the top two to earn a bye into the semifinals at the Final Five and avoid having to win three games in three days in St. Paul (we all saw how well that worked for us last year). There are three teams vying for two spots and every point will be crucial.

I hear you, but I think this might be somewhat of an advantage. Purpur Arena is a more intimate setting for a game and if we can get a couple of thousand people in there, it will be loud and disruptive for our opponents. The problem with REA right now is that women's attendance is still very small and it's hard to get any atmosphere for the games. As for the future, it sounds like the NDHSAA is working on giving the State High School Hockey Tournament to Imperial Cass (Fargo) and the "impressive" Scheels (formerly Urban Plains Center) Arena, so that might not be a problem in a couple of years. But we'll leave that to the future. GO SIOUX!