fightingsioux4life

If Rep. Al Carlson (NDSU-Fargo) contributes to the nickname law being upheld, I will hold him 100% responsible for the total and complete destruction of UND athletics forever and ever. It will be like SMU football's death penalty in the 1980's, except it will affect every sport at the same time. No conference home (sorry star2city, but I don't think the BSC is bluffing), a long list of schools that won't play us, ect. Life as a Division I Independent with a long list of school that won't play us will leave the athletic department swimming in an ocean of red ink. You won't be able to sell enough beer at REA to cover that tab. Even if you care about Men's Hockey and nothing else, you must recognize that this scenario will drag down that program along with all the others. And dumping all our other sports except hockey isn't an option under NCAA rules. If this law isn't repealed and the name not retired, we might as well not have an athletic department at all. And that would harm UND as an institution for years and years. If you care about UND, you'll e-mail everyone in the State Legislature (especially Clueless Al) and tell them that they can do the right think and repeal the name or watch as we contribute to their political opponents in the next election. The stakes in this are very high. We had better make the right choices or we'll be talking about the good old days of UND athletics in the past tense. Forever.

This is why so many people in the United States and around the world love it when Canada loses in hockey; whether in international competition or when one of their 6 (soon to be 7) NHL teams fails. They are sore winners (this is OUR game and no one else should be allowed success in it) and losers (what we saw last night). I for one was not surprised at what happened and I am very happy that the Cup will remain in the United States for another 12 months.

One wonders if this is the first step in purging people from the office so they can be replaced by fair haired boys and girls who will be "Yes Men" and Yes Women" for Ms. Ressor. Once top administrators start thinking that the whole world revolves around their egotistical heads and they make important decisions based on that delusional world viewpoint, morale and other problems will soon follow. And it doesn't help that President Kelley wants to keep his fingernails clean at all times instead of nipping problems in the bud, which is a big part of his job. This is a situation that bears watching.

Sorry, I don't think it was a silly statement at all. I am a Fighting Sioux Coaches Club member and a season ticket holder to both hockey and football and I think I should be able to express my opinion on how these programs are run. That is all I was doing. What I was really ticked off about is the notion that if fans buy tickets to watch us play (and hopefully beat) lower-level D-II teams, that will somehow encourage Faison to shell out more cash to get some FCS teams to travel to Grand Forks. I just don't see it working; the fans are not that stupid. I also don't see recruits being impressed with it, either. The biggest problem is the neglect and lack of marketing for football over the years that will take some serious time and money to fix. And that will include raising the bar for this program across the board, including scheduling. If we schedule good, solid FCS programs (both home and away), we will attract the best recruits and become an annual playoff contender. That will in turn draw more fans and make football something people look forward to all summer. This is how we should build the program at the FCS level. And there is no way to build it on the cheap with a bargain basement schedule. I think if we are successful in the Big Sky, we will put ourselves in position to accomplish these goals.

If this is going to be all about economics and balancing the budget, let's just switch to an all NAIA home schedule. Bring on Mayville State, Dickinson State, Jamestown College, ect. Then we can keep more of the gate to ourselves and balance the budget, because that is all that really matters, right? This nonsense has to stop and it has to stop now. The idea that the fans have to swallow whatever lousy schedule the AD dishes up so that he'll fork over more cash to get better teams is so stupid I don't know where to start. What makes all of you apologists for the Athletic Department think selling out the Alerus Center for D-II schools is going to encourage the scheduling of better teams? They'll probably just take advantage of the situation and keep scheduling the same lower level teams because they will have no incentive to change their behavior. In a market economy, the consumers are king and this is no exception. The onus is on the Athletic Department to put a more attractive home schedule in place to attract more fans and interest, NOT on the fans to swallow whatever is dished out to them. I am a season ticket holder and will continue to support the team at every home game, but to continue hosting lower level D-II programs AFTER we have joined the Big Sky Conference will dampen my enthusiasm for the future of the program at the FCS level. Bottom line: If we can't afford to run this program like an FCS program, we should have stayed in D-II. Or we can switch to non-scholarship FCS and really run this on the cheap. After all, that is all that matters, right?

You must have read the Heraldo today and saw Schlossman's piece about Denver's "hot goalie" and how unbeatable he is and suggested we might lose because of that. Schlossman also went back six years to the 2005 NCAA title game to back up his "point". He is already writing the script for his Monday column if we don't win today. Never mind that the WCHA goaltending champion wears kelly green and white. Just when I start to think I should change my sig on here, I get further evidence that it's needed. WMU's goalie stopped 35 out of 38 shots, which proves that every team left has solid goaltending. I don't care if Patrick Roy is in net for Denver, I say if we keep out of the box and roll four lines for 60 minutes, we will win with our superior depth and experienced leadership. I don't think Denver will have a chance to play their tough, physical puck possession game like they did for most of regulation time last Saturday. Prediction: UND 5, Denver 2 (with a late ENG by Hobey Frattin!). LET's GO SIOUX!!!

So you're still living and reliving the 2002 and 2003 teams, huh? If that makes you feel better, then go right on ahead. Pull on one of your back-to-back sweaters (if it hasn't shrunk from being worn so much), put in the VHS tapes of one (or both) of those title games, sit back in your recliner and go back in time. But it doesn't change the fact that your program is sinking in the abyss of mediocrity and perpetual failure. You should hope that the administration does something about it soon.

And if the ND Supreme Court rules against the backwater/bushleague ND Legislature in this case (which is where I think it will ultimately end up), will they defund that part of government too? Or how about the ND Attorney General's office? Just a simple question. The ND Legislature is full of self-important blowhards who think everybody in the state should genuflect to them on everything and kiss their collective butts on command. If they really cared about keeping the name and logo, they would have taken this up in 2007 before there was a legal settlement with the NCAA. This is nothing more than populist political posturing and does more harm than good. I don't trust Al Carlson's motives on this and neither should anybody else. I really hope this gives us a second chance to save the name, but I have a feeling this will do way more harm than good.

I hear you, but I think it is fair to point out that the 2000 NCAA title team went to 3 games vs. Denver at home. Having said that, this year's MTU team is absolutely putrid and (in the words of Goon), anything less than a sweep is unacceptable!

Let people think we are not that good. We'll just keep winning games until the cows come home. We always get hosed in the league-end awards anyway. I think Lee Goren was a second-team WCHA pick his senior year (1999-2000). How did that season end for him?

This is one of my big problems with the criteria used to pick defensemen for awards like this. The same criteria used for forwards should NOT be used for defensemen. Defensemen should be judged on overall defensive play; offensive stats are a bonus, but shouldn't be considered all-important. Mac is the Human Bulldozer and should be a candidate for the first team; I don't care what the goals-assists-points line says.

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.