fightingsioux4life

This is my official call to lobby the FSSN to provide TV coverage for next week's 2nd round playoff game. It was on last year and I hope they can televise it this time as well. I know a lot of people are already waving the white flag because of our injuries today, but I still want to watch it on TV. What a great triple header it would be for FSSN: Hockey Friday and Saturday vs. Duluth and Football vs. GVSU. Time to flood WDAZ with calls and e-mails!

There is really no excuse to not get your butts to the Alerus Center to support our team. Hockey is off this week, so you can't use that one. And I don't want to hear that "It's Winona, who cares?". Our team is in the playoffs for the 5th straight year and 12th out of the last 16 years. And we'll have to wait until 2012 to see them in the playoffs again. It's outrageous that Coach Lennon has to beg and plead with people to come to a home playoff game! Let's give them the support they deserve.

According to the article I read on Saturday, Wilf "urged" the Vikings to reverse the decision that was made regarding Williamson. That suggests that the decision was made by either Childress or someone else in upper management and that Wilf didn't like it and told them to reverse themselves. Wilf obviously didn't like the negative press it was generating and stepped in to stop the bleeding. Wilf is trying to get a new stadium and negative press of any kind won't help him get it. In terms of public relations, the damage has been done. In terms of doing what is right, the Vikings finally got it right.

I agree with you, Williamson just hasn't worked out. But if you're Childress and you think it's time to move on and get someone else, there are much better ways to do it than docking him one game's salary because he wanted to go to his grandmother's funeral. If Williamson was working for Microsoft instead of the Vikings, I am willing to bet that he would have gotten the time he needed to take care of a family emergency. I always thought that Mike Tice was unprofessional in some of his dealings with players and hoped that Childress would be better in this area. Silly me. Bottom Line: This move was unprofessional, pure and simple.

Anything is better than what Rodentia offers. I have never heard the Gopher radio network, but some people have mentioned how insufferable they are. And I don't think I have to remind people about Mazzaco (sp?) and Woog. On balance, I think that Badger nation is a lot more classy and down-to-earth than Rodentia. That doesn't mean I don't like to beat them, though.

Please don't go there. If most of us in the white collar, cubicle-slave world of corporate America have access to employer-sponsored 401K plans, then why can't the NFL sponsor retirement plans for its players? And even though NFL players make much more money now than they used to, they have much shorter careers than most of us. Once your body breaks down, you are done. I don't blame players for getting as much as they can while they can get it, particularly given how successful the NFL is. After all, it's the players that people pay money to watch. I think this is just another example of how Brad Childress is out of touch and simply doesn't get it. If you make a "business decision" like this, then potential future free agents might make a "business decision" to play elsewhere. I hope that the Vikings reverse this because this will hurt them in the long run.

In honor of Dan "The Common Man" Cole of KFAN fame, I am proud to present "The Common Man WCHA Hockey Standings". These standings are different than the ones you will find in the Grand Forks Heraldo. Here is the current record of our University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux: Wins: 4 Losses: 0 Ties: 0 Ran into a hot goaltender: 3 Scoreless tie because arena in Boston didn't have air conditioning: 1 I thought we could all use a little sarcastic humor.

The schedule is very tough before Christmas: Boston College, Northeastern, Michigan Tech, Colorado College, Wisconsin, Denver, Minnesota, New Hampshire (ouch!). After Christmas, it gets a little easier with Anchorage, Minnesota State and Bemidji State on the schedule. My fear is that we will lose too many games in the first half to make a run at winning the league in the second half. Having a tough schedule only helps if you can win games.

I feel your pain, but it is too early in the season to give up. Look at the last three years for proof of that. I gave up on this team last December and look what happened. Yes, I am sick of hearing about "hot goaltenders" and "missing the net", but we can still split this series and I think we will come out smoking on Saturday.

I don't want to comment too much since I am not there and it is not televised, but why in the world does our team run into "hot goaltenders" on a regular (almost weekly) basis? No other team, either in college or professional hockey, ever has this much of a problem with "hot goaltenders". Michigan Tech was able to score goals last weekend in Madison, why can't we do it? I suspect that the Badgers are playing their usual "collapse in front of the net" style in which the initial shot is on goal but the rebounds are cleared away right away. Or we are shooting it right into the goaltender's chest again. Whatever it is, we had better figure out how to put the puck into the net or this is going to be a disappointing season.

Lennon has talked about a 12 game schedule for next season (6 at home and 6 on the road), but I don't think anything is set in stone. I think having UND and USD work together during the upcoming transition is a good idea and cooperative scheduling is one important area we can focus on.

Good points. You're right, it's early and you often learn more from failures than successes. And we did turn it on after Christmas last season, including at home. But I also believe that it is absolutely critical for this team to establish a solid record before Christmas so we can make a run for the MacNaughton Cup and put ourselves in position for the playoffs (Final Five and NCAA Tournament). And there are some good teams on our schedule before 2007 is over (Denver, Minnesota, New Hampshire), so we better bring our A game every weekend. Tonight was more like our C+ game.

Yes, but this was only our third home game so far (we've been on the road a lot to start this season). And this was our first series at home. I think that if Michigan State had the chance to play us the next night, they would have performed much better and we would have had to step up to the challenge in order to earn the sweep. Tonight, we didn't do that. I'm not panicking over one loss to a good team, but I just want us to establish home dominance like we had in the 1980's and 1990's. That is what championship teams do. And if this team is going to fulfill its potential this season, they are going to have to make REA their personal playground (like the old REA was for almost 30 years).

We had better get used to playing against good goaltending because every team in this league has at least one good goaltender (sometimes two). Even a team like Anchorage usually has a good netminder. We had chances in the first period, but we didn't generate much for the final 40 minutes, being in the box for half the second period will do that. And there were logo-killers, shots from bad angles and shots from the faceoff circles and outside, which usually are not going to go into the net at the D-I level. The Rodents really tested this kid a couple of weeks ago; I wish we would have at least done that tonight. I think everyone knew that the Tigers would come out and play much better tonight after being embarrassed at times last night. And after losing three straight, they were bound to be a little desperate for a win. I don't think we matched their intensity or their hustle and that is a no-no in this league. A split next week in the Kohl Center would be fine, splits at home are unacceptable. We have to get back to being dominant at home and taking ownership of REA. We also have to establish some game-to-game consistency in order to contend for the WCHA title. If we can establish those things in the first half of this season, we'll be fine for the second half and the stretch run to the playoffs.

Power Play coming up.

We cannot afford to split at home with the league being as tough as it is.

We are going to have to cut out the stupid penalties against a team that can make you pay for them.

Wait, I thought that was a certain football program in Fargo? Oh, never mind.

FINAL SCORE UND 31 UMD 14 Up next, St. Cloud at the Alerus Center.

Sioux pass to the 25 yard line of UMD. Ballgame!

1:00 left. Looks like a solid win for North Dakota.

Pass incomplete at 25 yard line. Sioux take over on downs.

QB draw to the 48 yard line. One yard short of first down. Dogs going for it again.

Schlafke screen pass to 42 yard line. 3 yard gain. 3rd down coming up.

Schlafke incomplete pass. 2nd down coming up.