fightingsioux4life

Omaha to the 1 yard line. First and Goal Mavs! I think this will be a high-scoring game.

Omaha big run inside UND's 20 yard line!!! Time to buckle down and get tough.

Big third down coming up for the defense. Opps, offside penalty on Sioux. 2nd and short coming up.

Omaha to start at own 24 yard line. Let's go defense!!!

PAT Good. UND 7 Omaha 0 Time for the defense to get to work!!!

TOUCHDOWN NORTH DAKOTA!!!! BLAIR GROVER!!!!

Big third down catch by Dressler inside the 5 yard line. First and Goal North Dakota!!!

Big third down and short coming up. We need six here.

Chappell runs for six yards!!!

Dressler to the 14 yard line, 9 yard pickup. First Down North Dakota!!!

2nd and 5 from the 23 yard line. Problem with 25 second clock.

Dressler takes the opening kickoff inside the Omaha 30 yard line!!!!

Gee Sioux-cia, tell us how you really feel! Sioux win coin toss and will receive.

Kickoff is almost here!!!

It's time to get this monkey off of our back. GO SIOUX!!! GO COYOTES!!! (so we can have another home game)

DLW4GOPHERS, Your post is one of the best examples I have ever seen of the arrogance and cockiness that is Minnesota Golden Rodent Hockey. In a nutshell, you have incapsulated why we will never stop going on and on about an Atlantic Hockey program beating the mighty and unstoppable "Golden Ones". Now, to address your "points": 1) You need to get over the fact that YOUR biggest rival (it doesn't go both ways, Wisconsin is ours) lost to HC last year. BullCRAP it "doesn't go both ways". If UND is "just another team" to the Gophers, why is it next to impossible to get tickets for a Sioux-Gopher weekend in Mariucci? I pretty much have given up and resigned myself to watching FSN North (with the sound muted, of course). How come Rodent fans spend more time bashing UND on message boards like this and USCHO than any other school? How come I get smart remarks and cold stares at the Final Five every year from Maroon and Gold garbage wearing fans? I think the name and logo on the front of the jersey has something to do with it. And the jersey I wear doesn't have "Wisconsin" written across it. 2) If you don't have a ND moment that is better to talk about then what does not say much about your program. Our program has more NCAA and WCHA championships than yours. Nuff said. 3) The only thing I can come up with is ND beats the Gophers so seldom at the REA, that you have to take joy in someone else beating them. In 2001-02, you took advantage of a young, struggling team with bad goaltending and swept. In 2005-06, you took advantage of a young team that didn't have it's legs underneath it yet and also swept. But when we have our stuff together (2003-04), the Rodents still struggle at the new REA, but not quite as much as the old REA. One of the best things to happen to the Rodents was the old REA closing. 4) See some of you at Mariucci in January, it should be a fun time. The way my team looks right now, I don't think I will be having much fun. But that could change. These games are always dog fights, no matter what the records of the two teams are.

Please, don't go into "Tim and Swyg" mode here. The Men's program slowly and gradually deteriorated under Rich Glas's "leadership". Glas couldn't get any good talent to come here and the more we lost, the harder it got to get good talent and the problem snowballed. Glas had his good years and ran a clean program, but it was time for a change. Brian Jones has his work cut out for him cleaning this mess up. This team will have trouble getting into double-digits in victories the next two years. After that, look for our D-I status to help recruiting and the players will understand the new systems Jones is now putting in. Until then, look for things to get worse before they get better.

Once member institutions start to become threatened by the NCAA Politburo, they will begin to respond. I agree with you; they should speak up now and not later. But large, bureaucratic institutions like colleges and universities often move slow even on important matters such as this. They almost always think short-term first and long-term later. And in the short-term, this blatant power-grab does not impact them at all. But I would bet that they are watching these events in their offices and probably are very concerned about them. My guess is that the Politburo will start getting more and more media attention the further they push this long-range plan of theirs. I predict that Secretary-General Myles Brand will never see his dream of absolute power and "social change" come to pass because he will either a) get fired or b) tick off too many member schools or c) both. I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree on this issue. I guess I am a little more optimistic about defeating any member votes on this or any other micromanaging policy from the NCAA Politburo. GO SIOUX!!!

I have bolded the main reason they haven't commented on this: It doesn't affect them, so they are silent on it. The safe thing for them right now is to wait and see how this thing plays out. And these schools are probably afraid of retaliation from the NCAA for speaking out against this policy. But if we had a membership vote on it, the matter would be debated and then voted on. And I think that the more each member thought about it, the more frightening it would become to them. We would have a chance to lobby other schools to join our side on the premise that this legislation would set a dangerous precedent that the NCAA Politburo can dictate policy from the top-down and woe to any school that complains about it. So far, we haven't been given a chance to do this. That is the other main reason why they don't want to put it to a vote. The idea of having the Executive Committee impose the rule from the top-down is to set a precedent of NCAA dictatorial rule over the membership. So once they get what they want on this issue, they'll pull out the "Executive Fiat" doctrine for whatever other nonesense they might come up with (i.e., not enough female student enrollment on campus). Look at the court case they are presenting to the court. They are arguing that the Executive Committee can rule by fiat on "core issues" of the NCAA. What is to stop them from declaring all issues "core" issues? They are cherry-picking their own rules and regulations. If they can establish in a court of law that this is legitimate, no school will be safe from anything. The NCAA sanctions on schools in states with the Confederate battle flag is another example of what they really want out of all of this. And if they keep it up, they will make enough enemies in the membership to trigger a revolt. If UND wins this case (which I think they will), other schools will copycat this formula and the NCAA Politburo will have a legal mess on their hands of their own making. The NCAA has stepped over it's boundaries and now they will have to answer for it in court. And I am going to enjoy watching them go down in flames.

The reason that the NCAA Politburo hasn't put this to a vote is because they do not have and never will have the votes to pass something like this. A lot of people on here focus on the political and social leanings of college presidents. What people are not focusing on enough is the dislike most college presidents have of the NCAA micromanaging their institutions. There is no way that 2/3rds of the membership would vote yes on legislation that would give the NCAA Politburo almost unlimited authority to do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted. As The Sicatoka has pointed out in this and other internet forums, if they win this battle, what are they going to pull next? I could come up with a list, but I don't have the time or patience. The bottom line is, the NCAA would cease being "Democracy in Action" and would become a dictatorship where member votes are advisory and non-binding instead of the law and members speak against the Politburo at their own risk and peril. This is what Secretary-General Myles Brand wants. If our legal team has anything to say about it, he won't get it because the membership is not going to give it to him. That would be as much fun as a national championship in hockey!

We'll make mincemeat of Winona and then get even with Omaha on their home turf. Then it's on to Allendale, Michigan to redeem ourselves over what happened last year. GO SIOUX!!! STICK IT TO THE NCAA POLITBURO!!!

What I want to see is our team standing on the field in Florence, Alabama on December 16th with the NCAA championship trophy. And there's nothing they could do about it. Screw you, NCAA!!! We'll see you in Grand Forks next Saturday, whether you like it or not!!!

Okay, I was provoked! The "incentive" for Democrats to govern from the Center instead of the Far Left is that they will have a chance to keep power in 2008. The country is divided politically right now. Voters have lost faith in the Republican Party because of corruption (Foley, DeLay), rising national debt (especially foreign debt) and the outrageous situation in Iraq (Rummy is finally gone, it is about time). But they will be watching the Democratic House and Senate to see if the Dems can do a better job than the GOP did. THAT is the incentive that Pelosi and Reid have to get things done. And that means working with the Bush White House. Pelosi has already said that impeachment is off the table, and as Speaker of the House she can and will set the agenda. You can whine and cry about her being a "San Francisco liberal" all you want, but she's a tough, smart, hard-nosed political operative who isn't stupid enough to start that impeachment crap. And you can whine and cry about "Team North Dakota" being too liberal all you want, but they bring in a lot of research dollars for UND and NDSU and probably saved our air bases from being closed. If you look at the exit polls, Conrad got 40% of the Republican vote, 41% of the conservative vote, and 74% of the Independent vote. Too liberal? I don't think so. As for the lawsuit getting moved to Federal Court, I think the NCAA would have done it already if it was feasible. But the suit is very well written (from the layman's point of view, anyway) and I don't think there is much wiggle-room to get it moved to Federal Court. So you can quit whining about "Clinton judges", especially since the courts are full of Republican appointees from 18 of the past 26 years of Republican rule in the White House. I was never this much of a sore loser after 2002 and 2004. Too bad the Righties are after the butt-whipping they got on Tuesday. Now back to regularly-scheduled NCAA bashing!

What world are you living in? Most Americans (Right, Left or Center) are hard-working, decent people. They don't want a hand out, but a hand-up, from their elected officials. And they want a government that actually works. This all-Republican, our-values-are-sounder-than-yours, the-terrorists-will-win-if-you-don't-vote-for-us, outsourcing-is-the-american-way government that we've had for the last six years has been a disaster. Katrina. Iraq. The Taliban resurgence. Abramoff scandal. Foley scandal. The national deficit and debt. Take your pick. The Republican party got what was coming to it. And now they are going to have to lie in the bed they made for themselves. And I don't feel the least bit sorry for them. Again, what world are you living in? The conservative movement is based almost 100% on fear and speculation. Guns are not on the verge of being banned (despite what the NRA would tell you) and neither are Bibles (the Righties used this tactic in West Virginia to help secure Dubya's re-election a couple of years ago). Traditional marriage is not in danger of being destroyed and neither is Christmas. Nancy Pelosi will have to govern from the political center as Speaker of the House if she hopes to get anything done and keep power in 2008. This is something the righties forgot about, which is why they lost on Tuesday. As for Bush not vetoing any bills, that was when the House and Senate were rubber-stamps for his agenda. Now that Democrats control both houses, you will see more and more vetoes (his only veto up until now was the stem-cell research bill). This is a forum for Sioux sports, so I will not comment further on politics and government. I guess both of us are going to have to agree to disagree on this and get back to discussing our mutual distaste for the NCAA Politburo and Secretary-General Myles Brand. And our mutual love for all things Fighting Sioux.

This makes the game on Saturday even more important than it already is. If we beat South Dakota, we will in all likelihood lock up a top 2 seed in the Northwest Region and secure a first-round bye. That means that the home sites for any games we are involved in wouldn't be awarded until November 19th, more than a week away. That should give the court plenty of time to rule on the injunction request. So, I say this with more urgency than ever....GO SIOUX!!!