GFG

Minnesota has UofM football, UofM basketball, professional football, baseball, and basketball. Heck, even the professional soccer team in Minnesota is close to having higher attendance than Gophers hockey and most people don't even know Minnesota has a professional soccer team. It's highly possible for Ohio State to increase their attendance, especially with a school as big as Ohio State is

In his defense, if he had said for personal reasons you would be saying that it's because: a) The program is in shambles b) That Lucia's not developing players so St. Louis wanted him to leave c) Because Lucia sucks d) Fill in more because I can't think of what else you guys would say

I feel like with more familiar opponents their attendance will rise, but obviously not a lot. There were 26,000 in attendance for their outdoor game with Michigan in Cleveland 2 years ago. That's when they were ranked #2 in the country. Like most schools, if they can start winning attendance will start to take care of itself. At home against Michigan last season they had 6700 on Friday night and closed in on 10,000 on Saturday night. Familiar opponents should start drawing in some more casual fans for a school like Ohio State. But it's going to take some time, obviously.

If you go by merchandise sales, then yes they're both very large brand names. Minnesota is always between 30-40 in merchandise sales in the nation. Ohio State isn't exactly known because they're one of only 4 schools (Michigan State, USC and Oregon are the others) that don't use the Collegiate Licensing Company. But I've seen in quite a few places that they're easily #2 after Texas, who is still #1 by a long shot. This is not a shot at UND, so please don't take it that way, but in the past 5 years UND hasn't been in the top 75 merchandise schools once, and even the University of Texas-San Marcos has made the list (Who is that? ), indicating that they have a small, but very loyal fan base. Not a shot at UND, the point I was trying to make is that Ohio State isn't really an awful choice to play this game (especially on the Big Ten Network, which is in the Big Ten footprint) when they're the third largest school in the nation with a very large fan base, albeit most of that is obviously football and basketball fans. They have A LOT of alumni, and there is a good chance to draw in a lot of Ohio State fans, who normally aren't big hockey fans, just to watch their school in an outdoor game. Hockey wise, obviously it's an awful choice, but TV dollar wise it could be a good thing. Could it get lower ratings than a Minnesota/UND game? Of course it can, and probably will. But it does have the potential to get much higher ratings than a Minnesota-UND game as well. I don't believe any of that, though. I believe they're picked for the game because that's who was on the conference schedule when they wanted to schedule Hockey Day Minnesota. I'm sure it wouldn't have mattered if it were Penn State/Michigan State/Michigan or Wisconsin in town that weekend. Whatever team was on the schedule is the team who was going to play in it, is what I believe.

In all honesty, if soccer hasn't passed hockey yet, it's gotta be DAMN close to passing it. Especially the US National Team. For cripes sakes, the Seattle Sounders sell out the Seahawks stadium.

Don't forget, though, that footprint is about to expand and take over New York/Maryland/New Jersey and possibly more of those eastern states next year.

They've been making BC's stuff for at least a few years now:

I was too. It's not really said in Mariucci, so I'd assume drunk people were doing it to try drown out the SIOUX at the end? I agree that Chelsea Dagger has to go. It's a direct rip off of the Blackhawks. Anyone with a brain knows that. How goes it Mafia? Been working 70 hour weeks and was in San Antonio so I haven't been on here in awhile. I'm sure you missed me

Dave Shyiak accused of hitting a player with a stick http://deadspin.com/...th-ho-506224461 Edit: Better story on it just released by the AP: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268753/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=iTQr2ZHp

UND and Minnesota should just take turns hosting at the X every year. That way it's guaranteed there's a close regional. I'm also up for UND hosting at Scheels Arena because 5,000 people would still be able to compete for most attended regional. What would be really funny to watch, is UND hosting the West Regional in Fargo with Minnesota hosting the Midwest Regional in Minneapolis. The east coasters would blow up

Ausmus commits to UND. Surprising move considering he wanted to get out of here before. Should be a solid pick up for UND.

Here's a list of the top revenue producing athletic departments of 2012. Minnesota is much higher than I thought they would be, all the way at #23. One that I found surprising, with all the hype surrounding NDSU's football fan base and such, is that UND's athletic department (#116) made about $2.5 million more than NDSU's (#127) did. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/schools/finances/

Take those rankings with a grain of salt. I believe someone on GPL said these surveys are more than likely done by students, which means students will give bad ratings to the teachers if they don't get a good grade or just flat out don't like the teacher, even if they are good.

I agree with this. At Minnesota it will probably go into the general athletic fund since their profit margin for hockey is so much higher than any other DI program, but the other schools will more than likely put a lot of it towards the hockey program because that money will make the program self-sustaining and actually give them a profit, allowing them to spend more money on recruiting, upgrades, etc. I know OSU and MSU hockey were money losers according to the numbers Jupiter has posted before, so this could be a game changer for them.

How can they? All the Big Ten schools have football and basketball teams, which is why the money is split with all the schools. The reason only half the schools get extra money is because they're the only schools that have hockey teams. In reality it wouldn't be fair if the 6 schools that have hockey teams had to split the extra money they bring in to the BTN with the schools that don't have teams.

Really good point. Although I assume much of that is attributed to Eaves style of play. It actually seems like its been getting worse to watch the past couple years.

@LetsPlay_Hockey Big Ten hockey schools will get $2 million per year from the Big Ten Network, in addition to the allotment that all B1G schools receive. Interesting tweet. If true, it's a pretty solid incentive for more Big Ten schools to add teams. $2 million per year is more than almost any DI program makes for profit in one season.

They usually let people go if it's a big party. But if it's a small party they almost never let anyone off

There's nothing else for police to do in Grand Forks. Grand Forks and UND have really been trying to get rid of that badge that they're known so well for underage binge drinking and such as well, so it's one of the focuses here. In bigger cities there's much, much more important things for police to worry about than underage drinking. More important things for the media there. Gopher hockey isn't even one of the top 5 big sports in the TC, so media doesn't care that much about that kind of stuff with them. They'd much rather be writing things about the Vikings, Twins, Wild, Gopher football, etc.

You'd be surprised at the large amount of minors that are actually given at UND. I'd say about 150 of my personal friends got them (In fact, this party at UND was my friends: http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/3515/). I never got one because I wasn't stupid.

Grand Forks couldn't come close to supporting an AHL team and UND. Will never happen.

Posted this in the Jump to FBS thread too. Probably more suited for this thread. Really good read Will power conferences break away from NCAA? In a way they have http://www.cbssports.com/columns/story/22116771/will-power-conferences-break-away-from-ncaa-in-a-way-they-have

Very good article. Read up. http://www.cbssports.com/columns/story/22116771/will-power-conferences-break-away-from-ncaa-in-a-way-they-have

Could it be possible that the America East (new Big East) gets sent down? It's basically all teams from C-USA now. Could also be that a couple of the top schools taken from those smaller FBS conferences are brought into the bigger conferences with the rest of the teams being sent down. Something will get figured out, it's probably being worked on behind the scenes right now. The only for sure is that the SEC, B1G, P12, B12 will be in the top tier. My next bet would actually be the MWC being conference #5. Especially after retaining Boise State.

You're taking over every "last past" on the Men's Hockey forum. I need to do something about it