GFG

There's been quite a few reports going around Twitter today that the Big Ten has extended an invite to North Carolina to join the conference. Still looking between Virginia and Georgia Tech for the next.

Right here. http://www.championshipsubdivision.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=34126 Wasn't even the highest viewed FCS tournament game Minnesota's crappy bowl had 4.5 million viewers.

That's why I left the 's' off after fan. Pretty sure they only have one

Someone did that on GPL and found it's EXTREMELY difficult for anyone to overtake them. I believe the most they could win is 2 of their last 6.

Is it wrong to hope my team falls to a 2 seed and gets sent to QU's bracket? I'd love to stomp them and troll their angry fan on twitter

It's TV, they'll accommodate the start time to fit in with the schedule. Same way Minnesota had a game start at 8 this year because of BTN.

I highly doubt CBSSN is going to sign a deal with another conference...for as many restrictions as they have on the NCHC teams I'm almost certain that they're locked into that conference only

That was a good year

"I’d just like Dartmouth in Manchester for more attendance." This made me LOL when I read it. The regional is being hosted by NH and BC is also there. Plus, Dartmouth doesn't have any fans anyways.

Minnesota splitting with Bemidji I'd cry. Bemidji is terrible this year. I can see Minnesota splitting the other 3 series. Duluth will probly be a sweep but I wouldn't be surprised to see them squeak out a win against Minnesota since it's going to be the biggest series of the year for them at that point. Wisconsin and DU are tough to call. Both of those teams have been playing well for the most part in the 2nd half of the year.

Any arena is equipped for HD. When people were saying REA didn't have the ability to do it they were full of crap. It all depends on whether or not the station broadcasting has an HD capable truck and equipment. FSN was broadcasting from REA in HD during that same time frame where "REA wasn't equipped for HD broadcasts."

It's far less likely that those bottom two will be able to pull off 2 wins than anyone else.

Not at all worried about the Gophers right now. Minnesota was far better than SCSU all weekend. Last night SCSU capitalized on about every single opportunity they had and Minnesota didn't on many of their chances, simple as that. It's a long season and games like that will happen. They got a 5 point lead on us but Minnesota has 2 games in hand on the entire conference, so it's possible they may only have a one point lead on Minnesota once we get those 2 games back. This is going to be a hell of a time in the final run for the mac! Like Wilbur said, getting in the top two or 3 this year is huge for the WCHA first round because after those bottom three the conference is usually an anybody can beat anybody on any given night type of thing. The Final Five could be pretty awesome this year. I'd love to see Min, UND, SCSU, Mankato and whomever else at the Final Five.

Smoggy does make an excellent point. Seems if you don't embellish at all a lot of legitimate penalties go uncalled because the player doesn't fall to the ice or whatever.

I never said it was more blatant than all of Wisco's dives, I just pointed out that Grimaldi did it to since its been completely ignored while talking about diving/embellishing. Don't get me wrong, what Wisconsin was doing doing this weekend as a team was absolutely ridiculous and pathetic. I didn't think Grimaldi's fall in real time looked right with how he went down but I gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was definitely held. The replay, however, showed VERY clearly that he embellished it. I am in no way saying UND does this a lot or did it more than Wisconsin (because obviously they didn't), but it did happen on Grimaldi's play. It's just something that every team does and like I said earlier, until they really crack down and start calling penalties every time they think there was embellishment or a dive it's just going to get worse.

Nothing will change in the near future unless officials call penalties. In private, coaches at this level aren't going to discourage their players from taking the occasional dive or make a slight embellishment. Why? Because it's rewarded far more often than it hurts your team and every small reward can help your team win a game, which is all that matters to the coaches. Publicly there's no doubt every coach will say they don't like it, but in reality they really won't say anything about it to players other than to be more discreet or something if they get caught. Wisconsin was extremely bad Friday night with their never ending diving/embellishing. Grimaldi had a pretty ridiculous embellishment in OT Friday too in which he was rewarded by drawing a holding penalty. Yes it should have been a hold on the Wisco defender, but Grimaldi also made Kyle Rau's embellishments look subtle with that one. Do you think Hakstol is going to bench Rocco for that? Hell no. Can't rely on coaches to bench the players. Only way to fix it is to start calling two minute minors for it every time you feel there was a dive or embellishment so that the risk outweighs the rewards of it.

This is true, but Grimaldi's in OT was one of the worst dives I've seen in quite some time. Although it did draw a penalty

Don't see why not.

It's so bad I considered sending the Big Ten an e-mail to ask them to force the schools to fold the hockey programs

The Michigan-Michigan State game is so awful I can't stop watching

This is one I could definitely agree with but it really doesn't change a whole lot from what it is right now

But at that point it would be worth it if you're up one goal in an important game to have a 4th liner hit the opponents star player from behind with 10 minutes left in the game. Sure your 4th liner is tossed, but there's only about 10 minutes left and the player that was checked from behind is gone too if he has to sit out for 10 minutes for mandatory concussion tests. Stupid things like this could happen. I feel if you check a guy from behind the penalty should be on you no matter what the case is.

Meh. Not sure how I feel about that one personally. I feel like if you're hit from behind you shouldn't be punished if you want to regroup and collect yourself for a minute. Even if it's not a serious injury.

They're trying now. Rau got called for embellishing last weekend on a play where he was legitimately held and thrown to the ice by a defender. Rau tries to embellish a lot and gets away with it, but that call was complete crap and was definitely due to his name. So the officials do know who tries to do it. I agree with what they were saying in the Wild game last night. If there's a hook or something and the player being hooked dives or embellishes it, give him the penalty and let the guy that was doing the hooking off. That'll get rid of diving pretty fast. As for "diving" on checking from behind, there's not much that can be done by officials. If a player is checked from behind into the boards you legitimately cannot say he dove unless it's so blatantly obvious that the he embellished it that Shepherd could even see it.