GFG

Thomas Vanek and Erik Haula

I would love to post it, but I wouldn't feel right putting it out on the internet when he's still playing. I'll just say it's some very bad internal issues if it's true.

I would completely believe it. One of Micheal Brodzinski's high school friends here in GF told my friend and I some very bad stuff about the current state inside the program that Micheal told him. I'm not going to say anything about it on internet message boards at this point because Brodzinski is still playing, but if it's true it just makes the B1G stuff much worse for the program because of the timing. I texted with a couple GPL people about it and even they said it wouldn't be that surprising if it's true.

The B1G didn't do any consulting, Brad Traviola or whatever admitted as much in that interview a few weeks ago. Coming from his non-hockey background he thought Minnesota fans would love to play games against Michigan State and Ohio State. Minnesota had no pull on whether or not they could go and did say they didn't want to do it, but in the end they just had no choice. Of the 6 schools they were the only one against a B1G hockey conference, forcing them into it. It was that or leave the B1G for all sports to remain in the WCHA for hockey, which obviously wouldn't happen. Pretty sure dodgeball on ESPN 8 'The Ocho' gets better ratings than that

This Star Tribune article could lead to some fun discussion Big Ten Hockey is a buzzkill for fans in Minnesota

They've always offered SRO for every game to my knowledge. There's no way UND wouldn't be #1 on that list if they released the same amount of tickets, though. They're not changing the ice size next year. It got moved back so they could do some other upgrades first. Locker room and such. I wish they would've done the ice first.

If you want to know just how bad the paid ticket no shows are at Mariucci, get this...Minnesota sold 10,499 tickets for the game tonight. 2nd all-time in the arenas history and there was still some noticeably open seats. It definitely didn't look bad attendance wise, but they sold much more tickets than available seats. Edit: Even more surprising is that UND isn't in the top 3...I find it hard to believe. #1 is Wisconsin in 2004 with 10,587 and #3 is Michigan in 2014 with 10,495. I actually can't believe UND isn't in there...only explanation is that they didn't release as many tickets for the UND games.

Interesting perspective. I'd love to see UND in the MAC, but I'm not sure they'd be really interested in the ND schools. I feel like there are too many other regional FCS teams they would fill in with first. MAC may be okay with NDSU, but I don't think they would take both schools. I don't think either of them would end up in CUSA.

I'm interested to see what happens when it's finally announced that Cincy and UCONN are joining the Big XII. Wondering if the AAC will look at bringing in a couple of current FCS schools or what.

Are you surprised? I'm surprised it's about half full for a Thursday game. The game, like many others, was very close to sold out. It's just unused tickets. The university finally wised up this week and decided to sell 1100 standing room tickets for $10 for these games for fans to attend and use the seats of people who don't show up. Problem is they waited to long to do it. Not sure how many they ended up selling (last I saw on GPL was 550 for tonight), but it was a good idea to finally try and do something to get people in some seats of all the unused tickets. They dropped single game reserved seat prices for this weekend and Wisconsin by about $20, too. There's very few to buy and most of them are single seats, but it's still nice to see them finally make an attempt to battle the unused tickets

This is an interesting idea to me...it actually does make some sense in theory. More options for guarantee games will certainly create lower prices to secure games because there will be more demand among the smaller schools to get that money. At the same time it gives a lot of the current FCS schools to move up and get those games that can help their athletic department revenue. UND would be able to play Minnesota and get about $1million to do so. I can definitely see the line of thinking, but I personally don't think it'll happen.

I agree. It's very well done, IMO. I think it would actually be an awesome logo for UND. Kind of modern, aggressive and definitely different enough from other bird logos to be considered unique.

Tough conspiracy theory to pull off. Even if Minnesota wins out in the regular season and wins a game in the B1G tournament they could still very well miss an at-large berth. Even with the perfect scenario I don't think Minnesota can finish higher than 12th. If they don't lose again until the B1G championship game I think they'll end up around 13-14, putting them right on the bubble.

Minnesota is one of the higher revenue producing athletic departments in the country. They were #15 in the country with $106,176,156 in total revenue with only 6.6% subsidy. This list has everyone. Seems more than half of the P5 schools are under 10%, most of the rest around 15-18% and very few over 20%. Smaller schools are definitely much, much higher. NDSU is 38.6% and UND is 56.09%. B1G schools will probably be super low when they get their new TV contract next year. http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

Barry Alvarez it is!

Can we blame Terry Pegula, too?

I didn't even make that comparison... I asked if anyone knew what was going on with him. Nobody knew so I looked around online because I was curious. He's also had an extra year of professional experience than Rau, too. Him and Rau are both doing good in the AHL. Rau is 2nd on the team in points and scoring more goals while Grimaldi is 3rd in points and getting more assists.

Happy Gilmore came out just before he started his college career. Maybe he wanted to be the 2nd person to try and stab an opponent with a skate

I suppose Rocco's size probably affects him more because he's not at all a physical player. It makes it difficult to play him as a 3rd or 4th line Forward when he struggles defensively and can't be physical. He basically needs to be a top 6 forward, whereas Rau's skill set allows him to play as a 3rd or 4th liner despite his size. I really do think Grimaldi is going to be a regular for the Panthers eventually. His offensive skills are too good for him not to be.

They didn't say his size was holding him back at all if you actually read it. The talent analysis they quoted has zero negative things to say about him and actually says he plays a tough, physical game despite his small frame. The blog writer, without ever seeing him play, is the one who said he may be able to benefit his rookie season by playing in the AHL to get used to the physicality more. The NHL is moving away from the super physical play style of its past, allowing smaller players to excel more than they ever could before. Of course this doesn't matter if the smaller player is weak or can't handle basic physical play (Looking at you Mikael Granlund ).

He should just blame anything and everything on Barry Alvarez.

I saw an article from the Panthers SBNation site last night touching on their prospects a bit. Their only knock on Rau is his size at this point. Their coach had some good things to say about him after his debut, including that he loved how Rau goes to the net despite his size. The writers there seem to think Grimaldi needed to work on his defensive game but that they're still very excited for him. http://www.litterboxcats.com/2016/1/5/10704448/florida-panthers-prospect-round-up-nhl-2016 Edit: Rau actually looked good in the highlights of his debut game. I never really knew how he would perform in the NHL, to be honest. But he made some good plays, was noticeable and screened the goalie for the 2nd goal. Looks like Smith actually asked Rau if he tipped it after it went in . https://www.nhl.com/panthers/video/panthers-top-jets-3-1/t-277437408/c-41651603

Rau just made his NHL debut, so I would hope Grimaldi has more points than he does. They obviously have more hope for Rau at this moment than they do for Grimaldi if they brought him up instead. I know Grimaldi started the year in the NHL but they moved him down because of his lack of production. I was hoping somebody might have some insight as to whether it was a strength issue, talent issue, experience issue or whatever. I really thought he would be cracking the Panthers lineup nightly by now.

Height isn't quite as much of a factor as it used to be considering the NHL is moving away from the huge hits and fighting. Maybe he just needs to get stronger?

At least he was honest a few weeks ago and said they deserved to be in the spot they were in for performing so badly in non-conference play