UND-RedSox fan

I'm not blaming SME. I'm blaming the university. They have been wiping their asses with money since the beginning of this process years ago.

That's not what I said. If they support it they support it. You don't have to hate the new logo. I'm sure there are athletes out there that like it. I don't. Neither does Gage. And I appreciate that he is being honest. To question Gage's intelligence and leadership because he doesn't like a logo and said as much is quite childish.

I appreciate honesty. I appreciate that if Gage hates the new logo that he didn't hold back. The criticism of someone having an opinion is why we never hear athletes saying anything of substance. I'd much rather hear someone be blunt about how they think an awful logo is awful than hear him spit out some company line or cliche. Athletes are people and they have opinions. If they can't say what they think and are forced to toe some company line (like it seems some of you want) then why should anyone care what they have to say. They would just be parrots and I don't care to hear parrots talk.

You missed the part where the university handed money to an out of state agency to give us the pearl of wisdom that when teams change their names they usually go with a color or a bird or a color and a bird. Then wasted more money on another out of state company to design the blandest logo possible. All of this while the state is in a budget deficit and students are getting their tuition jacked up.

There was nearly a fight between a couple of my drunk friends over this. One was celebrating the win after the goal to make it 4-1 and the other was still convinced we would some how screw it up, especially if he started celebrating too early.

And the Friday game was an extremely good game that we just happened to lose. Happens when you play a good opponent. Then Saturday can be attributed to Nick and Drake possibly not having there legs completely back after just returning from injuries and the difficulty of playing in the high altitude. That weekend didn't worry me at all. I was frustrated, as I am sure most were, with the Wisconsin game. That was just a fluke. The one game that really angered me during the season was the Friday against Omaha. I felt like we lost to a really bad team (and I was saying this at the time) and it was because we played bad. The only time all season where I was frustrated with the team. That's a pretty impressive season when only one game can stick out in your mind as being particularly bad.

Rough year for the Twins so far. The weird thing is they have not been playing all that much worse than they did last year when they were in the hunt until the end of the season. Luck just hasn't been with them like it was last year.

Well the game was fun this year. Here's hoping I can still end up on the podium.

Oshie had a hell of a playoffs. Sucks that Caps got knocked out. He probably would have been the leader for them for the Conn Smythe if they had kept going.

I've only followed the team closely since the 2010-2011 season (Pony Express senior year), so I have a very limited ability to judge. For me the list would consist of Knight, Kristo, and Drake.

Jordan Schmaltz made his decision at the end of May last year. I'm expecting a similar time frame for Nick.

There were 18 Big 10 games that started prior to 5 Central Time throughout the entire season. I did not include exhibition games or tournament games. Wisconsin played 1 at Michigan State. Minnesota played 2, one at Penn State and one in Minneapolis against Penn State. Actually 9 of them involved Penn State with 8 of them at Penn State. Ohio State hosted 3 afternoon games. Michigan State hosted 5 of them. So if we were in the Big 10 it would be probable that we play an afternoon game at Penn State each year and possible at Michigan State or Ohio State. It would be very unlikely for us to have an afternoon game against Wisconsin and although next year against Minnesota will possibly be a Sunday game, it would also be unlikely to play an afternoon game against Minnesota. If we somehow ended up in the Big 10, we would rarely/never play on a non Friday/Saturday and we would rarely not play a evening game. I can't predict the future, but I would say it would be very very unlikely that any of our home games would be affected. So basically our schedule would be no different than any other year other than who is on the schedule.

I didn't leave it out. It was one of the 11 games I counted. UND just happened to play one series at a Big 10 school and it was on a Sunday this year. Wisconsin played 14 series at a Big 10 school and not once played on a Sunday. The reason I pointed out that we played more Sunday games than Wisconsin was to highlight the fact that the Big 10 rarely plays on days besides Friday and Saturday. And when they do it is usually an out of conference game and its usually because of a home college football game. College football is over around Thanksgiving. Not many conference hockey games are played before Thanksgiving. So that means that the games affected by Big 10 football games are more often out of conference games than not and if we were in the Big 10, we would rarely if ever be affected by it. I don't think we will ever be in the Big 10 and I'm unsure whether I would want us to be. There are plenty of reasons to not want the hockey team to join the Big 10 if invited, but playing on weird days just isn't one of them. It rarely happens. Saying it does occur, contrary to evidence, over and over again does not make it true.

The major could be scratching your butt and watching TV and it would it be difficult to graduate in three years with the way college courses are set up.

Last year the B1G had 11 total games that weren't on a Friday or Saturday (excluding games over Christmas break) and every single one was on a Thursday or Sunday. Of those 11 games, 2 involved Minnesota and none involved Wisconsin. Seven of those games were non-conference games. We played more non Fri/Sat games than Wisconsin this year. So the talk about games on weird days of the week would have little to no impact on UND. What do you think a Big 10 tournament in St. Paul with UND, Minnesota, and Wisconsin would look like? I think it would look similar to the old Final 5 days. The Big 10 would quickly realize that the most money would come from hosting the tournament in St. Paul and permanently keep it there. And the NCHC tournament would look just about as bad as the B1G tournament if UND would fail to make it there. Ideally we would go back to how everything was prior to Penn State starting but that's never happening. I don't know if the B1G or NCHC is better for UND but week day games (not true) and poor conference tournaments (NCHC is bad too) are poor reasons to not want the B1G.

It wouldn't be just one great rivalry. It would reunite us with Wisconsin, who would be considered our 2nd biggest rival by a significant portion of the fanbase. A rivalry with Michigan would develop very quickly considering we have the 2 best college hockey histories. The one rivalry that we lose that I would miss is Denver. SCSU and Duluth are both nice rivalries but nothing special. UNO wouldn't be a loss. Once Blais retires they will go back to being nobodies. What's the difference between Notre Dame and Miami? Both programs had little/no success prior to the 2003-2004 season and have recently gone to the tournament more often than not. They both have made 2 frozen fours and lost 1 championship game. They have the same success and neither has much history with UND. WMU is Ohio State. Teams with no history and hold no interest from our fan base. MSU is CC. Both have been terrible for the past few seasons and both have had a significant history with UND. The MSU history isn't as expansive as CC but they probably carry very similar interest levels for UND. Long post short; I would take Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan St., and Notre Dame over the five you listed. Plus Madison and Minneapolis are just as easy to drive to as Omaha and St. Cloud. Two driveable locations for 3.

I forgot about Chartrand as well. I'm guessing the coaching staff was pretty sure Ladue was leaving after this year. If he comes back, one of the older D-man recruits may have to go elsewhere. Not sure if Johnson or Bast can play another year in the USHL.

Lost two players but on the bright side, Burns outperformed them both combined.

Link doesn't work for me. But if it says that all of those players are expected to come in next year, then it is wrong. Nick Jones for example couldn't come in next year and play even if he had wanted to because he played a few games for Ohio State this past season.

Nick Jones isn't coming next year. And even if he did, he would not be able to play because he is a transfer. I believe that it is expected for Mattson to play a year in the USHL. I think the 97 and 98 birth year defensemen are expected to play one or two more years in juniors. It is likely that Cakebread never ends up at UND. He has not progressed much since committing. So that leaves 5 forwards coming in next year and we have 4 graduating seniors and 2 more possible early departures. And we have at least 2 defensemen leaving and maybe 3. We have 3 95/96's and we may want to have 8 rostered defensemen next year.

I just really, really want Nick to come back. I feel like people somehow undervalue him. His puck control and vision are amazing and he was awesome on his back check. Almost Datsyukian in the way he can pick pocket guys from behind.

Couldn't you count anyone on the Flyers as a sleeper pick since they are such heavy underdogs?

It would be close but I would go with this year's team. If there was a team setup to beat this year's team it would be the 10-11 due to the awesome 2nd line. The Heavy line can't shut down two lines . CBS was definitely better than the Pony line offensively and probably defensively as well since Schmaltz and Caggiula were awesome 200 ft players and Boeser got better throughout the year. I think Dell and Johnson are a push or maybe slight edge to Johnson. Ladue, Stecher, and Poolman all could be NHL defensemen next year. The other 4 are all capable of being future NHLers if they continue to develop. The 10-11 group was good but the 15-16 group is better. As far as Cratter's comment about this team's talent, we have two guys that are almost guaranteed to be constant NHLers (Schmaltz and Boeser) and 4 guys that I think have a really good chance at being consistent NHLers (Ladue, Stecher, Poolman, and Caggiula). They have another 6 skaters drafted in the 4th-6th round. 2010-11 has had 7 guys even appear in the NHL and the only one that has stuck was Brock Nelson and he scored 21 points as a freshman.

I meant it would be a 4-1 or 4-2 series.

We played very well against Minnesota. They were still a better team than us. If we played them in a 7 game series we probably would have lost in 5 or 6. That year's team was probably the worst one that Hakstol coached. It took a lot of luck to even make the tournament, then Gothberg put the team on his back through the regionals. I said from the beginning that we were a lot better than Michigan that year. My point was the loss wasn't due to bad puck luck. A good goalie had an amazing game and we lost. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs here. Maybe its semantics. That team was the best team in the country and didn't win it all. BU: both teams were good. And I agree, one team had Eichel and the other did not. This would probably have been a 7 game series.