UND-RedSox fan

I think Johnson and Poganski will both make jumps in goal scoring as well. Wouldn't be surprised by either scoring around 15-20 goals and Caggiula being a 40 plus point guy. I think Schmaltz could also be a 40-45 point guy while scoring less than 10 goals.

He's having a bad season but he still has the third best OBP on the team. Probably should be hitting 2 with 3, 4, and 5 being some order of Dozier, Hunter, and Plouffe. Hopefully Buxton can be decent enough to bat leadoff because everyone else on the team are hitters. As bad as Mauer has been this season, the Twins still have much bigger problems than him.

And to continue, I don't expect Buxton to be an immediate star. Most players go through some growing pains. Bryce Harper did and look at him now. Xander Bogaerts had a very disappointing season last year but that is almost entirely due to expectations being too high. With a season under his belt, he is now a borderline all-star in his second major league season.

I always had a feeling that the Twins would return to about a near .500 or below team. Dozier is a good second basemen. I think Mauer will start hitting better and be good enough for first. Torii would be really good as a DH this year. They have a great farm system and good looking future as long as they don't make desperation trades this year. Their underlying stats were showing that it was a decent amount luck leading to the record they had through May. They are still a year or more away in my opinion but they could be the next Royals or Pirates with patience.

I recall that winning gets you nothing but I heard that tying for second got you a trip to Disney World. Can anyone confirm?

Agreed. Move had to be made since Hicks isn't a major league caliber center fielder and Buxton's stat line in AA shows* that he is ready move on. As long as Buxton is an above average fielder and not terrible hitter, he will be an upgrade on Hicks. May also allow Torii to move to DH where he should be. *hopefully. You can never really know though. Some players are like Jackie Bradley Jr. and destroy minor league but can't handle major league and others never slow down like Trout.

Yeah, I have a problem with exaggerating. My dad has told me a million times to stop I tend to slip into hyperbole even though I know it is pointless. Can't help myself. Fighting Green didn't really fit into the four categories of nicknames that I was thinking of (animals, people, inanimate, intangible) and ended up with one exaggerated sentence in that rambling essay of a post. I could have stated it another way and probably should have, but I was just finding a way to dismiss the name since every poll and most posts on the matter have shown that we can. The main discussion points of that post still stand... Animals: can result in a good nickname as long as it is unique and associated with the state. There are hawks in North Dakota but using a common name and throwing a random adjective in front does not make a name unique People: the one category I feel the committee would get a passing grade on. I'm sure there are better nicknames in some minds but they were able to find multiple unique and North Dakota related names. Inanimate: the names they have are definitely unique but I don't see any association with North Dakota. Worse yet one is strongly associated with Minnesota. Intangible: These sort of names, I feel, are best left for the WNBA. Colors: let the newspaper use them if they want so that they aren't using the same words over and over. Fans use them even if its not the team nickname ("let's go blue" "go big green" etc.) so it seems pointless to adopt it as a name. The committee has done an embarrassing job

I was using hyperbole which is the case just about any time something is described as the worst thing ever. I tend to do that every now and then. I would say out of that list fighting green would fit in with big red, big green, big blues, and mean green. Those names are worse than crimson, cardinal, blue, or orange in my opinion, which is the group I would consider green and white to be in. The latter group is worse than any other sort of nickname. I would rather have a WNBA name, soccer name, or something stupid like turd sandwiches or giant douches than a simple color. So I guess as a general thought (putting my ESPN analyst hot sports take hat on) nicknaming YOUR TEAM after a COLOR or even worse using an adjective to DESCRIBE THAT COLOR is worse than AIDS! It is worse than slavery! It is worse than the crown prince of darkness himself, SATAN!!!!

In the same train of thought as jimdahl and to hopefully inject some optimistic thought (not easy I know ) into the nickname discussion, what is the biggest pro for each of the 15 nicknames (whether you like the name or not)? I'll give it a try. Blaze: Fires are intimidating and stoners are friendly Cavalry: Cool logos, military associated, and unique and intimidating Explorers: Unique, ties into the state history with Lewis and Clark, can't be seen as hostile or abusive Fighting Green: Two best adjectives to describe UND Fighting Hawks: Have you ever seen a hawk fight? I haven't but it could be hilarious to watch Force: I like Star Wars Green Hawks: Green Hawks vs. Red Hawks, which former hostile and abusive school will have the upper hand in this budding rivalry. Nodaks: Better than Canadians, Minnesotans, Sodaks, and Montanans (Montanians?) North Dakota: 5 years from now, a new committee could come up with better choices North Stars: We're a northern state, the North Star will always point us home (unless for some unfortunate reason you are in Canada) Pride: Lions are cool but calling us the Lions wouldn't make us as unique as Pride Roughriders: state nickname, highest honor in the state is the roughrider award, no person in history is as bad ass as Teddy, cool logos, unique, can confuse people reading the Herald that aren't able to pickup context clues. Spirit: ghosts are scary and drinking alcohol is fun Sundogs: better than rainbows or auroras Thunderhawks: closer the thunder is the more trouble you are in plus hawks can pick at our rivals after the lightning got them. Two names in one!

I'm not sure what a monkier is but I think Roughriders would be a good on

I completely agree with you. How is North Stars any more marketable than Sundogs, Spirit, Force, or Fighting Green? Its still better than those names but still belongs in the same category as them. Personally I think the best nicknames are people or animals. The committee could have selected any animal that is associated with North Dakota instead they selected a hawk. I've seen more crows (or are they ravens?) in Grand Forks than anywhere else. We could have chosen some sort of lesser used name like a fish (northern pike), bird (mallards, crows/ravens, pheasant, meadowlarks, owls), deer or moose (mulies, bucks), predator (foxes, wolves, mountain lions, coyotes), rodent (flicker tail), or horse (nokota) that are native to the state. I know a lot of schools use wolves and South Dakota uses coyotes so those would have probably not been too great. I'm sure some school somewhere uses the other animals I listed but not many and definitely not as much as hawks. We could have came up with a good animal nickname but instead we chose the same animal every university chose along with an adjective that doesn't make sense for hawks all because some outside advisor told the committee that we should do the same thing as everyone else. As far as the people based nicknames go, I could live with any of them. They are all associated with the state in some way (state nickname, Lewis and Clark expedition, military history, and Nodaks). They are all unique. They have potential for cool logos and easy marketing (Nodaks may be more difficult than the others but smarter people than I would figure it out). They all have their drawbacks, but I think people would grow to like any of them which is something I don't think you could say about the adjective hawks or WNBA names. If the committee wanted to give us an inanimate object nickname, they could have selected one of many categories that are actually associated with North Dakota. They could have chosen agriculture (reapers, sodbusters, etc.), aviation (jets, aviators, etc.), or oil industry (oilers, roughnecks, etc.). They could have chosen something to do with the badlands or prairie. Arrows are on the state flag. I was always partial to that name but what can you do when some moron decides that only Natives used arrows. Instead they chose an inanimate associated completely with Minnesota or else associated with nowhere (Blaze and Sundogs). As far as intangible nicknames go, those should be left to the WNBA. I've never met a person that could even stomach a name like pride, spirit, or force. And of course fighting green is two adjectives describing nothing resulting in what would definitely be considered the dumbest nickname of any team, anywhere, in the history of the known universe. To summarize my rant, UND could have came up with a lot of decent nicknames that could have grown on people that have an open mind (so ignoring the Fighting Sioux forever cabal). Instead the committee did a terrible job and came up with no nickname (which I hated until I saw the list), 6 nicknames that everyone hates, 3 bland and nonsensical animal nicknames, and an inanimate nickname strongly associated with another state. This results in only 4 nicknames that could meet the requirement of being unique and realistically grow on people out of the plethora of possibilities. Going 4 for 15 isn't even good in baseball, let alone this. I am extremely disappointed in the committee and the university.

I don't understand why North Stars is so much more popular than Sundogs. One's a ball of gas billions of miles away and the other is the reflection of light against ice. Neither one seems very inspiring or intimidating to me. I can't think of a reason someone would like North Stars as a nickname other than they liked the Minnesota North Stars or they just think it sounds cool. If they think it sounds cool, then say North Dakota North Stars out loud 10 times. You'll never want to hear the word north again.

I don't think it is a stretch at all. Why would anyone that follows a WDA school know an EDC school's name? They rarely or never compete against each other head to head. And then there is all of the class B fans who have even less of a reason to know what Red River's name is. Where I'm from the average person that follows sports would know the nickname of Hazen, Killdeer, Watford, Dickinson Trinity, etc but not Red River or Devils Lake or Whapeton. However, everyone knows NDSU is the Bison and UND was the Sioux.

My view of the NCAA is that they are a bunch of hypocritical a-holes that will do whatever they feel like. They hold all of the power right now. So anything short of having some sort of legally binding statement from the NCAA saying, "UND can proceed with no nickname and is not fostering a hostile and abusive by allowing the former nickname to be the unofficial nickname," would make me uncomfortable with having no nickname. Without the NCAA stating that, what is to stop them from being the all powerful, hypocritical d-bags that they are and deciding to throw UND back on some list to try and act like they have morals? If we select no nickname right now, what is to stop them from throwing UND back under the bus in the future? Some day a large school, like Florida State or Texas, will have a real scandal going on and the NCAA will be a little hesitant to go after one of their big dogs. Instead they will find one of their little dogs and kick them instead. They will look at UND and say those hicks up there are still fostering a racist environment with their old hostile and abusive nickname. They will find another little dog doing the same thing as the big dog and over punish the little dog. For me, if we don't have something concrete from the NCAA saying no nickname is fine, why give them a reason to kick us. This may seem like a paranoid rant, but I do not trust the NCAA to be fair and the safest thing for UND would be to pick a nickname no matter how stupid the final list is (I like cavalry and roughriders).

NHL needs an eastern team to move to a western market or else two expansion teams in the west. Just looking at wikipedia really quick, there is no western Canada markets that could sustain a team that doesn't already have one. Largest city that doesn't have one is Saskatoon with only 220,000 people. I think Seattle, Portland, Kansas City, and Milwaukee would all support hockey better than Las Vegas. I can't think of any other western US city that would support hockey.

He's been average at best his entire career up until this year. Part time starter in Edmonton and backup in Arizona isn't very good. The biggest mistake many teams make is dropping a huge contract on an average goalie because they got hot at the right time. The Wild are definitely the best defensive team Dubnyk has had in front of him but I think he is more likely to return to playing like the goalie that made him a backup in Arizona than play like a goalie that looked like an all-star in Minnesota.

I don't see why so many people have such a problem with Roughriders being UND's nickname because RRHS has it as one too. Talk to a random person in Bismarck or Dickinson or Williston or Minot or heck even Fargo and there is a decent chance they would have no idea that Red River is the Roughriders. That is within the state. Absolutely no one anywhere outside of North Dakota would know that Red River is the Roughriders or even that Red River is a high school in Grand Forks. I just think that RRHS is completely irrelevant to the discussion about UND's nickname.

The biggest drawbacks I see against each name. Blaze: I can't even think of a drawback. Its just so stupid, there is nothing else to say about it. Cavalry: Probably the negative Native American connotations. Still one of the better names on the list. Explorers: Can't be shortened. Tough to come up with a cool logo. Still decent name compared to others. Fighting Green: It doesn't exist Fighting Hawks: It doesn't exist. I'm picturing a hawk with boxing gloves on its wings. How embarrassing would that be for the university? Force: Intangible thing. Already used in Fargo. Green Hawks: It doesn't exist. Nodaks: Tough to come up with a logo for. North Dakota Nodaks seems redundant. North Dakota: Allows the old name to fester. We would more than likely return to the exact same spot we are in right now in a couple years. It would result in a complete waste of money from this whole process. I'm not sure if I necessarily believe the Marco Hunt thing, but the NCAA controls everything and they like to come down hard on small schools. Don't give them any further reasons to be assholes. North Stars: Minnesota Pride: Intangible thing. Hard to have any real pride in an intangible nickname. Only not terrible way to do this would be with some sort of lion logo but that still has nothing to do with North Dakota. The only other group of animals called a pride is peacocks. Roughriders: Other people's negatives seem to be they don't like the fact that roughriders is a state nickname or else they don't like that RRHS is the roughriders. It is a state nickname though so ignore the first reason. And RRHS impacts nothing. Nobody outside of North Dakota and a very large number of people in North Dakota have no idea what Red River's nickname is. Spirit: Intangible. Sundogs: I didn't think it sounded bad until I found out what a sundog was. Thunderhawks: Native American association. It's stupid. NDSU is already something thunder related (even though they stole it from Marshall)

If we could have came up with a name half as cool as Dirtbags for a baseball team then we would have been in a good place.

Interesting to see Hannifin from BC all the way down at 12. I thought he was supposed to be the number 3 guy after McDavid and Eichel.

Yeah. I think I was trying to convince myself that Jordan was thinking if he stuck around for another year then he could sign with whatever team he liked. Possibly the team he team he grew up cheering for that isn't too far from where he grew up and owns the rights to his brother haha

Semester has been over for 2 weeks. Those announcements tend to be made immediately after the semester ends since they likely have had their mind made up for months. Zane's announcement seems to be a normal time frame, but Jordan's seems longer than normal. Maybe I'm just not remembering the time frame others used correctly.

I was a little surprised he signed just because of how long it took. After the frozen four, I expected him to sign that Saturday. By the time he actually did sign I was thinking maybe he would be back. Wish all the best for him.

Torii Hunter isn't much better than Willingham at this this point in his career. They need to find a way to put him at DH.

I like the way you think