My Trip to Madison

[Fedorov]

This is for the people that enjoy reading about weekend trips. I think it is time you get the facts, and not the cheesehead view of the world.

Friday

CB

[NorthDakotaHockey]

Hey Fed . . . .

Good read. Thanks. Just a couple of questions.

1. You said it was noisy, a bit, Friday night? Couldn't have been the players hooting and hollering after a tough loss, was it?

2. Any speeding tickets across I-94 through Wisconsin?

3. What do you mean by there still being alot of empty seats in the BB arena?

Don't the Badger hockey and roundballers share the same arena space?

4. Were the Sioux fans in attendance shocked into keeping their traps shut? Could we not have been a shade more encouraging for the old team?

5. Did the boys, especially the younger ones, look a bit rattled playing before a packed, hostile crowd?

6. Do you think that, all things considered, the weekend experiences for the team were not entirely bad ones?

[Fedorov]

Hey Fed . . . .

Good read. Thanks. Just a couple of questions.

1. You said it was noisy, a bit, Friday night? Couldn't have been the players hooting and hollering after a tough loss, was it?

2. Any speeding tickets across I-94 through Wisconsin?

3. What do you mean by there still being alot of empty seats in the BB arena?

Don't the Badger hockey and roundballers share the same arena space?

4. Were the Sioux fans in attendance shocked into keeping their traps shut? Could we not have been a shade more encouraging for the old team?

5. Did the boys, especially the younger ones, look a bit rattled playing before a packed, hostile crowd?

6. Do you think that, all things considered, the weekend experiences for the team were not entirely bad ones?

1. I meant that the halls were noisy Thursday night. It may or may not have been the players.

2. I managed to only see one cop, and I slowed down in time.

3. I consider the Kohl Center to be a basketball arena, and not a hockey arena. They were so proud of it being their first game sold out ahead of time, yet there were hundreds of open seats.

4. I don't know why the fans were so quiet. The last two years were much louder for the Sioux fans. After the home of the Sioux, they were quiet. It would have been nice if the fans were louder, especially since the home crowd is so loud.

5. I don't think the crowd affected us, but it did motivate the Badgers. I think the players were intimidated by the physical (and sometime cheap) play more than anything. Brady definitely wasn't affected.

6. I think that everything about this weekend, with the exception of CB's comments on Brandt, can be a good thing. After all of these losses and ties, I'm not sure the players realized how poorly they have been playing. It is time for them to realize that they are going to have a lot of tough games ahead of them, and they are not always going to have a loud fan base cheering for them. It will definitely take CB doing a good job to get the team turned around. I think we should have a pretty easy schedule with the remainder of the season, so it is time to get everything going well. Our only tough series is going into UMD, and that will be our time to show if we are going anywhere during the playoffs.

[TMK]

My wife and I were there this weekend too. Wish we would've heard you cheering b/c we would've been right there with you. All in all I thought the fans were all right. Although it is funny that the ones causing problems just don't know the rules. Greene's handpass got quite the reaction in our section as well.

I thought the AR's overturning Schmidt was BS. There was a huge scramble in front of the net. There is no way an AR at the blue line and the red line can see it go in, unless they were judging by when Randy pointed to signal the goal. I honestly don't know if it was in before zero - close call and we have to live with judgement calls.

I will say that Bina looked as though he was on a mission all weekend. I was so impressed with his play Saturday night. He had a HUGE hit in the first that sent the WI guy into the boards hard. And then made a great play to get to get puck to Bochenski on their 2nd goal. As he was passing to Bo he took a hip check and literally did a flip in the air and landed on his back. He got right up and celebrated when the goal was scored.

No question about it, the Wisconsin student section is one of the best. And dare I say, 15,000 shouting sieve at Parise probably ratteled him a bit. I sure wish we could get that going at the Ralph.

[Fedorov]

No question about it, the Wisconsin student section is one of the best. And dare I say, 15,000 shouting sieve at Parise probably ratteled him a bit. I sure wish we could get that going at the Ralph.

It would be great if we could get everyone doing the same cheer. I also wish the goal horn would be louder, like it is at Madison.

[huskies679]

They have the best band in the WCHA and some great traditions and cheers. I really like the singin of Varsity (UW Alma Mater). Its what I consider a great "college" atmosphere.

[jloos]

It would be great if we could get everyone doing the same cheer. I also wish the goal horn would be louder, like it is at Madison.

I agree with the louder horn, get rid of the pyrotechnics, they may have been cool at a 1978 KISS concert, but have no place in a hockey game.

It would be great if the student section would get as loud as WI, but it will not happen because:

1. WI has 40,000+ students

2. WI allows their students to stand

3. WI allows their students to chear without worrying about offending someone

4. In WI beer is cheaper than water and the entire state is loaded about 75% of the time.

[Fedorov]

I agree with the louder horn, get rid of the pyrotechnics, they may have been cool at a 1978 KISS concert, but have no place in a hockey game.

[jeffj]

I wouldn't worry about how many students they have or whether they can stand, etc.

When the Sioux scored or were leading, they were completely silent. That was priceless and a bit eery with such a large crowd.

If I was a player, that would be very motivating to me to shut them up. The louder the crowd gets, the more pumped I would get to shut them up.

[leosity]

I certainly wasn't silent. Personally, I felt I was one of the loudest Sioux fans at the game! Heck, I even sang the school song a couple of times ("Fight on Sioux, we're all for you, we're thousands of strong and loyal souls....")

I know I certainly annoyed a ton of Badger fans that were sitting around me!

[MinnesotaNorthStar]

2. I managed to only see one cop, and I slowed down in time.

Lucky b@st@rd...you mean that "airplane" that the Johnson Creek highway officers use didn't get you like it did me?

4. In WI beer is cheaper than water and the entire state is loaded about 75% of the time.

Ain't that the truth!!

[teamsioux]

Their are actually people who are drunk more than people from the Grand Forks area... I'll be damned!

[kiork]

I, too made the trip to Madison. It is my favorite road trip to make, Frozen Four aside. I have some responses for a lot of things mentioned in the thread, so I'll just go shotgun. Sorry for the long post, but throw me a bone for personal road trip experience.

1. I heard the buzzer on the Saturday Parise no-goal and I heard it before I saw the puck in the net. I'm not saying people in other parts of the arena are morons for not hearing it, but my buddies and I figured that the refs would (and should) waive it off. I'd rather see head referees willing to listen to AR consultation than refs that are needlessly stubborn about changing a call even though they're not positive what happened. I imagine their little conferences involve weighing how sure each was about what they saw. Maybe Schmidt never heard a buzzer, in which case the best they can do at that point is talk it over. I was on the opposite end of the ice, so it's possible that the puck was in the net before I saw it there; somebody said that TV replays showed that the goal was in time. My biggest contribution to the discussion is that there was a buzzer.

2. No team aims to be outshot, but a strategy can be to force long-range shots, even if the consequence is that a few more shots are fired. I'm not saying that happened, but you have to allow that it's a real strategy. Unfortunately for Jordan Parise, his three goals were all shot from inside the triangle between the dots and the top of the slot.

3. From my experience, the UW students and general fans have no equal in crowd atmosphere and participation. Fedorov, creativity (meaning to new cheers more often than every three years) and entire-crowd-participation don't happen at the same time. Similarly, sieve chants that involve saying it more than once per second cannot get entire crowd participation due to the distance across the arena. Finally, you know darn well that the REA crowd (old and new Ralph) still hasn't figured out the hand pass nuance, and we do sieve an ENG. The first one is still getting better (the rule must be eight years old now), and the second one is a natural reaction when drunk with a victory-sealing ENG.

4. In Madison, the opposing goalie is called a sieve--by the entire crowd in unison--at various times starting with team introductions. It's just crowd involvement and a head game--not a scientific conclusion--and I think it's intimidating and frankly awesome.

5. The best part about the Bina head-over-heels check was the UW crowd hadn't stopped cheering for it when his pass resulted in a goal. Unfortunately, he didn't even get an assist because too many other Sioux players touched it after him.

6. Madison seems to be by far the worst place where people say, "Sioux sucks." If a response is worthwhile, I inform them, "Sioux is plural."

7. jloos, as somebody said, UND has a lot more student seats than UW. My impression is that most student fans buy Friday-only or Saturday-only season tickets. Also, UW students are allowed to stand the entire game because they didn't choose seats that obstruct other fans. Personally, I'd rather stand in the end zone than sit at center ice. I'll leave it at that since this topic is hotter than abortion.

8. UW non-student fans are insanely jealous that we can drink in our arena. UW Blue Line Club members can go into the bowels of the building and have a drink in the "club room," which is about as nice a place as the beer garden at the Alerus.

9. From my vantage, I didn't think the Sioux fans in Madison were any more quiet than normal. ...when the team was playing well, anyway. We didn't have much to crow about for half of the minutes.

10. Thank you huskies679 for mentioning the UW Alma Matter, now it's in my head. It's hard to hate it.

11. I encourage each of you to make a road trip to Madison sometime. REA is a great crowd, but I have to admit that Madison is in the next level of crowd participation and having a good ole time--even when their team is not. Maybe next year I'll go dance with the students in the aisles during intermissions.

[dagies]

I always love when Kiork posts.

Good stuff, Maynard.

I have a relative who is a Wisconsonite. Their family is big on the badgers and packers and all that stuff. Wisconsin athletics has a bit of an aura to it that I don't know how to explain. It's like the fans grow up as one big entity and instinctively know what is expected of them at the event.

[jloos]

7. jloos, as somebody said, UND has a lot more student seats than UW. My impression is that most student fans buy Friday-only or Saturday-only season tickets.

11. I encourage each of you to make a road trip to Madison sometime.

From my observations sitting in the student section, several of the students that sit by me know nothing about hockey, and are just there to socialize. The idiots that sit behind me have come very close to the point of getting strangled several times this season. The seats next to me on either side are empty about 1/2 the time, and I've never seen the same person sit in front of me from week to week. From my observations the lower down in the student section, the better the fans.

The two things that really get to me

1. The idiots behind me never shut up (they are never talking hockey), during the who's he he sucks chant they both go who is he - the extra syllable throughs off the chant and makes them sound like the idiots they are

2. The idiot that sits in front and off to the side of me that wears a wife-beater every game and yells "foul" "foul" "kick his __" "hockey sucks, where's the basketball game".

Before getting season tickets every student should be asked:

1. How many times have you seen Slapshot?

2. What is the greatest movie made that has Patrick Swayze in it?

If the responses are 1. anything less than 5 and 2. anything other than Youngblood sorry no tickets

On a different note, I agree about visiting Madison, it is a fun city. I'm already looking forward to the Frozen 4 in Milwaukee. The entire state of WI is fun, cheap beer, good food, good people (for the most part). On your way you have to stop at the Leine's brewery in Chipawaa Falls (10 miles N of Eau Claire). Nothing like getting half drunk before the rest of the drive to Madison.