NDSU football vs. UND hockey: Level brings leverage
June 24, 2012 at 7:01 pm in Grand Forks Herald
There’s one part of the North Dakota-North Dakota State rivalry that will never be settled on the field. That’s the longstanding debate between which flagship program at each school is a bigger deal: UND hockey or Bison football. Continue Reading
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There is no FBS or FCS in basketball either. What logic are you using?
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I am looking at the number of fans of the sport. Basketball has many times the fans of hockey as does football. I am not saying it is in anyway inferior but that it has 100s of thousands less fans in this country. That makes it a less significant sport ,a second level sport to start with.
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No Glen, your definitive point was the existence or not of an FBS or FCS Championship.
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So now you are telling me what I was thinking? That is an amaizing abiltiy you have there to read minds. Football is split because of the numbers involved. There are so many schools involved with so many players that they can not all compete at the same level because of the money required. So it was split into two levels. Basketball on the other hand has such a large playoff system and so few players on a team that even a smaller school can make the postseason as a Cinderella team. Not possible in FBS as they dont really have a postseason tourny they have a popularity contest where undefeated teams may not even be in consideration for a championship.
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1st you say it is the FBS & FCS that make football the premier sport then you say it is the size & cost of football that prevents it from having a real championship playoff. So by your logic if a sport doesn’t have a real playoff it is the most popular sport.
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No I am saying that football was split because of the number of programs. As far as FBS not having playoffs, that is why I do not ever watch the games in that division(even the bowl games). FBS does not have a playoff system simply because they do not want to. There is nothing preventing it, just their choice. Football is bigger than hockey in this country simply because of the number of fans. It is not even close football has millions more fans in this country than hockey.
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Football wasn’t split because of the # of programs. It was split because some schools couldn’t or wouldn’t offer the higher level of financial support others would. Where did I say football had fewer fans than hockey? I’m only arguing that you are using the wrong factors to measure popularity.
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“It is simply hockey which no matter how you slice it is a second level sport in this country. It does not have the fan base of football nor the participation levels”
From my first post, what part of that statement do you not comprehend??
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Brad, I love your work….you know this. However, I fail to see the comparison between these two programs. Sure, CFB is bigger in the U.S. However, the division NDSU plays in (and now UND) is not the same as big-time, major college football. Look at the teams that play in this conference…..most fans have never heard of most of these schools. Sioux hockey is so far out of NDSU’s league this is not even a debatable issue. Sure, many fans will write in and argue back and forth about why one team is more significant than the other. However, when the dust settles and you look at the specifics of what each team brings to this state…and means to this state….there is no question whatsoever. Come on now….have we ever seen anything like the Hrkac Circus out of NDSU?
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What is a Hrkac Circus? Is that a play or a person or what? I have no idea.
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Tony Hrkac was a Sioux hockey player that won college hockey’s Hoby Baker award which is the equivalent of college football’s Heisman Trophy. He played on a Sioux line dubbed the “Hrkac Circus”.
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Thank you for the answer. Never heard of him but he sounds like he was a good hockey player.
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BES was clear on the relationship regarding the divisions of both sports. The comparison is a second tier FB program to NCAA D1 hockey. Small fish in a big pond vs big fish in a small pond. An interesting story line today is the high profile sons of former football and basketball families choosing hockey . The #1 NHL draft pick next year is projected to be the son of a former pro basketball player. Also, Phil Jackson saying he’d rather watch hockey is interesting. Yet either matter doesn’t address BES original thought, which is, which of the two teams is a bigger deal to the respective schools. Comparing FB programs, the bison is a step or two ahead given the burden on the UND over the past seven years. But the bison will never have hockey! Watching cows on ice would be hilarious!
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Which tastes better, an apple or an orange?
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It will take less than 5 minutes for these comments to digress into the same hopeless drival that always happens. No one with ties to NDSU will have anything good to say about UND and vice versa. This will be a good poll to see how many readers of this blog have ties to either school (or more free time).
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Also the NCAA thinks NDSU is located in grand forks.
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Which means after years of fighting with UND over the nickname issue the NCAA still has no idea who and/or what UND is, or even were it is.
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I personally love both sports.. But when it comes to Monday night what are you watching.. Hank Williams Jr wasn’t singing about Hockey. Hockey is the Curling of professional sports.
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Given the fact that football is now the most popular team sport in America and hockey is a distant 4th…is there really a need to ask this question?? Its especially obvious given that NDSU just marched to a National Championship and UND has not won in some time. If UND were coming off of the same success…they would probably win the poll. In todays ‘what have you done for me lately’ society…everybody loves a winner.
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As a world sport ice hockey is far more popular than American football. Football is a distant 4th to Futbol, basketball & ice hockey.
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Can I have some of whatever it is that you are smoking?? Seriously..
When companies pay through the nose for adds are they paying for Stanly Cup adds or Superbowl adds.. When people get around the water cooler they sure aren’t talking about the Budweiser Clydesdale’s playing hockey.
You and the rest of these people need to get out more.. Hockey while a great entertainment doesn’t hold a candle in popularity to football..
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Is football played in as many places in the world as hockey?
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How is a poll regarding N.D. college teams relevant to the world sports scene? American football is exactly that…AMERICAN. Sure, they play it in Canada and dabble in a couple other countries…but thats not relevant to this topic. Again, in THIS COUNTRY….FOOTBALL IS KING…and hockey is a DISTANT 4th. Even within this state, hockey does not play well outside of GF. The biggest ND metro area (by far) has tried repeatedly…and failed…to generate a buzz for hockey. You people can ‘dislike’ the truth all you want. The facts are well established.
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Petey, it is relevant because we are talking about the success of the 2 ND sports. Success can be measured to some extant by the # of pro players that a program generates. UND hockey produced 75 NHL players since 1947 while NDSU a few NFL players. Hockey is played all over the northern hemiphere where many more players exist for UND players to compete against for those NHL positions. That makes UND hockey a part of the world sports scene with its NHL presence. Throw in the Olympics & my comment is even more relevant.
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Hold on there, spearman. The other countries where hockey is big also have their own version of the “NHL”. This takes a lot of the players out of the competitive pool for stints here in the USA in the pros. Considering how the options for the NHL players are not as large here as it is for the NFL, one would expect UND to produce more pros…
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Like I said the Euro leagues are not the equivalent of the NHL. That is why the best Euros come to the NHL. If you consider the #s of Canadian & Euro feeder programs for the NHL ,Sioux players have as difficult of a time making the NHL as an American college football player has making it to the NFL.
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No the main reason they come here is the much larger pay check.
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& its the best Euros that get the big checks.
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Come to think of it ex UND players in the NHL engage in a true world championship when the Stanley Cup Playoffs happen while the NFL is just a an Amercan championship usually without an ex Bison player in sight.
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Don’t get me wrong, spearman, I love hockey, and the NHL has players from many countries, but teams from only the US and Canada hardly make it international. The UEFA Cup is moreso.
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It’s a world championship because the best players from Europe are in the NHL. In addition the existence of Euro leagues means hockey is an international sport while football isn’t.
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The players are international, the teams aren’t.
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Does football have an international tourney called the Olympics or the non Olympic year world championships made up of N.A. & Euro players?
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ahem…are Canada and the United States the same place in your almanac?
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Right, the last time I looked there were 7 NHL teams in Canada & no NFL teams. Therefore the NHL is not only in more than one country but its players come from many countries. The NFL is in one country & has no foreign players. The NFL kind of rates like Australian Rules Football. Some people don’t even realize Canada is a country I guess.
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The NFL has no international players? I know there are not many but there are players from other countries in the NFL.
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American Samoa is US territory. There might be a Canuck or 2.
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If you do a little searching you will find there have been and are players from other countries. Granted the majority attended college here and played college football here. And no I am not and was not considering American Samoa.
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For hockey, world championships, or international competition, could be applied to events like the Olympics, the World Juniors, the IIHF Men’s tourneys, etc. NFL cannot be confused with anything “world” or “international” since the NFL Europa disbanded! Maybe someday, there will be a NFL team in Canada but probably only if the Buffalo team moved north of the border. Until then the only international flavor is Canadian football.
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You might as well compare an orange to a bicycle.
Last time I checked UND also had a football team, and the only comparison I am interested in, is UND’s football team to NDSU’s football team, between the hash marks.
Popularity contests are for high school girls.
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Want to see the NDSU football roster?
Check the Fargo Police blotter.
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Yes, we know that those UND hockey players NEVER appear on a police blotter.
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Yes, football is more popular than hockey, but that popularity is pretty much limited to the NFL and the FBS. With the exception of the National Championship, what FCS games are televised nationally? There may be a lot of fans throughout the country waiting for the next Vikings/Packers matchup and the next USC/Notre Dame matchup, but outside of Fargo there just aren’t a lot of people sitting around waiting for the next NDSU football game. Now, replace “football” with “hockey” and “UND” for “NDSU” and the same applies. Sorry UND and NDSU fans, neither college hockey nor FCS football are “big time sports”, they just happen to be the biggest sports in a state with 650,000 people. I love to watch both, but let’s not be delusional.
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UND vs NDSU in football UND leads the series. So I would vote UND football UND hockey
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Brad: When you admitted “no good can come from this,” it seems odd that you still submitted this piece. This “longstanding” debate probably exists in the minds of less than 1% of the population. I ache for the days of the Ruley/Roebuck rivalry. Watching these two proud, hardworking women’s teams in front of 7,000 fans was really something. Why don’t you do a piece on how much better NDSU football and UND hockey is compared to the women’s basketball? That’ll show me. Most Fargo people love Grand Forks and visa versa.
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NDSU isn’t even king in their own backyard.
If you go to the largest mall in Fargo, there is a sports merchandise store.
If you go into that store and have a look around in that store, you will see that for every 1 piece of NDSU merchandise they’re 3 to 4 pieces of merchandise for UND.
Why is that?
The store owner is smart, he knows what sells.
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C’mon girls, you’re both pretty.
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I don’t know if this means anything but before 1980 no one knew what the stanley cup trophy was for.
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Why Bill? It is the oldest trophy in all of sports going back to the 1890s.
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yup it is old and was unknown to most people because hockey had a very small fan base in this country for years. It has grown and is still growing but it is still way smaller when compared to football, basketball or baseball in this country. That could change in the future but it is not where it is at today.
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Bill, are you saying that the US Olympic win had something to do with increase in interest in the Stanley Cup? @ any rate the question here is not whether hockey is more popular in the US but what is the NDSU/UND football/hockey comparison about. Since UND has more Olympic & pro athletes it translates into more visiblity for UND hockey than NDSU football.
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I can agree with the Olympic claim as for the professional not at all. Pro football simply has many numbers more fans to see the player.
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I appreciate the very small number of pertinent comments, many of which point out that this is a rather useless debate. Most of the others point out issues that have very little relevance. Both programs are very important in ND. Both programs are important rivals to some other universities. FCS football is, on a national level, secondary to FBS football. Division 1 hockey is, on a national level, secondary to football, basketball and several other sports. NDSU football and UND hockey are both important here and relatively unimportant in much of the rest of the country. However, both have provided much enjoyment to their fans for many years.
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I think the excitement and prestige of UND hockey will go slowly downhill with the new league minus the “big” schools–U of M and UW. Oh, I know, they still promise to play each other but the rivalry will die a natural death and UND hockey will be left with a UMD or Bemidji State rivalry–either are hardly big ticket sellers.
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I think people need to realize that we are not talking about pro football or Olympic hockey, we are talking about multiple division one hockey national titles versus one subdivision one title, a sporting venue that any pro hockey franchise would love versus a quite average football facility that they cannot fill in their first playoff game in twenty years. Yes, pro football is more popular than pro hockey, but that is not the subject here. Twenty home games versus five or six. No comparison my friends.
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and Tom should realize that his points are exactly countered by the simple fact that hockey is simply a secondary sport to most Americans. Bison football – big deal in North Dakota, moderately interesting almost every other place. UND hockey – big deal in North Dakota, moderately interesting in almost every other place.
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At least it’s not the name, but come on…..You know without even reading the article that this is just another dumb attempt to shake the tree…….lets see….Just a guess here, but maybe Forks is pulling for hockey……Am I right? I’m guessing Fargo might not be as enthused about Forks hockey…..I wonder what’s up with that? Huh! Go figure….
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