Too Much In Two Ways

Eating Mother's food is a double-edged sword.  Had egg rolls last night for dinner.  Damn, it's fantastic.  There might be one or two other things she makes that are better, but when I was devouring the egg rolls, it was the best damn thing she ever made.

However, I'm feeling the aftereffects of eating so much right now.  When I eat a lot of certain foods, I get thirsty as hell, and I am thirsty as hell, even as I type this.  I'm almost done with my Coke, but I'm not desperate enough to drink it all.  Had some lemonade that I'm almost finished with, too.  Drank all of the mocha I bought in the morning to bring into work, but let's face it, mochas aren't "quenching."  And while I need to drink more water, dammit, the water ain't cutting it.  I might need to buy a Big Gulp tomorrow if I'm still thirsty.

Oh yeah, there's also getting fat as hell.  That is one reason I kind of threw my parents a curveball late last night and told them I'm not eating dinner tonight.  If I do eat after work, I get to control what I eat, and I hope to Buddha I am smart enough to not buy something big.  Then again, I still might buy a huge bottle of pop.  And I might also feel as though I deserve to eat big if work is a bear today.  See, that's another reason I told my folks (well, just Mother, and I hope she told Father) that I'm not eating tonight.  The work that was supposed to come in from down South didn't.  There were hellacious storms (including nighttime tornadoes, yikes) that cancelled all flights from there.  I still stayed a half-hour over because there is just so much darn work in The Third Department -- and, as an addendum to my previous blog post, my boss gave me a quick rundown of all the changes that are to be made there yesterday, but I will hold off on talking about them until I implement these changes and see if they work -- but that indicates to me that there should have been a hell of a lot of work that came in yesterday, and that will (maybe?) come in today, along with the work that would normally come in today.  So we have two days' worth of work when I can obviously do only one.

See how the crap continues to roll down?  I'm fully expecting to be asked to come in to work tomorrow, and I'm debating whether to wake up early and do a normal day, come in for only a few hours so I can have lunch and dinner with my parents, or a hybrid of both.  (Heck, I'm still thinking I should take back not having dinner with my folks tonight because I might not have dinner with them tomorrow night.  We probably will be that backed up.)  And that affects something else I need to do: My taxes.  Yeah, I haven't even started on them yet.  I was going to this week, but I got both depressed over my team and tired because of, well, me, and so I was going to do them this weekend, but this damn storm has upended everything and given me the opportunity to take back the paid time off I took Tuesday and Wednesday.  Maybe I shouldn't take that opportunity; I really do need to look at my tax forms now.  But I won't make that choice until I absolutely have to, because that's, well, me.

There Might Be Changes At Work Today

I was fortunate to decide to take the past two days off in one way: I missed the worst of the spring snowstorm and not needing to drive when it was sleeting.  I was fortunate in another way: I could sleep in.  (I slept for three hours Tuesday evening and almost 2 1/2 hours last/Wednesday evening; maybe that's a coincidence.)  And there's a third way, I guess: There was a big meeting between my boss, my supervisor, and the two people who hold the same position as I at work yesterday.

But that last point is a double-edged sword.  That meeting, although I was allowed to miss it, was important: It had to do with new policies and protocols streamlining what we needed to do in The Third Department.  This is the one kicking all our asses.  Ever since our co-worker retired around the holidays, the workload was heaped most only one person on most days.  Even though I don't have concrete evidence, it also feels as though there has been a slight uptick in work since the New Year, which only added to the workload.  As a result, we have been working our asses off, staying past our regular eight-hour shift (when possible) in order to do all the work that needs to be done.  Stress, suffice it to say, has ratcheted up as well.

Thus, this meeting.  It's a follow-up to another meeting we had maybe three weeks ago requesting feedback on how we felt Things Were Going On.  I told my higher-ups then my piece: That it's hell, and some of the tasks suck the life out of me, but I understand the work needs to get done, and if they're willing to put up with overtime, I'll put up with ten-hour days.  Now, I obviously don't know what was revealed in yesterday's meeting, but I am sure my supe and boss have an edict from those above them to tamp down OT, so they most likely announced tasks that can be streamlined, tasks that can be given to someone else, and tasks that can be put off till the next day (although needing to deal with them the next day only causes us to stay late that day because the new stuff is still coming in, but that's a given).  Those new plans might be implemented as soon as today/Thursday, when I am coming in to do The Third Department all by myself.

Honestly, I'm torn.  I certainly would like to not be stressed out.  But dammit, I love the money I'm making!  And maybe more important than that, I like the fact I'm not getting any guff from my boss or supervisor for staying late and doing my job.  That's what I'm there for, right -- to do my job, right?

Well, we'll see what happens.  I might hate the changes.  I might love them.  There's a chance they won't work and we'll be back to where we have been all year.  And in the meantime, there is this implication of finding another person and hiring her for the same position as us three.  The issue with alleviating work in The Third Department so that everybody can get out of work "on time" can be easily solved by just hiring someone, and that might already be happening for all I know, so all of this speculation will become reality.  Who knows?

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Wait, did I not blog post yesterday/Monday?  Shit, I swore I did.  I guess I was so depressed to see my alma mater lose that I just forgot ... even though I was on my laptop doing other things.  Goddamn, I really do think I have brain rot.  At least I didn't forget the WMNSS:

#0: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  These Woofie Dogs are the biggest cockteases in survey history.  They have been trying to escape Play-in purgatory for seemingly years now, but they've been always a half-Game behind.  The pieces brought back in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade is still integrating with mixed results -- one step forward, one step back.  They have incredible Wins where they're playing together as if playing a symphony, and then they suffer crushing Losses to teams they should be dog-walking around the park.

Well, they're still not out of the woods.  But they ran the table this Week, winning all three of their contests.  After they put away bloated Phoenix, they started slow at home vs. Detroit and then, midway through the Second Quarter, a fight broke out that reached the first couple rows of fans at one end of the floor.  Seven people were thrown out of the Game, including Naz Reid and Dante DiVincenzo and Wolves Assistant Coach Pablo Prigioni.  (The Head Coach of the Pistons, J. B. Bickerstaff, was also thrown out.  He used to be an Assistant Coach with the T-Wolves.  I remember once attending a happy hour conversation where he was the main speaker.  I asked him a question about LeBron James doing The Decision earlier that Week.)

Naturally, Reid and DiVincenzo were suspended one Game, and it was last/Tuesday night's Game in Denver, a team Minnesota is 4-0 against.  It feels natural to just chalk this up as a Loss, and the Wolves got behind early.  But goddamn, this is where the cock-teasing comes in, because what happened from then on was, quite possibly, not only The Best Regular Season NBA Game This Season but also The Best Regular Season Game In NBA History.  In a back-and-forth affair for much of the rest of the tilt, the Timberwolves were victorious, 140-139 in Double Overtime.  My God, just look at the final seconds of this crazy, ridiculous Game:

 

The Timberwolves have swept the season series from a very, very good Nuggets team.  In fact, they've won their past six matchups with them if you include last Year's historic Game 7 victory in the 2024 NBA Western Conference Semifinals series between them.  Nikola Jokic scored 61 Points, grabbed eleven Rebounds and dished out ten Assists.  It's the most anyone has scored while registering a Triple-Double -- and his team lost.  My fucking goodness.

So three Wins, a brawl, and a mammoth victory without two of your players -- and on the road, no less.  And they still technically are in seventh place in the West, but they have the same record as The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies, and a few Days ago they fired their Head Coach.  Their visit to Denver began a five-Game roadtrip; this screening Week they travel to Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.  They can move up given the competition, but they have shown a propensity to play down to them, so maybe they won't climb out of the Play-In after all.  Plus, who knows if the Win over the Nuggets sapped them of all their energy?  I'll give them a 0 -- not Positive Numbers, but after what I saw last/Tuesday night, certainly not negative numbers, either.

#-1: United FC (Last Week: -2).  Well, my alma mater's Game was on, plus the Loons had blown leads in their two previous Matches that should have been victories but wound up as Draws, plus it was raining cats and dogs Saturday night, so I still think I made the right decision in not going to Midway to see MNUFC play Real Salt Lake.  And whaddaya know, Tani Oluwaseyi braces (scoring in both halves) to defeat RSL, 2-0.  Oluwaseyi might finally be the Striker that sticks with this organization.

At Yankee Stadium against NYCFC Sunday afternoon.  Maybe I'll attend a watch party. ...

#-2: Wild (Last Week: -3).  Doubled up Washington at the X, 4-2, on Thursday.  More important than that: They didn't allow Alex Ovechkin to score.  However, the Mild then dropped both ends of a home-and-home with The Bastard Colorado Rockies, albeit the road date Monday was via a Shootout.  So that loser point puts them, as of press time, six Points ahead of The Bastard Atlanta Flames for the final spot in the West.  This team had the second-best record in the league in December, and fuckin' St. Louis just passed them.  They can't blow this -- can they?

They stay in the New York metropolitan area to face the Rangers and the Islanders, then they host The Bastard North Stars.

#-3: Twins (NEW SEASON!!).  Ah, these fuckin' guys.  I follow the St. Louis Cardinals somewhat since I vacationed in St. Louis and fell in sorta-love with the city.  They're not good right now; in fact, there is some existential soul-searching over the future direction of this once-proud franchise.  And yet, as old and powerless as they are, they managed to sweep the Twinks at Busch Stadium III to start the season.  The Twinks then traveled to Comiskey and lost the first Game of their three-Game set versus the White Sox, 9-0.  Rocco Baldelli pulled most of his lineup after they went down big in the Third or Fourth (?) Inning.  This is the White Sox, by the way, the squad that set a modern-day Major League Baseball record for most Losses in a season.

Well, they finally registered their first Win of the season last/Tuesday night, 8-3.  But their home opener (after playing once more with the Pale Hose this/Wednesday afternoon) is tomorrow/Thursday afternoon against Houston.  If the Astros jump on them early, and I have no reason to believe they can't, I swear there will be chants of "Sell The Team!!!" that will be as loud as any you hear for Athletics or Bay Rays Games.  And the Twinks ownership will deserve it.

After the weekend they'll travel to Kansas City, a team that tried to improve their club by actually doling out money for players, for a trio starting on Monday.

#-4: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1).  I swear this was supposed to be a Friday-Saturday-Sunday series.  There is no mention on the website that they moved up the series and made the last two contests a Friday Doubleheader, nor whether weather was a reason.  No matter, I guess; the Goofers got swept at Siebert Field by Iowa.  And the first two contests weren't, well, contests: 16-7 and 13-0.  Oof for them, but good for my alma mater when they play them here later this season.  They continue their homestand with a three-Game set versus Penn St., then a one-off with South Dakota St. Tuesday.

#-5: Gopher softball (Last Week: -5).  Holy fuck, man, local diamond sports are absolutely dreadful right now.  Like the baseball team, the U. softballers got swept at home over the weekend at the hands of Northwestern.  While the first two Games were your run-of-the-mill defeats (2-0 and 3-2), the getaway Game was an atrocity, 14-3 which was Mercy-Ruled after six Innings ... for the home team.  The Goofers have now lost seven in a row as they go to Purdue for three.  (Aside: The first two Games of the Wildcats series were on Friday, and the third Match was on Saturday.  I swear these Games were scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, like the baseball Games.  Did the U. just not tell anyone?  Am I being gaslighted?)

#-Infinity: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!).  Yes, I have seen The Play.  I have seen it called as a Penalty, but really, the Goofer went down easy.  And I will trust Goofer fans who said that was a shittly-called Game back on Thursday.  I will even believe you if you say those bad calls and no-calls went against "our team" all night.

But beyond the fact that this club was faltering late and went from being The Third-Best Team In Top-Flight Men's College Hockey to a 2-Seed (to, well, eliminated by Massachusetts), you have to note in that in the last three NCAA Tournament Games they were bumped off, they had a two-Goal lead.  They've blown all three.  When Bob Motzko was hired from St. Cloud St., he had a reputation for a high-flying Offense but a weak Defense, and now he has a reputation of telling his players to play extremely conservative once they're up by two.  That has bit this program in the ass the last three postseasons.  That's a pattern, and something much more disconcerting than a poorly-officiated Loss.

And as usually happens, there have been a flood of players who have left for the NHL.  I think one tweet counted nine.  There were players who swore after that bullshit come-from-ahead defeat in the 2023 National Championship Game where they blew that two-Goal lead and lost to Minnesota-Duluth that they were coming back to win it all.  Well, fuck it, that still hasn't happened, so they're splittin' and gettin' their paper, and what's left is a bunch of green youngsters to try and pick up the pieces of yet another shattered dream.

Motzko hasn't proven he can win the big one, and now he has to start over.  Are we going to just run all this bullshit back, again?

Glad Last/Sunday Night Is Over

So after lunch and learning that I'm helping Father stick an EKG monitor on his bare chest, I hear Mother screaming at Father, over something.  I have never known what they've ever argued over, but I haven't heard Mother yell like that in a long, long time.

We eat a very early dinner (four hours after lunch, which is insane).  I was the one who attached this EKG on Father; Mother was in her office doing her own thing.  I go up to my bedroom and eventually take an early-evening nap before going out to exercise.  Mother bangs on my door to wake me up.  I'll expound on this hopefully in a different blog post, but never wake me up from sleep.  I hate that.

She gets me out to the dinner table.  She needs help booking their flight, although she actually said, "You promised to help me with my frequent flier miles," which is something I don't ever remember her saying.  It was obvious she was in the kind of mood she has often been in after yelling at Father -- wounded, feeling like a victim and lashing out because she felt entitled.  And this type of thing My Fucking Mother ropes me in to doing for her is the type of thing she usually ropes me in to do for her, which is something that has to do with not understanding English words and some elements of the task I believe she knows how to do, but doesn't want to do them because she wants to act helpless.  Besides all that, I feel like I've been dropped in unfamiliar territory, and so I'm figuring what the hell I need to do, but, and this is also typical of her, whenever I run into a roadblock or something I don't understand, she goes, "Well, what are we going to do?"  And I've gotten a little better at pointing to her, "Um, we are not doing anything.  You brought me into this because you don't want to do this.  I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do."  (She also has this tick where I say something to her and she goes, "I know."  She clearly isn't using that phrase when she's supposed to, but I still get triggered because I take her literally at her word, and I want to say to her, "No, you don't know!"  But that's another blog post.)

I can't book a flight online.  Mother asks me to call for her, fuckin' A.  The call wait time is 2 1/2 hours.  They invite me to text instead, so I tell My Mother I'm going to leave for the gym and just text the airline about this.  So as I'm putting on my shoes, my sister calls My Mother.  There is another matter my sister wants to talk to her about.  "Has Unforgivable Wetness talked to you about it yet?" my sis says.  "No," Mother replied, "He doesn't want to talk to me about it."  And I had to shout from the bottom, "That's not true!" and I went back up to the dining room to get my face on Mother's phone to tell my sister Mother's lying, and then to tell Mother that if she wants to talk about this other matter, she should talk to me, otherwise I'm assuming she's handling it herself.  Goddamn.  I've always thought I've gotten my self-pity from Father.  But I might be wrong.

Anyway, I got the gym but had to delay exercising because I was busy texting with the airline rep, or the bot, who knows?  There are no flights available.  So I come home, see Mother at the other side of the front door ... and she's all calm and stuff.  If she weren't calm, she wouldn't even look at me.  So maybe she's gotten over what she needed to get over.

At any rate, this was a Sunday that was a little too eventful.  Glad it's over.

Earlier this afternoon, my parents told me that Father has been given this portable EKG monitor to track his heart.  For many years my old man has been worried, possibly to the point of hypochondria, of his heart.  But it appears as though his doctor sent him this, and of course I have to help them figure out what to do and, looks like prepare.

Yes, this EKG monitor needs to be stuck over My Father's heart.  So, according to the instructions, the area on which the monitor needs to be stuck to has to be washed, shaved, exfoliated, and wiped down so the monitor can be affixed.  I'm guessing I'm doing all of that.  Great.  I'm repulsed seeing my old man shirtless, but I have to do all the crap, too?  Well, he's scared of his heart, so (shrug)

Too Much Time Off

Maybe the best perk I have at work is the number of paid days off I get.  I have so many per year that I calculated that I would have to spend a bit more than two days off per month in order to use and not lose all of those days.  I know this might sound weird, but that's a lot.  And add to it the edict that only one person from our group of 15 can (or is supposed to be) be out on a planned absence every day, and that brings on the added complication that there may already be a dwindling number of days I can't get off between now and the end of the year.

So at this point I not only have to take time off willy-nilly (instead of planning them for vacations), I need to just find dates to take off and lay claim them as soon as possible.  I am doing that Tuesday and Wednesday.  Why those two days?  Really, no reason besides the fact that 1) there are usually enough people scheduled on those two days to cover me and 2) they were free.  I will need to find, like, 16 more days like these to be all set.  In the meantime, I am trying to plan things to do Tuesday and Wednesday -- see a movie, eat out for lunch and exercise are things I've come up with so far.

My Boombox Is Breaking Down

OK, it's more like a radio.  A nice, neat, decent, modest radio that I think my family bought for me back in high school.  I schlepped it to college; once I graduated, I remember my family insisting they stuff that radio back in their luggage to bring it back to Minnesota.

It has been sitting right beside me, at my bedside table, ever since I came back home.  I don't use it often, but I use it sometimes, and I think in recent years I have used it more often -- late at night, when there's nothing on TV and I want something to listen to while I'm surfing the Internet, usually jazz, sometimes sports, sometimes The Current.  I use the CD player around Christmastime to listen to A Charlie Brown Christmas or whenever I get around to buying a CD.

I haven't used the tape player function.  Man, this radio is so old it has a tape player!  But that shows how well it still works after, what, just about three decades of use.  But unfortunately, it is showing signs of aging.  The radio part works fine.  But maybe a couple years ago (maybe a few), while I was listening to the radio, the compact disc cradle popped open all its own.  I pushed the button to retract it, and it did retract, but I could still hear the whirring sound, and the cradle popped back out.  I hit the button a second time, and this time it stuck, but on occasion it would pop back out, and it would take two and sometimes three tries before it would close.  Also around this time, the CD stopped working.  I would put in, say, my U2 CD and push play, but it wouldn't play.  Finally, on a couple occasions last week, hitting the button didn't work.  I had to physically shove the cradle back in, and even then it would pop back out a couple times before me shoving it in stuck.

The last time it got so bad that I've refrained from turning on the radio at all.  If I do, the CD cradle could pop out, and I would have to go through all that crap again.  Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, since I just use the radio function now.  But that is a sign that it's breaking down, and I'm not sure how long I want to deal with it anymore.

The Trash Bag Gets Smaller For Father

Think I noticed this last year, or the year before, or maybe the year before that, I don't know.  For a trash can, we use a pail -- you know, one of those white pails that street drummers use to drum.  We put a plastic bag in that trash can, and the pail we have fits the plastic bag almost perfectly, so you can tell how big the pail is.

Anyway, I can go weeks by myself and not fill it up.  But when my parents are here and cooking, they are chucking a bag nightly.  But I noticed something in recent years when I threw something into the trash can and the thing I throw away lands with a light "bonk" and doesn't sink to the bottom of the bag like I thought it would.  When I peer into the trash can to investigate, I saw that I could see the bottom of the bag a lot closer to the top of the pail than I would expect.

I then lift the bag that's inside the pail.  And what's there is some plastic container -- think a bowl of instant ramen, or something tofu comes in (OK, these are shitty images that might not resonate with you, bear with me) at the bottom of the pail.  My parents have put this thing underneath the bag to push up the bag's bottom.  Why?  No damn clue.  Well, I have two theories, both stemming from My Father's old age: Either it's very hard for him to bend down and grab the whole bag, or the bag fully filled would be too heavy for him to lift.  But as old as he is, he still has the ability to move his joints, and the bag would weigh a maximum of five pounds.  Those are the only guesses as to why my folks would put an object inside the trash can, but they are pretty bad guesses.

So, I don't know why.  I just think that's weird.  And I hope that, if I ever get around to asking them, and the reason does have to do with my old man's old age, I won't break down and cry over how enfeebled he has become.

Have I Told You Guys Yet That I Fucking Hate The Morning Sun Angle?

Because I hate the fucking morning sun angle.  Goddamn Sun's shining in my eyes just as I hit 694 going east precisely when I have to get to work.  I think it's been this way for a month, and I'll be honest with you, I don't remember it being this dangerous driving this way for this long at this time of the year before.  I'm serious!  I swear that this time last year or in previous years, the Sun would be high enough that I won't have to worry that the glare is going to prevent me from seeing on the road.  But I've been dealing with this shit for a fucking month now, and I fucking hate it.

I shouldn't be this upset after getting seven hours of sleep, but I have to blog post about something quick, and this is what I've got.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -7).  In total, this screening Week was a very, very shitty one for local teams.  (At first blush this might not be a good time for the Twins to start their season, but looking at how awful most local teams were the past seven Days, it actually might be a great time.)  It was particularly execrable on campus ... except for the Gopher Nine, who were able to feast on low-major talent, knocking off St. Thomas on Wednesday, 8-2, then then taking two-of-three over the weekend versus High Point, all four Games of which at Das Bank 2.0.  Compared with the crappy performances the other Twin Cities clubs turned in, this looks downright dynastic.

They now leave the Vikings' stadium and go to their home, Siebert Field, for the first time this season as they have a three-Game series against Iowa.

#-2: United FC (Last Week: -6).  I am trying to maintain hope for Eric Ramsay, but honestly, after the past two Matches, I don't think the Loons are a good team at all.  One Week after blowing a three-Goal lead and ending up tied at Kansas City, they hosted The Los Angeles Galaxy -- who, like Sporting Kansas City, had accrued only one Point going into their contest with MNUFC -- and blew not one lead but two.  The Galaxy, defending MLS Cup Champions and the squad that eliminated United FC in last Year's playoffs, hardly look like they did last Year.  But they do have Christian Ramirez, who started and leveled the Match at 1 with a header from a very acute angle.  (Why in the fuck did Adrian Heath and Manny Lagos trade Christian Ramirez I don't fucking know, but he still would fit in as the perfect Striker for the Loons, and I mean it.)  Kelvin Yeboah slotted home his second of the tilt via Penalty Kick, but three Minutes later, in the 90th Minute, traffic in front of fill-in Goalkeeper Alec Smir allowed the Galaxy's Carlos Emiro Garces to kick a slow ball into the corner, and the Match ended 2-2.  I'm sorry, but if you can't put away awful teams, you cannot be a good one.  And now the Loons, sixth in the West but falling slowly, host Real Salt Lake Saturday.  And RSL has six Points, not one, so they are going to be a tougher opponent to draw with.

#-3: Wild (Last Week: -2).  The slow-motion collapse continues.  They started off the Week crushing both Seattle and Buffalo at home, but versus real good teams, they folded: 3-0 at The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.2.0. Monday, 5-1 at home to (Las) Vegas last/Tuesday night.  Meanwhile, St. Louis is now only two Points behind the Mild.  And only four Points behind the Blues is Calgary.  The Flames are in ninth place ... and that's where Minnesota might be if they can't haul this quivering, malfunctioning carcass of a team across the regular season finish line.

They finish their three-Game homestand against Alex Ovechkin and Washington and The Bastard Colorado Rockies, which is the start of a home-and-home; the two teams play in New Jersey Monday.

#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -1).  The more the season plays out showing how the Timberwolves aren't gelling, the more infuriating it gets.  They had a two-Game series versus The Bastard Charlotte Hornets at Target Center.  They walloped New Orleans by 41 on Friday -- but that was after they lost to this shitty team by four on Wednesday.  They then lost by 16 at Indiana Monday, and the doubts surrounding Julius Randle, Rudy Gobert, and even Anthony Edwards are popping up again, with only nine Games left in the season.  And they are technically eighth in the West, a place where the Woofie Dogs have stubbornly been nearly all Year.  Maybe these guys aren't that good.

This Week they host Phoenix and Detroit before traveling to face Denver.

#-5: Gopher softball (Last Week: -4).  Oof, I'm getting the feeling this program is going nowhere.  The club got swept in Lincoln by Nebraska, who managed to score eight Runs in all three of their victories.  They are now 2-5 in the Big Ten and have lost four in a row, and open up play at Cowles Stadium vs. Nebraska Northwestern over the weekend.

#-Infinity (tie): Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -3) and Gopher wrestling (Last Week, respectively: -3 and -5).  Have I pointed out that the Gopher women's hockey and wrestling teams usually cease at the same time?  I may have not noticed much in recent Years, but this Year both teams ended with a conspicuous and extremely disappointing thud, albeit for their own distinct reasons.

For the U. women's hockey team, the way this season ended was more disastrous than others because they were hosting the Frozen Four.  It's great that the U. and Ridder Arena appear to be on a regular rotation for this great and burgeoning event.  (I just took a quick look at the history of the event; I think I've been to four of the past five Frozen Fours that took place at Ridder.  I'm kind of proud of myself.)  It would be even better if the U. won the NCAA championship.  But they haven't done that since 2016, and they haven't even been in the title Game since 2019.  In fact, the past three championship match-ups in top-flight women's college hockey have been Wisconsin vs. Ohio St.  That was assured when the Buckeyes doubled up Cornell and the Badgers ripped through the Goofers on Friday, 6-2.

So, like I said in my previous blog post, when I took my seat in Ridder Sunday for the title Game, I was in a row and a section and, frankly, a rink filled with Wisconsin fans.  There was one section and scattered small groups rooting for The Ohio State University.  Otherwise, it was LaBahn West.  And, like I said, the Badgers were rewarded with a thrilling, come-from-behind victory in Overtime.  Also, like I said, that the Goofers' home venue was filled with the two schools that have thoroughly lapped the U. in prestige and success should be a source of embarrassment for Minnesota Athletic Director Mark Coyle.  But there has been no talk (at least as far as I have heard) about replacing longtime Head Coach Brad Frost.  It looks like Coyle operates the athletic department laissez-faire; he will only make a change when there is significant pressure from the fanbase (and in particular the moneyed folk) to do so.  That might have happened when he relieved Ben Johnson of duties with the men's basketball team.  I would not disapprove of the same thing happening with Frost.  But it looks like it ain't happening.  So we will get another season of a team going through the motions with no possibility of breaking through.

As for the wrestlers, there is no reasonable path to thinking they're going to win a championship for a generation, or at least as long as Cael Sanderson is the Head Coach at Penn St.  Yes, those goddamn Nittany Lions won another overall title -- their fourth straight and twelfth in the last 15 NCAAs.  Turns out the Gophers finished in a tie for fifth, the best-ever finish under Brandon Eggum and the school's best since they finished second in 2014.  Sure, the U. only managed 51.5 Points when Penn St. got 177, but still.

That isn't the storyline coming out of the NCAAs, however and very, very unfortunately.  The only reason to follow this team is Gable Steveson, returning to lord over the heavyweight division once again.  He did it all season ... and then he fell in the final to the 2-seed, Oklahoma St.'s Wyatt Hendrickson.  Steveson was about to motor to his fifth overall title, but with two Seconds left, Hendrickson took him down and won, 5-4.  It was the first time Steveson ever lost as a collegian, and it apparently will be the last Match he will ever as a Gopher.  Many in the know call it The Greatest Upset In College Wrestling History.  (To make matters worse, Hendrickson shook the hand of That Fucking Guy, who was there getting his ego stroked.  Of course a Minnesotan has to lose to a fucking dumb MAGAt.)  Look, the fifth-place overall finish is nice, but the only thing we Gopher fans had to look forward to was Steveson being King Of The Mat again.  And it didn't happen.  And that is a very, very bitter pill to swallow.