Brad Frost, I am so sorry for once calling for your head.
I feared the worst. Second-place is the last loser, and I can't raise my expectations and believe that a local team could actually achieve success. I could draw any number of reasons why they would lose to Wisconsin: They're the #1 team, they lost the season series and were thus due, they were going for their fifth championship in seven years.
But they failed. The U. actually won!!! Oh, sure, they squandered a 2-0 lead. But the turning point of the title game came late in the first period when the two teams were tied at 2. Amanda Kessel and Kelly Terry went to the penalty box. Usually this means that Wisconsin will just go to town on Goaltender Noora Raty. But the Gopher managed to kill off both penalties. Then, with about 90 seconds left in the period, Emily West came in on a breakaway and was tripped by the Badgers' Brittany Haverstock. West was awarded a penalty shot, and her toe drag juked Alex Rigsby. That was the first penalty shot goal in a women's tournament final ever, and it was the game-winning goal for the Gophers. Minnesota won their third NCAA title, and their first in seven years.
The State of Hockey should be a powerhouse in hockey. And for a while there, I was sorely disappointed at how the state school was unable to get over the hump and lift the trophy. Order feels restored now. So Mr. Frost, you should stay and add a twin to your first championship. Recruit players as good as All-Tournament teammates Kessel, Sarah Erickson and Megan Bozek, and try to find a goalie as good as Raty, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Frozen Four. And please, try and rub your success off the men's hockey team.
Congratulations, ladies, you are off the WMNSS for at least the next year!
#-1: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -3). This news kind of snuck up on me: These girls are playing for a championship this afternoon. Yes, it's only the third-tier Women's Basketball Invitational. But not only are the Goofs in it (after victories over Bradley and Manhattan), but they host the final against Northern Iowa.
What Pam Borton did was sweet. Every single game they've played in this tournament has been at home. The arrangement she made was an effort to get a friendly crowd to buoy a mediocre squad -- and, more importantly, generate money for the school in the process. Borton said she took the invite with the WBI because she didn't know whether the team would get into the incrementally more important WNIT. I now think she took the sure home-court advantage and the tomato can opponents to make her look good. Don't think it should work; she should still be fired. But there is something to play for this afternoon. Moreover, how good could Northern Iowa be? Tickets probably are available.
#-2: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -2). And this team is still alive, for crissake! Where in the hell was this team when it counted??? These Goofs thoroughly dominated advanced stat maven Jim Larranaga and Miami (FL), then held on for dear life to win at Middle Tennessee St. They find themselves in the NIT Final Four, which once again is held at Madison Square Garden. It's ironic to see that the world-famous arena of New York City, a city that has the best of everything, has been the sole host of the consolation men's college basketball tournament.
But that's where the team's going to be. The U. face Washington Tuesday; win that and they'll face either Stanford or Massachusetts for the Not Invited Tournament championship Thursday. The U. seeks their second such title (1993; they also won the 1998 NIT, but they have been forced to give it up because of the Gangelhoff Scandal). No, I won't be watching.
#-3: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -6). And for shit's sake, this team is still alive, too! (This is a stark contrast to the Spring Breaks of years past for the U.; by this time last year and the year before that, for example, the WMNSS would be a lot shorter because the seasons for all these teams would have been done by now.) It has to be said, however, that unlike either Gopher basketball squad, these guys are in a tournament that really counts.
Saturday afternoon they blew away Boston University, a program I never knew the U. has an extensive history against (although there have been scant recent chapters) in their first round/Sweet 16 matchup to start the NCAA men's hockey tournament at the X. They face a familiar foe this afternoon: North Dakota, who: knuckled under the orders of the NCAA and wore jerseys that did not have the Native American Fighting Sioux logo on them (I thought the state legislature made them wear the Indian head ... what pussies); dispatched Western Michigan earlier in the day 3-1; is the top seed in this four-team regional and fourth seed overall; and routed Minnesota 6-3 in the semifinals of the WCHA Final Five after allowing the Goofs to score all their goals first. So the U. has a chance at revenge and an opportunity to wipe away a really shitty performance and memory.
I heard part of the win on the radio. The commentators were complaining that the referees were calling the game too tightly. Up to that point, both the Gophers and Terriers were on seven power plays and tallied two scores on the man-advantage apiece. I don't think it was too much of a problem since they were leading 4-2 at the time. And really, they should be hoping it's called even tighter against North Dakota. They used their muscle to roar past the Goofs last week. If they tried doing that against the officials the U. had Saturday, they might as well keep the UND sin bin door open because the players would be taking up residence in it. Minnesota has one of the best offenses in the country; removing North Dakota's enforcers from the ice will open up the ice and allow the U. snipers to shoot at will.
I went from the Mall of America to St. Paul on my way to the North Star Roller Girls bout at the Minneapolis Convention Center to see if I can scalp a ticket for cheap. The price I was quoted (from the only guy willing to sell a single ticket) was $70. At the time Minnesota was winning, therefore I wanted to wait and see if any Boston U. fans would leave early and be willing to sell theirs for cheap. That's how I got a ticket for the NCAA Championship Game at the X last year; a North Dakota family, who just saw their favored team upset by Michigan, just wanted to off-load their ticket and I was standing at the right place at the right time. But $70 was too much and no one was leaving the arena, even though the game was decided and about to be over. Plus I'm loathe to get to roller derby bout late, so after looking around the sidewalks for a few minutes I went back to my car and drove off. I decided to take my time this afternoon. Maybe I'm overrating the demand of the game and the scalpers will cut their prices to get rid of their inventory. Or, $70 is going to be the ceiling for tickets. By the way, the ticket for last year's championship game only cost me $50.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -8). Holy shit, did this team have a winning streak? Yes, they did, the first time in exactly a month! And these weren't shitty teams, either; they took out both Vancouver (which just clinched the Northwest Division, the division the Mild was leading almost four months ago) and Calgary. Too bad they squandered it Saturday with a loss at Buffalo.
I think the Calgary victory was the first game Captain Mikko Koivu played in a long time. The difference is stark, if the highlights are to be believed. It's too bad that the best player on the team is an injury risk.
It's good to see this ragtag bunch of no-talents compete, but they should tank the rest of the season in order to get a better draft pick. And speaking of the rest of the season, I could finally see the end of the regular season without needing to page down from the latest game result. Thank God this shit's about to be over. Starting every day and hopscotching every other day, they visit Alexander Ovechkin and Washington before heading home to the Xcel Energy Center and hosting the Rangers, Florida and Los Angeles this screening week.
(One note about the Florida and L.A. games; they form part of the backdrop for what is being billed as North Stars Reunion Weekend. Some 40 former players of the Minnesota North Stars will be in town from Wednesday to Sunday, signing autographs and reminiscing about a team with one of the best logos in all of sports. Hopefully they'll also curse Norm Green about taking our team away from us and mock those Dallas hockey thieves for believing they have any right to wear the "N." The North Stars belong to Minnesota!!! Anyway, the X isn't the only place these alums are going to hang out in; the games, the Panthers one especially, are being planned as important events where announcements will be made noting the former players who will be there in-person and publicizing the other events going on in the Twin Cities. This is a great idea a long time coming, and if the shit regarding Grandmother and The Store can be ignored for several ideas, I like to go to at least one of these events.)
#-5: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -7). A 4-2 week. They did manage to come back and win the season series against Cal Poly last week, but for some puzzling reason dropped a midweek two-game series at the Metrodome against North Dakota St. (!) The team has since come back and taken the first two games of their trio against the Citadel. They then play South Dakota St. one time only on Wednesday before beginning Big Ten play hosting Michigan on the weekend.
#-6: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4). This long road trip has done them in. They dropped three of their four games this week. They thus finish their longest road show in years 2-5. They may be in the ballpark for a spot in the playoffs, but I don't they'll make it. Oh well -- they are young and weren't going to win the NBA title this year. Like the Wild, they should just lighten up on the gas pedal and lose the rest of their games to at least get themselves aligned for a top lottery pick ... which, I now realize, they might have already traded for some absurd trade Kevin McHale pulled off when he was still working for the Woofie Dogs. So, never mind.
By the way, I should also apologize to Kevin Love. In the past I've mused about whether Love is the type of player that could be your go-to scorer, and be the best player of a contending team. I've always thought he was best as a complementary scorer whose main task is to rebound. But after KLove poured in 51 points in the team's double-overtime loss to the Bastard Seattle SuperSonics Friday, maybe he can be The Man. From the increasing gossip that he's started to butt heads with teammates (such as J.J. Barea, with whom he had a screaming match some time earlier in the week [I think]), he is started to act like he's The Man. Guys like that usually irritate me, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he knows what he's doing and saying. Maybe he's rightfully taking leadership of this team.
This week: home to Denver (a game a friend wanted to see with me, but I decided to try and get to the regional tournament hockey game in St. Paul instead), at Memphis and Charlotte back-to-back, then back home to Boston.
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