Even though the Mammoth finished two games better than the Swarm in the regular season, Minnesota had most of the momentum stats. They beat the Mammoth to finish the regular season last Saturday. This victory stretches their current winning streak to five games. Meanwhile, Colorado finishes their year with a record of 11-6 ... with all those losses coming in a six-game losing slump. And probably the most telling statistic: They are now 10-0 when leading after three quarters. For a team with a lot of first-year players, that shows that the Swarm have a lot of gumption when it matters most.
So, next Saturday is the Western Conference Championship Game, with the winner going to the Champion's Cup. Even more amazing, the Swarm will play the game at home. That's because the Edmonton Rush, with a record of 6-10, defeated not only the top seed in the West but the team with the best record in the National Lacrosse League, the Calgary Roughnecks, Saturday night. And it wasn't close: The Rush trounced Calgary in Calgary 19-11. (This is how screwy things got last night: Calgary and Colorado were the two best teams in the NLL, with 12-4 and 11-5 regular season records, respectively. The next best were Minnesota and Toronto, both at 9-7. Those two teams are now the remaining ones with the best records, but with 10-7 composite records neither team has more wins than the Roughnecks or Mammoth. By the way, the Rock will host the Rochester Knighthawks for the Eastern Conference Championship. That's a matchup between the top two seeds, so there were no upsets in the East.) Because the game will be televised, it will start at 8:30 at the X. I now know what I'm going to do next Saturday ... and I can even have a proper dinner at a proper time before leaving for St. Paul.
#-1: Gopher ... oh, I'll say football (Re-Entry!). I should have done this last week, but the hiring of Norwood (Young America) Teague to replace Joel Maturi as the U.'s Athletic Director about ten days ago kind of slipped through my mental cracks.
All in all, not a bad hire. The main thing Minnesota President Eric Kaler needed to find was a guy who could fundraise. Teague can do that: At Virginia Commonwealth, the university from which he's ditching for the Goofs, he raised enough money to give its basketball program a new practice facility. Of course, winning opens up the wallets more than anything, so do not overrate an AD's glad-handing in the face of a young coach like Shaka Smart knowing how to succeed. But who hired Smart? Teague. So he should get credit for hiring the right coach. And he could repeat hiring Smart if (when?) Tubby Smith moves on out. That would get the boosters' pee-pees hardening.
That VCU has no football program shouldn't be too much of a problem. It's true that the football program needs more tending than any other on campus, but it's not as if Teague looks at a football and goes, "Der, what is dis?" Before taking over VCU's athletic program, he worked in the athletic departments in Virginia and North Carolina (his alma mater), as well as heading Arizona St.'s media arm. They have football programs (although, to be honest, none of those schools are football schools), and I'm pretty sure Teague knows that in college, football pulls the train. He is not stupid, and he will do all he can to resurrect U. football from the dead.
Football is not a reservation for me. But I do have two. One is another program, hockey. After years of listing, both the men's and women's programs have resumed their rightful places as power teams in Division I (the women won the NCAA championship, the men reached the Frozen Four). Minnesota is one of those rare top-flight schools that have a third revenue-producing sport. But some people think that there is so much support for the hockey programs that they virtually run themselves. So how will the relationship between the hockey teams and Teague be? He is a Raleigh, N.C. native, definitely not hockey country (and no, the Carolina Hurricanes don't count). Will that deter him if he's the controlling type, and if so, will the hockey contingent in Dinkytown chafe? Conversely, will he defer to the braintrust already in place if he doesn't believe he needs to provide input? If so, what will happen if the women stop winning titles and the men begin missing the postseason again?
My other concern jumps off of my hockey concern. Minnesota remains a very provincial state. Norwood Teague (who is
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3). Oh, and speaking of Siebert Field ... the last game ever at the old place, a 9-2 win over St. Thomas, is the only one of the four games the team this screening week. There was no fucking way they were going to lose the last game ever at Siebert Field; that's why they scheduled a small school like St. Thomas.
I thought about going to the game, but two things dissuaded me: The opponent and the fact that they are going to rebuild right about on the same plot of land. Can you really say goodbye to an edifice if the new edifice is going right on top of old one? I don't think so. Now if it were going to be built in an entirely new place, I could understand the sentiment. But I don't know if Siebert Field is really going to be "gone" after they tear it down, you know?
Unfortunately, the three losses are all in-conference. Two of them went to extra innings. The one that wasn't was Saturday's special game at Target Field. I said last week I was going to go to the game, but two things happened. First, I was asked to come into work for some overtime Saturday, and we could work until 2, which is when the game was supposed to start. I wanted to see the game, but hey, I couldn't pass up time-and-a-half. Second, the weather forecast wasn't entirely clear, and after work, after 2, and as I drove towards downtown, the drizzle became a storm, then became a deluge. By the time I got to the stadium, all I saw were people finding any shelter they could from the storm. I felt like shit because the day before I told him I was going to be late to the game but I promised him I would go. But I had no idea how long we would have to wait till the storm blew over, and frankly, I did not want to hang out in the rain, even with a friend. So I went down to the Mall of America and ate at Hooters instead.
They didn't call the game. The storm stopped in the early evening, and they finally began the game (they didn't even manage to start it) after three fucking hours. Three hours? That sucks. And my friend left me a voicemail tonight that he stayed through the whole goddamn thing because he already paid ten bucks to get in. And by the way, they lost to Penn St. 5-1. Shit man; I feel so bad for my friend that I feel like I should pay him back.
By the way, they are now 9-8 in the Big Ten. They, and the rest of the conference, are behind Purdue, which is ranked in the Top 15 (maybe as high as 11). A Big Ten team that highly ranked? That's like spotting a unicorn or something. The Gophers should be glad they don't face them this year. They do, however, play Penn St. tomorrow (at the Metrodome) trying to avoid the sweep. That will be the last home game of the year for them; they start a three-game series at Nebraska next week.
#-3: Twins (Last Week: -4). A 2-4 week -- a better percentage for the week that the Goofs, but it was the way the Twinks lost that puts them again at rock bottom.
Such rock bottom had to be the midweek series against the Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of ..., where they were swept by a combined score total of 17-3. And oh, the no-hitter by Jered Weaver. That came in the series finale, where the squad was crushed 9-0. Usually in a no-hitter there is one spectacular catch or throw that you can point to and say that that was the play that saved the no-hitter. I heard this secondhand, but in the Twinks' post-game show on FOX Sports North, Anthony LaPanta said that there was no such play. Every out came easy. And that is the no low this club, for which we paid $360 to build a new stadium, slums in.
Manager Ron Gardenhire is not in Seattle for this weekend's series with the Mariners. No, he doesn't need to get away from his players; he is spending time seeing his daughter graduate. I would not blame him if he never wanted to come back. Hell, I wouldn't blame the front office for firing Gardenhire, either. I don't know who to blame, it's that this team is so awful, I want somebody to pay.
At least they beat Seattle on Friday, even though they had to hang on, 3-2. But on Saturday night they went back to their dominated ways, getting shut out 7-0 to a bad Mariners ballclub. This marks the third time this screening week where they were shut out.
So the offense sucks. Joe Mauer is hitting around .300, too low for a guy who's supposed to be one of the best players in the league. Justin Morneau is hurt, again. The starting rotation blows big chunks because they can barely get through five innings. Closer Matt Capps is unreliable. They can't hit for shit. They can't bring in runners in scoring position. They cut Clete Thomas, a man they rescued after he was cut from Detroit, because they no longer could stand seeing him strike out every other at-bat. They replaced Thomas with some guy with a Japanese-sounding name. They are just throwing warm bodies into the lineup while keeping their best guys down in the minors so that they don't waste their at-bats for a shitty team, all the while trying to seed the farm system with draft picks that will drag this organization out of a morass of its own making. It's going to be a long, long season.
This week: Finish up in Seattle, then a nine-game homestand, staring with a return engagement by the Angels (Weaver is on track to play the Twinks either on Monday or Tuesday), followed by Toronto.
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