The weirdest thing about this winning streak? It's not the longest winning streak in the league. It's not even the longest active winning streak. That belongs to the Columbus Blue Jackets, which have won 11 games in a row. I feel as though the hockey press is covering the BJ's streak more than the Wild's, and they should because hey, it's two more games. But we're The State Of Hockey, and Columbus remains a nondescript club in a nondescript city. Maybe I'm just jelly.
My goodness, can they keep this up? They are at Madison Square Garden to face the Rangers tonight (Friday night), then play at Nashville Tuesday before coming home to play the Islanders Thursday. Oh, and a head's-up: Columbus comes to the X New Year's Eve evening.
#0: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -Infinity). So, I didn't really know where to put the v-ball team in light of this news. On the one hand, their season is over because they lost in the Final Four, and that should be the overriding takeaway. On the other hand, this is hella news. On Friday, the night after the Gophers were eliminated in the NCAA Tournament, Senior Outside Hitter (and Eden Prairie's own) Sarah Wilhite was named the AVCA Player Of The Year. That goes along espnW also naming her Player Of The Year. It's the first time ever a volleyball player for Minnesota won that honor.
So, that's a big deal, right? After some thinking, that accolade alone is enough to put this squad in second place this week.
#-1: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). So maybe this is the week that the Woofie Dogs finally turned it around. Believe it or not, they have finally achieved their first winning streak of the season, outlasting Phoenix at Target Monday and then outlasting the Hawks in Atlanta Wednesday. Sure, they lost to Houston in excruciating, even unacceptable, fashion: They coughed up a double-digit lead late in the fourth quarter after seemingly having the game in the bag, then got beat by the Rockets in Overtime, 111-109. But maybe that humiliation spurred them on to their two wins. Maybe that loss was the wake-up call this too-talented team finally needed. So for that, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt over the team below, which won its sole game over a tomato can but still hasn't proven much over their season.
Busy screening week for these guys: Home to Sacramento Friday; at Oklahoma City and triple-double machine Russell Westbrook in the franchise's first Christmas Day Game in ... ever?; hosting Atlanta Boxing Night; the visiting Denver on Wednesday.
#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -4). Finished their non-con last (Thursday) night by crushing Kent St. at Williams, 92-62. Great. But I've noticed something.
They will begin Big Ten play with a mark of 9-4. Not perfect, no sirree, but Head Coach Marlene Stollings set up a tough schedule. That's a good thing. However, their four losses were to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida St. and South Carolina. Those are also the only four teams from BcS conferences. Now, they did beat Georgetown and Seton Hall, and they hail from the Big East, aka The Best Basketball-Only Conference. But if you don't count those as "power wins" (and I don't), they have no notable victories. That means that these Gophers have no out-of-conference scalps they can count on as tie-breakers to get into the NCAA Tournament. That's probably why Minnesota doesn't even sniff Charlie Creme's bracketology, which he updated last/Thursday night.
Any headway into The Big Dance this club makes has to come in the B1G. They start conference play Wednesday at Ohio St.
#-3: Vikings (Last Week: -3). So I was working the Vikings game, and because I wasn't sure how the people I ostensibly was working for would react if they bolted out of the truck and didn't see me or any of my co-workers just standing there, I made it a point to loiter in a general area betwixt both trucks in case they needed me to go get something. That was my job, after all. This general area did not give me a viewpoint to a TV showing the game, however; I would have to duck into the break room to watch, which I did at several points throughout the game.
What I though would help me follow the game was the crowd. From this area, I was no more than, oh, half a football field away from getting onto the field. The tunnel leading from where I was standing onto the turf is wide open, so sound would easily travel from the game to my ears. That way I could hear the noise whenever the team made a big play.
I swear to Buddha I never heard the crowd even once.
I would have rather watched the game, but I couldn't. Initially it was because I thought I had to do what my job entailed, which was being available in case I was needed. But after stopping into the break room to see the score, I stayed in the area because, frankly, I didn't want to watch the fucking game.
In what was tantamount to a must-win game, in front of a home crowd probably going delirious because they traveled through temperatures as low as -20, playing against a good Quarterback but an otherwise mediocre team, the Vikings basically quit -- on themselves, their coaches, the fans, and the goddamn state of Minnesota. Seriously, 34-6??? Not a single fucking thing they did right on Sunday. I ... I can't even. Look, I would diagnose what's wrong, but like I told you, I wasn't able to follow the game because I was working. Not like I would want to watch that abortion ever.
So what I thought would be an eliminator game at Green Bay Saturday (Christmas Eve) early afternoon definitely is an eliminator. Hell, the Vikes could still get eliminated even if they beat the Packers at Lambeau, which is a pretty tall order in and of itself. That turd performance against The Bastard Baltimore Colts was that damaging. How they didn't even show up for a game that was so important may be the most baffling and the most inexcusable loss of what has turned into a failure of a year.
I should give the ViQueens -Infinity, but the college football team in the area made such a boneheaded off-the-field mistake that I have to set aside that bottom-of-the-barrel designation to them and to them alone. You're lucky, Vikes, but only for now. You'll be in -Infinityland soon enough.
#-Infinity: Gopher football (Re-Entry!). Do you know when students riot on campus and the surrounding neighborhoods when their sports teams lose? That's what it seems like. I'll give another example, one that I'm sure I have not made up but I cannot back up with actual proof. I have heard, in the past, of students protesting what they consider to be strict alcohol laws in and around campus. When I saw and/or read about the story I was lamenting the youth of today. In the past college students were "woke," marching against discrimination, or the Vietnam War -- you know, shit that really matters. I swear I saw hundreds of coeds protesting that they couldn't fucking walk around with a beer at all times of the day. Is that really an infringement of your human rights? Does anybody really think that's important enough to march against? Get a fucking clue, idiots.
What the Gopher football team tried to muster over 48 hours, possibly the shortest-lived boycott in college football history, wasn't as frivolous as marching over drinking whenever and wherever you want. In the much broader context of the rights of student-athletes, they are shit upon constantly. In that regard, banding together to tell the U. -- ostensibly their employer, although they don't get paid -- that they won't play in the Holiday Bowl unless the ten players suspended and possibly expelled by the university were "give due process" over allegations of a gang rape is a noble thing. Also, I don't want to blame them for "optics." Making things look bad is a real-world consideration that does have real consequences, but that's such a shallow way to decide which battles you want to pick and choose. If you have principles, stand up for them. There are too many people in power willing to deal away their dignity and that of others just in order to maintain that power.
Saying that, this looks really bad. As much as the rights of college athletes deserve more scrutiny, so does the issue of rape on college campuses. None of us have the details of the allegations, but for far too long, universities have looked the other way as woman after woman detail how they were sexually assaulted by a male student-athlete at the university, and then were ignored or dismissed by the university after they brought up those accusations. That is wrong, and that is the wrong that the University of Minnesota needs to pay attention to above everything else. Sure, you can say that the U. is preemptively thwarting accusations that they're protecting their players. You can even accuse school officials of being "politically correct," an inaccurate and, indeed, tired buzzword that more people seem emboldened to use because Donald Trump is going to be fucking President. But by God, those players have to know that if the college went down the same sinister road that Baylor did, specifically sidelining and then smearing the victim, they would catch even more shit from the public, and deservedly so. By at the very least paying lip service to by giving the allegations made by this woman, they are doing what more colleges have to do. The football team standing up for their "fallen brothers" is impotent in the face of that reality.
But what really bothers me about this move -- and this might be unfair, but it's how I feel -- is that this football team is now accusing the victim. Women say they get victimized a second time when the university they believed would help bring their attackers to justice don't help them. Well, when you have a power structure like the football team having the attackers' backs, that really is the same thing. The players may be powerless in the face of the athletic department, and yes, it's the U. football team, so who cares. Still, jock culture is a serious weapon, and there are people that will rally around this team because they play sports. I don't doubt that someone knows the identity of this accuser and has harassed or even doxxed her name and information online. The players that haven't been suspended may not like that, but they enabled that bullying when they held that players-only press conference threatening to not play the bowl.
Well, the administration probably got permission (from the accuser?) to show the players the report of what she says happened that night. And after they conferred with the suspended players, one whom said that he didn't want the rest of the team to be dragged down with him, the team hastily called another press conference to say they're ending the boycott. Good for them to beat a hasty retreat from an ill-conceived power move, but the lasting impression will at least be one of a bizarre decision that was quickly taken back after two days, and at worst a horrible diminishing of, if true, a heinous crime. And, by the way, this hubbub surrounds a meaningless exhibition.
Finally, I have to join the resounding denunciation of Tracy Claeys. There's standing by your team as they empower themselves:
Have never been more proud of our kids. I respect their rights & support their effort to make a better world! 〽️🏈— GoldenGopherHFC (@GoldenGopherHFC) December 16, 2016
And then there's completely being tone-deaf to the other side, of which stands who would be the real victim in all of this. I don't want to say that he's held to different standards because he holds a different position of being the bridge between the athletic department and the players. But when you say your kids siding with people accused of rape are trying "to make a better world," well, you stand in opposition of an administration that is on the side of the victim (again, as superficially legal as that may turn out to be). Some will applaud Claeys for supporting his players. Many more may see him as an enemy to rape victims. Because of that, he may be fired. Whatever happens, his image at the U. has been irrevocably damaged by this move.
Say this for Claeys, though; at least he's aware of what he has said and done.
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