A reminder that for 2024, the WMNSS will be published Mondays. This first survey of 2024 encompasses Games from Dec. 31, 2023 to Jan. 7, 2024.
Also, in regards to the new Professional Women's Hockey Association team ... uh, the Minnesota ... no, I'm not going to rank them here. Not because I look down upon women's hockey. I don't. If you will recall, I ranked the Whitecaps when the Premier Hockey Federation was around. But that team and the PHF are not around anymore, bought out and chloroformed when the stakeholders of that scrappy, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps league sold out to the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association, a group of the best players in women's hockey who indeed looked down upon the PHF and would not come near playing for it -- until they found some venture capitalists (Billie Jean King being one of them) and just bought the whole thing.
I know that the X got 13,000+ fans to watch the home opener of the home team as they (well, Grace Zumwinkle got a Hat Trick) shut out Montreal, 3-0. I just wonder if those fans really thought, "Wow! Finally there's a league for women's pro hockey!! How come no one ever thought of this before???" I think a lot of them didn't know there was a fucking league for pro women's hockey just last fucking Year. The PHF tried to do the right thing, fending out for themselves, and while they did get support, all I saw at the X were a bunch of fly-by-night ignoramuses who couldn't do the fucking research and realize there had been a goddamn in Minnesota for years now. And the PWHA doesn't give two shits about the history they bought up, part and parcel, because they want something "new" and "to call their own." And so they're not going to be called the Whitecaps, even though they bought the name and can and should use the brand because of the two decades of equity that comes from people who actually came and watched the 'Caps at Ridder Arena or TRIA Rink or The Richfield Ice Arena.
I hate all of this. I hate how all of this fucking went down, and I hate how the history of pro women's hockey in The State Of Hockey is actively being both erased and ignored. There is too much of an ick factor for me to support, let alone rank, this Astroturf league and bandwagon fan base. I might have to change my mind, of course; Lord knows I have covered teams in the WMNSS when I hate them with a passion. But I don't have to talk about them now. And I won't.
#0: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -1). You know, maybe Ben Johnson has finally turned the corner after all! A program picked to finish dead last in the B1G just won both their Games, both conference showdowns, this past screening Week, something I didn't think Johnson had in him. They went to Ann Arbor and eked out a 73-71 Win over reeling Michigan (whose Head Coach, Juwan Howard, might be fired for continually trying to hit people) on Thursday and then came home and eked out a 65-62 win over another once-proud program, Maryland, last/Sunday night. (These ballers prevented a #MinnesotaIsLoservilleUSA as the Vikings and Timberwolves lost last/Sunday night.) They've won seven in a row. Now this is a long season, and I still don't expect these guys to make The Big Dance. But right now every stakeholder with this team is feeling really good, and so I am riding that good feeling to the top spot in this Week's WMNSS and, on top of that, above negative numbers.
Only one Game this screening Week: At Indiana Friday evening. The Hoosiers are yet another once-proud program that has fallen on black days. The Gophers can win this one, too.
#-1: Gopher women's hockey (Re-Entry!). Hmmm, UConn ... that's not a club you see around these parts a whole lot. Anyway, the U. swept them this past weekend at Ridder Arena by 5-3 and 3-1 scores. But this weekend brings one of the only foes this program needs to worry about: Ohio St. comes to two for two this weekend.
#-2: Timberwolves (Last Week: 0). After a dream start, the Timberwolves are facing their first rough patch of the season. They went 1-3 this Week, with only a victory at Houston the only bright spot. Hey, championship teams go through swoons in an 82-Game season all the time, so I'm not going to sweat it. It's just that I'm a Minnesota sports fan and we're conditioned to expect the worst.
This Week's a busy one -- at Orlando and league-leading Boston before home tilts vs. Portland and The Bastard Buffalo Braves/San Diego Clippers.
#-3: Wild (Last Week: -3). A bad, bad 1-3 screening Week which started with The Bastard Atlanta Thrashers completing a home-and-home sweep of the Mild on New Year's Eve Afternoon and ended with miraculous 4-3, come-from-behind Win over a driftless organization, Columbus. I am giving myself false confidence when I note that this injury-riddled, cap-strapped squad is somehow only three Points off a playoff birth (even though five teams stand in front of them). Change back to The North Stars; their fortunes will improve immensely.
Oh, looky, The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.2.0 comes to town tonight/Monday night. We return the favor in Big D Wednesday. The Mild then come home for back-to-back contests versus Philadelphia and The Bastard Winnipeg Jets (hey, are they buying land in Phoenix or moving or what?).
#-4: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!). I don't think I've seen this squad play non-conference opponents in back-to-back series in January. I don't mind it; I just wished they would win. Colorado College, who are ranked 20th but haven't seemed to have been ranked since I remember them way back when I was a kid, beat the Gophs last/Sunday evening in the start of their two-Game series -- they're playing a Sunday-Monday series?? -- 6-4 at Mariucci. Not a great start after a long layoff over the holidays. Moreover, after they play tonight/Monday night, they play the other non-con series, at home against Robert Morris, Friday and Saturday. Never seen a four-Game turnaround between series before, either.
#-5: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -2). Maryland is a very good team, even though they have fallen a notch below the true elites over the past several Years. But I have high expectations for the Golden Gophers, and on Wednesday night they lost to the Terrapins by eight at home. The sky isn't falling; I think Charlie Creme still has them as a team on the bubble for a tournament slot. But I think I will have to tamper down what I believe these players are capable of. After all, Dawn Plitzuweit is in her first Year at the helm, so this is a mulligan season, right?
This Week: At Michigan, home to Nebraska.
#-6 (tie): Gopher volleyball and MNUFC (Re-Entry for both!). And now, two teams that have been rocked by surprising departures that leave you questioning the direction of both programs.
First, to Gopher volleyball, where, on the heels of a disappointing first season under new Head Coach Keegan Cook, Taylor Landfair, who was the Big Ten Player Of The Year and was AVCA First-Team All-American in 2022, announced that she was transferring to Nebraska, which just finished getting upset (in straight Sets) by Texas in the title Game. Despite losing, the Cornhuskers, who started the season setting a record for highest attendance for a women's Game on planet Earth, may be the marquee program in top-flight women's volleyball. That the U.'s best player decided she needed to leave Dinkytown is quite an indictment on the program. That Minnesota has never won a championship puts them a tier below Nebraska and Texas and Penn St. and Stanford and the like. Now, on the heels of a Second Round elimination, one has to wonder if this program is free-falling.
Meanwhile I don't know what the fuck is going on in Golden Valley/Midway. Sean McAuley has departed as Interim Head Coach of the Loons. Again, that's interim; the franchise has held off on naming a permanent replacement for Adrian Heath, and in fact the plan was for McAuley to continue in a caretaker role to start the new season, which starts about seven Weeks from now, until this new GM (I'm not going to bother looking up his name) came finally come stateside and is ready to help find one. Maybe that was a bullshit situation to McAuley; he left to pursue other opportunities, so it's not as if he has a new job lined up right now. So they have now appointed Cameron Knowles, their HC of the Reserve Squad, as Caretaker Manager, and lets hope he doesn't bolt town, too. Seriously, we are on a second interim coach? Doesn't that seem like a sign of a fucked-up organization?
#-Infinity: Vikings (Last Week: -4). Oh, you fucking Vikes, don't ever stop disappointing us, you motherfuckers. With an emasculation at home on New Year's Eve by Green Bay and a thorough beating at Detroit by a Lions squad that I still wonder if they were giving 100%, Minnesota finishes out of a playoff spot with a 7-10 record. They lost their last four Games and six of their last seven, and that sole Win, at Las Vegas by a score of 3-0, was so bad that we might as well count that as a Loss, too.
I predicted at the start of the season, when they went 0-2 to Tampa Bay and Philadelphia, that they would be an eight-or-nine-Win club, so in that sense I put more faith in them than they deserved. It's safe to say the season was over as soon as Kirk Cousins went out for the Year. But the Defense, which had overachieved through the middle of the season when it seemed like Josh Dobbs could salvage a playoff spot, went into the toilet the last month-plus of the season. It's ironic: You get a great Coordinator and you want him to replace your team's Head Coach even though you know he's going to be a HC somewhere else, but once his unit starts playing badly and it looks like he might stay put, you're all, "Fire this asshole!" The pendulum has swung that wildly for Brian Flores, I think.
Cousins, for all his shortcomings, now seems like the fucking savior we need to get back to success. But that Defense is old and still full of holes like last season, and I don't know how much younger and better we can get. The franchise feels really directionless right now, and unless General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah starts hitting on his Draft picks, things could get quite shittier in Eagan -- which, to be fair, is a very familiar feeling.
No comments:
Post a Comment