Ending the hiatus

Well it's been a week and a lot has gone down. Let's do our best to touch on the major points.

Gopher men: Sucked one in the barn with Purdue in the house. Saw only the 2nd half and they were terrible. No where near the team that played so well in Madison. Bounced back and got one that they had to have in Bloomington. That Indiana team will do some things next season, but they are having to deal with the crap that Sampson left behind. What an idiot. Big one tomorrow night, with Illinois coming to the Barn and they really need this one to maintain a solid 3rd in the Big Ten and climb into a virtual tie for 2nd. The then get an extra break to travel to East Lansing and take on #9 Michigan State. Playing in Izzone will be a true test for the Gophers. If Nolan can stay out of foul trouble and handle the ball and attack the rim the way that he has recently, the Gophers can come out with what would be an upset and to date biggest win of Tubby Smith's tenure in Dinky Town.

Gopher Hockey: Thank God had a weekend off, now they need to get themselves back on the train and take care of the details to securing an NCAA tournament bid. I think Doc said they are 4th or 5th in the Pairwise Rankings. But the Susies are red-hot, made oh so clear by Feever and are climbing the charts like a gal darn Brittany Spears song (hopefully met with the same ending!) . Border Battle with Bucky this weekend. I know that I am going to either place or get a call from OB...at least he took the freakin On Wisconsin reback off of his phone.

Iowa Women's Basketball: Yeah, I know. But Kamille Wahlin got her first collegiate start the other night and did a fantastic job for the Hawkeyes. It is a different kind of feeling to see a kid that you watched grow up play on what could be the biggest stage for her and for any athlete to come out of Crookston in a long, long time. Correct me if I'm wrong, please! We'll have to see how long this starting string lasts, I know that she didn't play herself out of starting again, but had heard that injuries had brought her to the first five. But we'll see! Very, very proud of her and Schmitty for getting her going in the right direction... This quote will be forever immortalized in Crookston by Frank the Tank though, "I don't care if she scores 50 points a game, she will not play varsity this year." That lasted what eight games?

Well that eases the sting a little bit...

Michigan State got bit at home by Northwestern tonight, which in turn validates their win versus the Gophers the other night. But nonetheless the lowly 'Cats now have 2 Big 10 victories which triples their total from last season, 7 games into the Big Ten schedule.

The Cat's win allowed the Gophers to get within a 1/2 game of Sparty, but the Gooph's can't look too far down the road. They have Purdue coming to The Barn tomorrow night, then a must win in Bloomington on Sunday afternoon and then the Fighting Illini come to Willliams Arena a week from tomorrow. So a big run for the Gophers if they want to prove that they belong among the big boys in the conference and garner the respect they feel they deserve nationally.

Personally, watching the Gophers in a couple of games and seeing a lot of ACC games on local, these kids can play with anyone. With the amount of pressure that they apply and the depth of the bench would give anyone in the ACC or Big East fits. It will be interesting to see if the Gophers can continue to be strong through the remainder of their Big Ten schedule and if they can make some noise come March/April.

Hopefully rolling blog tomorrow night with the game being on ESPN2.

Word.

WTF Twins?

What the hell are the Twins trying to accomplish this off season? Bill Smith must be on freakin crack or Carl Pohlad is reaching out from beyond. Another BIG signing today...Jason Freakin Kuebel. Talk about a huge let down from the hype that accompanied him from AAA. He was supposed to be the slugger before Morneau showed up. He was supposed to be the young gun, face of the franchise before Joe and his bluest blue eyes donned the #7. I am, needless to say, less than thrilled to see this signing. The only thing that I can see happening is Denard Span getting the shaft back to AAA. I don't think that they will crush the petite, fragile psyche that is Carlos Gomez. And neither of those things is good for the ball club. Do we really need to pay a freakin light weight hitting DH $2.5 million plus?

Then, to add on top of that monstrosity, the front office's answer to the joke that was middle relief is either Brandon Lyon or Eric Gagne. Lyon was pitching in the National League and mediocre as a middle reliever and closer. Gagne had the wrost year of his career last year and just wow, I can't believe this is where we are headed.

Gopher Fans #1 & #1a

Weens has them enshrined into the Gopher Hole Wall 'O Gophs already.

Ha ha ha ha ha, seriously.

"Because of the impending bad weather, Southampton County Public Schools will be closed today..."

This is awesome, the threat of bad weather induces the Super to cancel school. However unable to deal with any type of precipitation that could make travel difficult, student safety is a priority and understandable.

But, it's still hilarious that the threat of weather can cancel an entire day.

I still go back 5 years ago to my first year of teaching. On a Sunday night, Virginia got three inches and Crookston got three feet. Crookston had a 2 hour delay and so did we...on Friday.


UPDATE: So it snowed for about 2o minutes at 9am and all but a dusting in the shadows was gone by 10am. I actually felt bad about not having to go to work today...kind of anyways.

Did that just happen?

Did I just watch the Arizona Cardinals make it to the Super Bowl? Wow. For the first half, I was just waiting for Philly to regain their feet and get back in and take the lead in the game, but the Cards kept coming at them (with a little help from a flee-flicker). It wasn't until the second half that the Cards starting looking like the Vikings and let the Eagles actually take the lead. But the Cards of the Desert had a little fight left in them and by gosh, got themselves into the big one in 2 weeks.

Would love to be watching the Steelers and Ravens...but we're watching what is the equivalent to two and a half days of pre-game for the inaguration. Hey historical event and all...but it's on Tuesday. Cut me some slack here.

Hopefully more later...hopefully.

UPDATE:

I f'ed this one up, thought the game was later and the Gopher's pissed one away at Northwestern. Cripes. Down with Goldly has a lot better run down than what I can say. That wrecks the evening.

Quick Look Back and Ahead

Gophers Hockey has a great weekend, getting the sweep of the Huskies in the obsurdness that is a home and home series. Let's not get started on that mess.

Gopher's Basketball can complete a huge week by getting a win tonight at Northwestern. Let's see if we can teach those brainiacs something about hoops.

Duke escaped with one yesterday, I do say escaped asif Georgetown's center, Mason is able to stay out of foul trouble, that game has a whole new look & feel.

I can't believe that ehe Cardinal's are playing with the Eagles! Well more than anything, Arizona is just making fewer mistakes (as I type Akers just missed).

I agree with Dan Shanoff--if someone doesn't capitalize on #23b Brown's jersies...

Quick Look Back at the Gopher's Game

So the Gophers were able to knock down a couple of key threes to get the game to overtime and then used fantastic big man play to win the game. Carter, Johnson, and Westbrook were phenomenal throughout and Nolen contributed what he could, staying in foul trouble all night. Great win for Tubby and the Maroon and Gold. Tough couple weeks ahead, with the biggest test by far coming when they will travel to East Lansing to take on Michigan State on February the 4th.

Day off from work, Lee-Jackson Holiday, or as I like to call it Red Neck Friday. Just another fabulous perk for being a teacher. Enjoy your 9-5 suckers...

Gopher's Basketball

So far, not so bad for the Golden Gopher basketball programs tonight. The women went to Columbus and won for the first time in 25 tries...which would be every visit they had made to the Buckeye state. Nice win for the ladies.

Approaching halftime here, the men have played in spurts, both good and bad. And they just finished on a bad one. Gophers started out on fire, opening a 13-4 lead on the Badgers, but saw the Cheesers come back on 29-9 run to finish the half. The Gophers cut the lead to 8 with :40 and the ball but were unable to execute an inbounds play for a score and the goober in the googles made it an 11 point halftime lead. Summamabitch

UPDATE
Goophs come back from 14 down to force overtime here...a three with 2.1 second ties it. This Westbrook kid has been electric tonight. Carter kid is one helluva leaper.

I know I haven't seen a load of basketball players at the U like this in about 10 or 12 years...and they are young!

Holy Crap

So sit down to check out some college hoops tonight and catch Jodie Meeks of Kentucky go completely off, scoring 54 against Tennessee. Now the Volunteers are no defensive juggernaut, but damn, ten 3's and nailed a heat check three with about four minutes to go to put the icing on the cake. Unbelievable performance and probably the best hit of the night was his interview after the game. Probably bullshitting his ass off, but said his biggest accomplishment was just getting a win in Knoxville. Impressive attitude young man, send a little of that over this way, my guys could use some of that.

Peace out

WM

Recent Poll

Here's the most recent USCHO.com poll...the Goophs took a bit of a tumble (3 to 7) after getting scalped by the Susies in Forks this weekend.

And by the way, my wife is trying to ruin me by making me watch the CW on Monday nights...

WM

Bigger than games...

So many times in our lives today do we over look what is truly important, our family and friends, for what is hot right now. I get trapped in what I'm doing some of the time, and I really hate myself sometimes for that. A player of mine lost a brother on Friday morning and I spent the weekend still coaching and spending time with my players, but I missed out on two more bed times, a bunch of giggles and smiles and thousands of memories with my own girls. I often worry that I'm working too much and am missing too much...but I know that if we sacrifice now it will allow me to enjoy them that much more further down the road. But with the passing of a 4 year old, you have to wonder how much road do we each have left and how much savoring of time do we need to do now.

WM

Guh

So tried calling Weens on the bus ride home last night and there was no answer, which is no real surprise, but when Doc takes forever to answer = bad news. Kangas getting dumped in the 2nd period can't be good...should be an interesting week of hearing from Sussies' fans. Speaking of which, Feever gave me the quick low down in a text, and speaking as a typical muckety muck, he told me of domination by the Kelly Green & Black.

With the sweep, the Gophs and Sioux are now tied for 4th with 17 points, six behind league leading Denver. But with no team with less than four losses, and with Tech as the only team that looks like they don't belong, should be a great finish.

Might be the first time in a how long, I can't remember when the WCHA did not have four teams in the NCAA's, might just be 2 this year, yikes.

WM

Gooph's vs. Susies

So from the Weens we hear that the Susies completely outplayed the Gophers. 2-0 half way through the 2nd brings us to a 6-3 final. I can understand it to a point, head coach not making the trip makes a lot of sense for the team to play down to a Junior B, Canadian Juniors league hockey team. But nonetheless, Siouxguy is going to be a bowl full of jello shaking around talking about the game. But we'll see what tomorrow brings. But something about Saturday games that makes the traveling team a dog, no matter the advantage...more in the AM with the girls.

WM

Let it begin...

This is the original, beta version of Drinking with Bert and Wooger. Two of my favorite color commentators that we often believe, by the contents of some of their comments, are half or fully in the bag when they are on air.

I'm sure that others remember Bert's on air f-bomb tirade in New York, if you missed it here it is. Priceless

Wooger is a very unique creature to say the least. The number of Woogisms that follow a Gopher game is astounding. By far, my favorite line came during overtime..."Whoever gets the next goal has great chance to win this game!" Swear to God.

Feel free to drop a comment or line, I look forward to get going on here. Exploring different sports and personalities in the sports world. We will concentrate upon Minnesota sports, save the soccer and lacrosse teams, and point out all the things that make us chuckle and proud that we're not Badger or Sioux fans...

WM