HS State Hockey: 2,756 Stand As One

2,756 people live in Roseau, Minnesota. Of these, 325 are officially listed as high school students, according to the Minnesota State High School League. Roseau is the smallest school of any of the 16 in the state tournament - even smaller than all of the Class A schools. It was fitting, then, that on the weekend that Roseau again conquered the odds for a state title, the most popular movie at the box office should involve 300 standing against forces much greater than their own.

At the end of the Battle of Thermopylae, all 300 Spartans lay dead; in St. Paul tonight, the Roseau Rams lay on the ice as well, but this in celebration. They now stand atop the mountain of the state hockey tournament, perhaps the toughest climb in state high school sports. Roseau's 5-1 win over Grand Rapids tonight means their seventh state title, and their second since the state split the hockey playoffs asunder and Roseau decided that they'd rather keep playing for the real title, thank you very much.

Grand Rapids, on the other hand, must be a town in pain - this is now the second consecutive year they've reached the final game of the season, and haven't been able to come through with a title. They outshot Roseau 29-24 tonight, but couldn't find a way past Rams goaltender Mike Lee until the game was pretty much out of hand.

The 300 of Roseau are champions again tonight. Tradition and a Roseau mite-to-high school program have again triumphed over the sheer numerical advantage of the big schools. What a great story. Throw it together with Hermantown's undefeated season, and you can't ask for a better pair of champions in the state hockey tournament this season.

And so the state playoffs are in the books. Everyone's heading back to their far-flung corners of the state, and thankfully, two trophies are heading to the two northern corners of the state as well. If you're like me, well - you couldn't be happier about that.

Gopher Hockey: Failure for the Ages

The first game in the new Mariucci Arena took place in 1993. There was worry among the Gopher masses that Minnesota might lose some of their home-ice advantage with the move to the larger, more sterile, less quirky new building.

For thirteen seasons, the Gophers set about disproving that, by being perfect when things were on the line. 22 WCHA playoff games were played there; Minnesota won all 22. Minnesota played four NCAA playoff games there; Minnesota won four NCAA playoff games there.

Last night was #27 in a series, Minnesota's 27th consecutive playoff win at Mariucci. The New Mariucci, come playoff time, was an impenetrable fortress. WCHA teams scheduled to play there in the postseason could just as well have stayed home.

Until tonight. Minnesota, the #1 seed, played lackadaisical, uninspired hockey for most of the game, and blew one of the best records in all of Minnesota sports by losing at Mariucci Arena in the playoffs.

Good work, guys. (rolling of eyes)


Tomorrow night, then, the Gophers have to come back and spend a third evening with the Seawolves. They have a second shot to put away UAA. And I'd like to remind them of this:

Only one team in Gopher history has ever lost a home playoff series: the 1982-1983 team. Is that company you'd care to join?

HS State Hockey: Hermantown Does It!

It's in the books: Hermantown is your 1A state champion. They defeated Duluth Marshall 4-1 today. Marshall controlled much of the game, but couldn't score on the power play, which was eventually the Toppers' undoing.

In winning the title, Hermantown strikes a blow for both the outstate and the public, something that all of us whose high schools also fit that description can get behind. And take a look at that schedule. Not a blemish on that list, unless you count an 0-0 tie and a 1-0 tie. 29-0-2 this season, and a big ol' trophy to put in the trophy case at home, and of course, a lifetime of memories and a lifetime of stories to tell.

Feel free to inflate it to 31-0-0 when you tell the story, kids. You earned it.

HS State Hockey: Uni Watch, Minnesota Style

The hockey jersey is, in general, the coolest uniform in all of sports. Hockey sweaters are undeniably cool. Compare this to other sports: Baseball jerseys look stupid untucked in any situation, but if you wear one tucked into anything but a pair of baseball pants, you look ridiculous. The same goes for football jerseys, and anyway football jerseys are entirely variations on a theme: one color for the jersey, another for the numbers. There is not a lot of room for creativity with a football jersey, and those who do try to get creative (see: Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos, etc.) invariably look like clowns.

And nobody looks good in a basketball jersey. Not even basketball players. And if you're a member of the general public, you have the choice of either wearing a T-shirt underneath and looking like a goober, or going shirtless and exposing your armpits to the world, a decision that always ends in tears of some kind.

Rugby and cricket and soccer jerseys are basically normal shirts, but with gigantic logos plastered on them. Your choices are either to wear a normal-looking shirt (pointless if you're going for the jersey look), or to wear something that's basically a billboard in clothing form.

But hockey jerseys? They look cool on the ice, off the ice, and even on people who are not wearing pants. Hockey jerseys work.

Of course, when it comes to high school jerseys, all bets are off. It's fairly tough to find classy jerseys in high school sports. I suppose this is the product of stupid nicknames and the fact that no high schools have design gurus to make them look good.

This week at the Minnesota state hockey tournament, we had all sorts on display. There were some good, some bad, and a few in between. First, photo links to all of them, so you can see what I'm talking about:

1AA: Rochester Century
2AA: Woodbury
3AA: Hill-Murray
4AA: Blaine
5AA: Burnsville
6AA: Edina
7AA: Grand Rapids
8AA: Roseau

1A: Albert Lea (the guy getting hit)
2A: Duluth Marshall (another)
3A: St. Thomas Academy (on the left)
4A: Little Falls
5A: Blake
6A: Orono
7A: Hermantown
8A: Warroad (the guys doing the hitting)

Lots of variations there. Several teams aim for classiness by using the New York Rangers-style diagonal lettering - Roseau, Albert Lea, Duluth Marshall, Little Falls, and Orono all go this route. Only Woodbury and Hermantown go completely sans lettering on the front of the jersey (Woodbury making the curious decision to wear a cuddly-looking blue lion on the front of their jerseys.)

My rankings are based on no design guidelines, no sartorial principles, nothing except for one guiding rule: Would this jersey look good if I wore it on a random trip out of the house? Given the freedom that we all have to utilize the coolness of the hockey jersey in all situations in life, as far as I'm concerned, that's the only rule that matters.

First, I must mention the jersey that is by far the worst in the entire state tournament: the Marshall School Toppers. The darks are horrible; the lights fall into the category of "sartorial holocaust." No team not named "Bumblebees" should wear these jerseys. They are undeniably hideous.

Little Falls, they of the unbelievable purple-and-yellow color scheme, are running a close second.

Beyond that, though, here are my rankings for the top 3:

3 - Orono - Classic in every respect, from the diagonal lettering down to the red, white, and blue color scheme. You could take this template and put any letters across the front that you wanted - "TURGID", "BOLLOCKS", anything - and it'd look classy.
2 - Blake - You have to love the Hartford Whalers-style jersey and color scheme. Give the WHA credit, they could do jerseys.

And the best-looking jersey at the state tournament:

1 - Grand Rapids


So what if the color combo makes them look like skating pumpkins. I love this jersey - from the non-monochrome look, to the orange sleeve-white jersey combo, to the stripe on the bottom (something that all hockey jerseys should be required to have). These are the best ones you'll see this weekend; hardly surprising that the Thunderhawks are in the final, given how good they look every day.

Tonight, we'll see the classic Grand Rapids jerseys take on the if-toothpaste-was-a-color jerseys of Roseau. "If you look good, you'll play good," goes the old jersey aphorism. We'll find out if that holds true this year.

HS State Hockey: The Finals Are Set

The morning session in the small-school tournament brought us public vs. public and private vs. private. The evening in the "real" tournament showcased teams from north of everything beating up on teams from south of the Cities. It's semifinal day in St. Paul, the day when four teams from across the state end up going to sleep with championship dreams dancing in their heads.

Today's games:

Duluth Marshall 3, St. Thomas Academy 2 - Somewhere in St. Paul tonight, Marshall defenseman Dano Jacques (great name, that) most likely feels like he's walking about five feet above the ground. Jacques scored all three Toppers goals - including the game-winner in the second overtime.

Given that this is a private school vs. private school matchup, there are no real winners, but Marshall's at least an outstate team for those of us who come from somewhere outside the third ring of suburbs.

Hermantown 4, Warroad 3 - One more game. One more game, and the Hawks will have their undefeated season, with the state championship capping it all off. This is the season that every kid shooting a tennis ball in his driveway dreams about. Granted, Hermantown had to come from behind to do it - at 2-0 down to Warroad, I thought they were done, but they came back from behind in the third period against Little Falls, and did it again tonight.

So, the Class A Final is set: it'll be Duluth Marshall vs. Hermantown.

The first thing that comes to mind is this: how is it possible that these two teams, from the same conference, 8.4 miles apart by road, can possibly be playing each other in the state final? Somewhere tonight, Warroad is wondering how they can use this same irrational reasoning to get a section assignment in a different section from Roseau. Seriously, how can these conference rivals end up coming together in the last game of the season? The two teams did meet during the season, but that doesn't help us a bit - it was a 1-1 tie in early January.

Our rooting interests lie, of course, with Hermantown, the public school in this matchup. The Hawks' story has also caught my fancy, the undefeated small high school that's trying to complete the perfect season, one that culminates in the skating of the state championship trophy.

Roseau 3, Rochester Century 1 - Roseau's the last remaining seeded team in the state tournament, and they showed their talent against Century. Hermantown may have had the perfect season, but the Rams' was pretty close - 23 wins, two losses, beat Warroad twice, and pretty much blew out every team they played all year - only two of their wins were by fewer than two goals. Their only regular-season problem was Moorhead, which beat them 6-1 and 4-1 during the season. But when it counted - the section final - it was Roseau that came out on top.

Roseau, of course, remains the favorite of misty-eyed traditionalists everywhere - the smallest high school in either class of the state tournament, and they've rolled all the way to the title game.

Grand Rapids 4, Burnsville 3, OT - Grand Rapids sort of snuck by everyone this year, partially because their captain and star, Gopher recruit Patrick White, missed much of the season with a high ankle injury. So it was somewhat of a surprise to see a team with seven losses slash through their section, then steamroller Edina 3-1 in the quarterfinals. Tonight against Burnsville, though, the Thunderhawks proved that they were the real deal - for 48 minutes.

Burnsville scored with just over 2:30 left. Thrashings of a doomed team, I thought. They scored again less than a minute later. They're gonna make it a game, thought I.

Then they pulled the goalie. Worked the puck down into the zone. And suddenly Tyler Barnes was alone in front of the net with the puck, falling backwards, but finding the puck with his stick and poking it....

Tie. Tie ballgame. Pandemonium in the Burnsville student section.

Credit to Grand Rapids, though - they regrouped, and Sam Rendle got the game-winner not too far into overtime. Whew. Now that's a game.

So.

Tomorrow night, two teams will play for the right to call themselves the best high school hockey team in the state of Minnesota. It'll be Grand Rapids vs. Roseau. It's the dream of every kid that plays high school hockey in Minnesota - from Grand Rapids and Roseau all the way down to lowly 1-18 Sleepy Eye.

And what a great state final! Both schools are small enough to give up and play Class A, but instead have chosen to play for the championship of the entire state, a decision that we commend and admire. It's two schools from the true North Country. A rematch of the 1990 state title game. Two classic schools, two classic powerhouses. Three titles for Grand Rapids, but the last 27 years ago. Six titles for Roseau, the last in 1999.

Only one will carry the trophy off the ice tomorrow night. Which one will it be?

HS State Hockey: Ach Du Lieber, Star Tribune

Currently appearing on the front page of StarTribune.com:



For a newspaper that's trying to pass its prep coverage off as top-rate, this is horrible. The Star Tribune has effectively just vomited on the floor and is now drooling on itself. Have some respect for yourself, Star Tribune. Rosseau? You mis-spelled "Roseau" during the high school hockey tournament? TWICE? Heavens.

Gopher Football: What'll he do in week two?

Today was the fourth day of spring football practice. Most new head coaches would be just easing into their new jobs, trying to get a feel for their team, trying to figure out who's going to play defensive end and fullback and which one of the kickers is the least terrible (and how to remember which one is named "Jason," too.)

Coach Tim Brewster? He's just pulling out all the stops.

(An aside: He was downtown at noon today, in the skyway signing autographs in the TCF bank building, chatting up anybody who stopped by and generally making the always-grinning Goldy look like a grumpy sourpuss.)

On day one, he held a press conference and got everyone so fired up that he almost had to hand out helmets and shoulder pads to media members so they could all do some hitting.

On day two, he invited Laurence Maroney, Darrell Thompson, Marion Barber III, and Thomas Tapeh to watch practice and speak to the team and pump everybody up.

On day three, he brought former Gopher coach Murray Warmath to watch practice and get everybody thinking about Minnesota's last Big Ten title.

And on day four - this is my favorite one so far - he even topped that: he had a UPS guy walk onto the field at the end of practice with a package addressed to Coach Brewster. Inside: a big ol' patch of sod from the field at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, representing Minnesota's 2007 goal.

Isn't that great? Isn't that something out of a sports movie? Even if Tim Brewster doesn't make it as a college football coach, he's got a future in event marketing, or possibly in screenwriting.

I'm not exactly sure what he's planning for the spring game, but at this point, it's going to have to involve a giant human pyramid formed by every living Gopher All-American, followed by a flyover by the Blue Angels, followed by Tim Brewster giving every season ticket holder a hug and $50, then ascending into the press box with no visible means of support.

This guy's fun.


(Ed. note: if you've stayed with me this long tonight, another plug: Check out RandBall tomorrow morning, as I've got 300 words appearing there again this week.)

HS State Hockey: The "real" tournament stars today

For all the purists and grumpy old cranks out there, today was the beginning of the state high school hockey tournament. Admittedly it's hard to see the winner of the AA tournament as anything but the state's best high school team, with the A tournament winner standing as its best wimpy team. So be it. With four quarterfinals today, it's tough to have too much time to think about these things.

Quick thoughts on the AA quarterfinals:

-- #2 Roseau 7, Woodbury 2 - It's kind of hard to believe that this game was tied at 2-2 for awhile. The boys from the north came out in the last two periods and just whomped the Royals into the ground.

For those of us with rooting interests similar to mine, it's hard not to feel good about this one. Roseau is outstate, Woodbury is metro. Roseau is a throwback - a Class A-sized team in the big-school division, testing themselves against the big boys. Woodbury HS is almost six times the size of Roseau HS. Six! That's amazing. The only thing that would have been better was if Woodbury was a private school.

-- Rochester Century 6, #3 Hill-Murray 5, OT - Finally, an upset! After five straight seeded teams won quarterfinals, the boys from Century came in and shocked Hill-Murray in overtime. And yes, this means we can rejoice - the one private school in the AA tournament is out, gone, done, heading over to Mariucci Arena. And they went down to an outstate team. It would have been easily the biggest win of the day, except for the next game...

-- Grand Rapids 3, #1 Edina 1 - The cake-eaters are going home. I'll start this with the best Edina joke I know:

Q: Why are Edina's teams called "Hornets"?
A: Because "WASPs" would have been too obvious.

Grand Rapids is the other easy-to-root for team in the tournament, another school small enough to be in Class A but proud enough to stay in Class AA. And they pulled the biggest upset of the last two days, beating Edina into the ground for the W. The other great thing about this game: doesn't Grand Rapids - Edina sound like it should be taking place in the 1964 state tournament? What a classic matchup.

-- Burnsville 4, #4 Blaine 2 - The Blaze completed the upset explosion in the nightcap, despite their ridiculous nickname. (Seriously, everyone, when you change your name from a Native American one, it doesn't necessarily have to be something stupid. Try an animal, or something else that ends in the letter S.)

The dream continues for Burnsville - first knocking off Holy Angels in the section final, and now into the semifinals against a Grand Rapids team that played great tonight but has not done so all season.


Those are some great-looking semifinals, you have to admit. Roseau vs. Rochester Century at 6 p.m. tomorrow night. Grand Rapids vs. Burnsville at 8 p.m. The favorite for the whole thing is now Roseau, which probably means they'll be knocked off immediately, given the spate of upsets today.

I'm excited. It's going to be a big Friday.

Gopher Basketball: Just The Same Damn Thing Over and Over Again

"Sixty shots taken from the floor and only eight successful," scream the headlines. "The boys just couldn't hit," explains the coach.

Here's the surprising part: this article isn't from today. It's from the February 25, 1947 issue of The Minnesota Daily, and it's describing a 46-25 loss to Michigan. I mention this only because this game - over sixty years ago - marks the last time that Minnesota failed to score more than 40 points against Michigan.

In comparison, this year's team managed to take forty-four shots, fourteen of them successful, for a total of 40 points in a 49-40 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten tournament today. Compared to that game in 1947, today's Gophers were practically a Phoenix Suns-style run and gun unit, so that's something to go on, I suppose.

Incidentally, the first time Minnesota broke 40 against Michigan: February 16, 1918. They had 49 that day. "Michigan, a team lacking both weight and speed, proved no match for Minnesota Saturday night," said the Daily. "Throughout the contest Minnesota had the upper hand. Gillen played the best game, his basket shooting being the best ever seen on the armory floor."

Ah, those were the days, weren't they?

HS State Hockey: Maybe This Is Too Much Clay Matvick

Lou Nanne is back on the air! It's good to hear Sweet Lou's dulcet Canadian tones again, talking alongside Clay Matvick, who by this point must have a picture of Anthony LaPanta that's riddled with bullet holes.

Today was the Class A quarterfinals, a chance for all of us to ease into state tournament weekend. Class A always strikes me as the equivalent of about the Prep Bowl, in terms of excitement; sure, people show up, and there's plenty of screaming teenagers to fill the effect microphones, but ultimately things are still just a little dead.

Not that any of the Class A teams particularly care. (Except for maybe Warroad, who should be playing AA if they had any dignity.)

Quick thoughts on the A quarterfinals today:

-- #2 St. Thomas Academy 5, Orono 2 - Hard to feel good about this one, STA being the most hateable of all the teams in the tournament by my reckoning. They're the defending champs, erasing any underdog advantage they might have had, and they're also a private school. Which is bad enough, but they also don't have the guts to play up in Class 2A where they belong, instead keeping the advantages of being a recruiter school in the metro area, without having to deal with other teams who might be decent enough to give them a game.

Cheaters.

-- #3 Duluth Marshall 4, Blake 3 - The Hilltoppers just barely managed not to completely blow this one, taking a 4-1 lead into the third period but then giving up two goals in about a minute. From a rooting standpoint, this one's a toughie - private school vs. private school! However, Breck's a metro private school, which is two strikes against them right there, and Marshall is at least out of the metro. Presumably they have to compete with Duluth East and Hermantown and every other decent hockey school up there if they want to recruit players, too.

Am I excusing them? Nope - but I'll gladly take them over Breck.

-- #1 Hermantown 6, Little Falls 3 - The dream season continues! Hermantown remains undefeated (and only twice-tied). It took four goals in the third period to do it - one of them an empty-netter - but the Hawks survive to play another day. (Specifically, Friday.)

I was willing to be on board both the Little Falls and Hermantown bandwagons, but thanks to the seeding process, they unfortunately collided in the first round. Tough darts, I guess. Ultimately, I had to take the Flyers over Hermantown, because Little Falls is out in the middle of nowhere between St. Cloud and Brainerd, and you have to like that.

-- #4 Warroad 3, Albert Lea 1 - The difference was twelve seconds of power play time for Warroad - seven seconds of a man advantage near the beginning of the third period, five seconds with less than five minutes to go. Both of them were faceoff wins followed immediately by goals - apparently, Warroad has the most efficient power play in high school history.

As far as rooting interests in this one, while I'm disrespectful of Warroad's decision not to play in the "real" division, Albert Lea HS is almost three times the size of Warroad HS, in fact is bigger than two of the teams in the AA final eight. It's hard not to take Warroad, a classic program that's as outstate as they come, in this one.

And their school song is the Minnesota Rouser!


So Orono, Blake, Little Falls, and Albert Lea have to endure the ignominy of playing the rest of their tournament at Mariucci Arena. The four top seeds move on to the semifinals: St. Thomas Academy vs. Duluth Marshall at 11am on Friday, Hermantown vs. Warroad at 1pm the same day. The final will be a public school vs. a private school; all right-thinking Minnesotans know which side of that one they'll be on.

Gopher Football: Closure

I've been waiting on this, and I wasn't sure we were ever going to get it. Sure, Tim Brewster's been great so far - he's been saying the right things, doing the right things, he invited Murray Warmath to practice and then ran the Oklahoma drill for awhile, just for the old coach - but he wasn't our first choice. He wasn't my first choice, he wasn't the department's first choice, he wasn't anyone's first choice.

That was Tony Dungy. We all wanted the guy, and (we admit) were kind of rooting for him to lose in the playoffs and get fired so he could come back here.

Through all the rumors and conjecture and interviews with Dungy, the one thing we never heard is that the Gophers had definitively made an offer to Dungy. From where I was sitting, it was like a seventh-grade boy trying to ask a girl to dance - first, you send Bob Bruininks over to talk to HER friend, and they negotiate for awhile, and eventually word filters back to the interested party that Tony simply doesn't LIKE Joel, no offense. And then there is punching on the shoulder.

Anyway, Jeff Shelman got bored and headed over to Bierman for a Q&A with Joel Maturi, which was pretty standard. But it did include this quote from Maturi:

"I offered the job to Tony Dungy, he didn't take it."

Ahhh... feels good to get closure on that, even now. It's time to move onto the next step of the year: getting ready for the spring game! Hopefully it's more fun than last year, when about 3,000 people showed up, only to discover that someone had decided to put the first-team offense and the first-team defense on the same team. Maroon won 49-0, for good reason, proving nothing except that the Gophers had no depth whatsoever.

Of course, in 2004, Glen Mason - this is true - let Goldy play a couple of plays. The mascot scored on a swing pass and sacked the quarterback, and somewhere, Bear Bryant affected the rotation of the earth by spinning so violently in his grave. So it can't get much worse than that.

Minnesota: Off the Radar and Onto the Page

It's time once again for the kinda-sorta weekly look at the sports that don't get covered by the Star Tribune, the Pioneer Press, or anyone else with a shred of sanity. And away we go...

-- This one actually made the regular news: the Gopher Wrestling team, as expected, is Minnesota's fourth league champion of 2007. The Gopher grapplers positively dominated the Big Ten tournament, winning four titles and placing five others in the top half (and shame on Yura Malamura for getting shut out, I guess). The final tally was Minnesota 156, nobody else with more than 100. The four individual title winners were Jayson Ness (125), Dustin Schlatter (149), CP Schlatter (157), and Cole Konrad (Hwt.)

The Gopher wrestlers now move on to the NCAA championships in Auburn Hills, MI. The championships run March 15-17. Minnesota is the odds-on favorite for the title, and must defend its top ranking.

-- The Dairy Queen Classic was a little more snow-bound than normal, but the Gopher Baseball team didn't seem to mind, as they had what must qualify as a very good weekend for them at the Metrodome. Thanks to the snow, the Gophers ended up with doubleheaders against #16 Ole Miss and #5 Arkansas, and they split both neatly down the middle for a 2-2 weekend against ranked teams. Saturday they won the first against the Rebels, 3-2, before dropping the nightcap 9-4. Sunday, they lost 5-1 to the Razorbacks in the opener, but came back for a 10-5 win in the last game of the Classic.

Arkansas was the highest-ranked opponent that the Gophers had beat since March 2003, when they beat then-#2 Cal State Fullerton.

The Gophers have a midweek exhibition against St. Thomas, then three more games at the Metrodome this weekend with Missouri State.

-- The Minnesota Swarm dropped a weekend thriller to Buffalo, 16-15 in St. Paul. The Swarm fell behind early and couldn't close the gap, coming no closer than one goal in the third quarter. Ultimately, the team could have moved above Buffalo for second place in the Eastern Division with a win, but will have to settle for their current position in third.

The Swarm are off this weekend for the National Lacrosse League All-Star Game, which is being televised on Versus, probably to make the NHL All-Star Game viewership numbers look good. Defenseman Ryan Cousins and forward Ryan Ward will be making the trip to Portland to represent Minnesota in the showcase, March 10th at 9:00pm.

The Swarm return to action in two weeks, with a home-and-home against Philadelphia on March 17-18, the second at the Xcel Center.

-- Short takes: the Minnesota Thunder signed two more players for the 2007 season, goalkeeper Nicolas Platter and Woodbury native Sasha Gotsmanov. Platter played six games for the Thunder last year, and signed a three-year deal; Gotsmanov was a three-time All-State selection in Minnesota, and was last in Colorado's development program. The Thunder are hoping that the former Royal can bring some scoring to a team that struggled in that department last year.... the St. Paul Saints signed two lefties, both Minnesota natives. Jason Cierlik (Brooklyn Park and MSU - Mankato) spent three seasons in Baltimore's minor league system before returning to the Northern League last season, and Brian Whinnery (St. Paul, and St. Thomas) was with the Saints last year. Whinnery has an impressive Minnesota baseball resume, as he was the winning pitcher for two consecutive state championships with Cretin-Derham Hall, and was the winning pitcher for St. Thomas's only NCAA Division III title..... I think we can officially declare the Minnesota Ripknees official website dead in the water, but some sleuthing discovered that the team beat Detroit twice last weekend, 120-119 in overtime on Saturday, then 100-94 on Sunday. Say what you want about the Ripknees - and I've said plenty - but there's a decent chance they're the best basketball team in Minnesota right now.... maybe only behind the Winona State Warriors, who beat Southwest State on the weekend to claim the NSIC championship. More importantly, they've now tied the Division II record, with 52 consecutive wins.... the Minnesota Whitecaps made the championship game of the Western Women's Hockey League, which was theoretically played on Sunday, though there's no score listed anywhere on the internet. We are at this point forced to consider the possibility that the league went out of business on the day of the championship game, which would be a darn shame.

Gopher Hockey: I think he's here about six more weeks

The focus of John Buccigross's wonderful weekly ESPN column this week was an interview with Gophers defenseman Erik Johnson. It's an interesting read for those of us in Gopher Nation.

You probably already know Johnson's story - big defenseman from Holy Angels and the USNTDP. Drafted first overall in last season's NHL draft by the St. Louis Blues, the first Minnesotan ever selected first. Not yet nineteen years old.

He has had what I would call a decent freshman season - on the second PP unit, in the second defensive pairing, 3-17--20. Thinks he can slalom around everyone on the ice and score sometimes - he can't. Sometimes appears to be wishing strenuously that he could play forward instead of defense. I have made many jokes this year about Johnson jumping over the boards in place of a winger, then rushing back to the defensive end during a TV timeout and pushing the goaltender out of the net in hopes of replacing the netminder as well.

Is he ready to step in on St. Louis's blue line tomorrow night? Probably not, but he is good enough to get out of college hockey after this year. I think another year with the Gophers - paired with Alex Goligoski and playing 30 minutes a night - would do him a world of good, but that's partially wishful thinking on my part. He can play in the NHL. He's good enough.

Johnson agrees with me, it's clear. He does not actually write the words "I'm leaving school after this year" anywhere in his email exchange with Bucci, but there is nothing he could have said apart from that quote that would make it any plainer. "Next year, I really think I need to make the jump in competition in order to keep developing the way I want to," says Johnson. Those are the words of a guy who will be in the AHL next fall.

That's not the interesting part, though. We all knew that Johnson would almost certainly be gone after one season. Here's the interesting quote:

"I think here at Minnesota, I could have been used more effectively in the system, so that has been frustrating. "

At this point, I am leaning on my hand and saying sarcastically, "Oh, go on Erik, do tell. Do tell us how you could have been used more effectively."

I'm going to make an assumption here: I assume that Johnson would have liked to have played more offensively. (I assume this because of his tendency to unilaterally decide to play right wing, often at inopportune times.)

What exactly did you want, Erik? To see more ice time? Because there's two fellows named Goligoski and Vannelli (you know, the team captain) that were kind of ahead of you in line. Alex has played 111 games now. Mike has played 144. And if you look at the stats, both of them had similar freshman seasons to, well, yours.

Did you want more power play time? More time to shoot the puck? 'Cause I gotta tell you, Erik, you've got a cannon of a shot, but with the accuracy of someone trying to do calligraphy with a ketchup bottle. You've taken 103 shots, more than anyone else on the team, and you've scored three goals. This puts your percentage just a hair above those who haven't scored this year.

Maybe you just wanted more freedom, more leeway to pinch in and carry the puck and try to make plays. I can understand why you'd want this. No doubt you've been the best player on the ice for so long that you assume you can do this without repercussions. And maybe you can, sometimes, but I've seen far too many 2-on-1 goals against Minnesota this season, and far too many freshman mistakes, to be willing to give you free rein. You're simply not good enough yet. When you are in game #104 of your college career, not game #34, you will know this.

Anyway, it's interesting, that on a team currently wracked with inconsistency, that someone on the team would stand up and say, "You know what our problem is? Not letting me do what I want."

It can't be a good sign.

Minnesota Wild: Quick Reactions to Tonight

Random thoughts about tonight's 4-3 shootout loss to the Canucks...

-- Kim Johnsson scored on the same day as a lunar eclipse? Sometimes, you can't make these things up.

-- I don't think I'll ever forgive Justin Morneau for wearing a Todd Bertuzzi jersey shirt on the field for the Twins' division title celebration last season. You may be the MVP, Justin, and you may be Canadian, but you need to understand a few things here...

-- I thought this game was over at the end of the second - the Wild had a power play for the last 1:45 of the second period, had three great chances, and didn't score on any of them. On the road, against Vancouver, if you don't score in that situation that's pretty much all she wrote. Credit the Wild for coming back after that.

-- It is a fact that the Wild are terrible in the faceoff circle (47.5% as a team). It is taken as an article of faith that this is one of the main things wrong with Minnesota. Here's my question: let's say the Wild got their percentage up to exactly average, right at 50%. It'd be hard to complain about being average. But there are what, 50-70 faceoffs per night? If they improved this two and a half percent, this would translate into one, maybe two more faceoff wins per night. I don't see one faceoff win every night making the difference between a Stanley Cup run and a first-round exit for the Wild, I really don't.

-- Speaking of faceoffs, it's noteworthy that three of the four best teams in the Western Conference are Phoenix, Edmonton, and St. Louis. Though I don't expect it to be a perfect correlation from faceoff wins to wins in the standings, for all the to-do about faceoffs in the Minnesota press lately, you might expect it to be a little more closely related.

-- Dave Lee and Dan Terhaar would be neck-and-neck in any "homer announcing" horse race, that's for sure.

-- I'll never understand how Martin Skoula doesn't get scratched more often in favor of Petteri Nummelin or Kurtis Foster.

-- Dominic Moore arrived in Minnesota, and I assumed that this meant that Risebrough and Lemaire had decided that it was the end of the line for Wyatt Smith. Since Moore arrived, he's played once, and Smith has played twice, despite the fact that Lemaire spoke in glowing terms about Moore after his one appearance. I guess all this proves is that I don't understand Jacques Lemaire.

-- On the other hand, Moore's arrival gave the Strib's Michael Russo the easiest column idea ever: returning to the scene of Todd Bertuzzi's assault on Moore's brother, Steve.

-- To comment further on the article, it serves as a reminder for all of us. People noticed that Buffalo-Ottawa fight a couple of weeks ago, held it up as a generally positive thing for the NHL. But the same culture that begat that entertaining fight also gave us three excuses for human beings: Marc Crawford, who incited Vancouver by calling Moore's hit on Markus Naslund a "cheap shot" even though it wasn't; Brad May, who put a bounty on Moore's head like a pretentious, posturing dirtbag; and of course Bertuzzi, who ended a guy's career, cost him his livelihood, all in the name of playing the tough guy, and who deserves every bad thing that happens to him for the rest of his life.

-- I never thought there'd be anyone on the Canucks I hated more than Matt Cooke, but then you had those three - although each of them's gone from the Vancouver organization now.

-- Can you bet on whether Wild games will go to shootouts? If so, I'm going to start putting $5 every night on "shootout."

-- Petteri Nummelin can move his hands faster than the speed of light. Mikko Koivu can do so at the approximate speed of smell.

-- Mike Greenlay butchered the report on the standings - even if the Wild had won the shootout (thus tying the teams at 80 points apiece), Vancouver would have held onto the division lead because they have played one fewer game than Minnesota.

Random: 35 Seconds of Fame (Anonymous Division)

Some people will be famous for 15 minutes. Apparently, I'll be famous for 222 words, and those without my name published on them.

I don't usually get to read the print version of the Star Tribune, so it took a phone call from home for me to learn about this: apparently, my blog appeared in Sunday's "Daily Buzz", a regular feature in the Star Tribune's sports section.

They published the blog's address but not my name. I'm not sure what that says about the internet age.

Anyway, I suppose ultimately this is barely a step up from the Letters section, but it's still a bit of a thrill for my opinion to be unexpectedly cited in the state's largest newspaper.