Weekend sporting re-cap

I promised Ryan I would try not to abuse my privilege of posting to this blog to start my campaign for world domination. I guess I’ll have to write about sports.

The Gophers' Men's hockey team won the Dodge Holiday Classic for the 11th time in 16 years. I’d be a mite bit curious to know what the rankings of the other teams in the Classic were, though. St. Cloud State was not there (they captured their own title at some other tournament). Five guys (Mike Carman, Jeff Frazee, Erik Johnson, Kyle Okposo and Ryan Stoa) weren’t playing for Minnesota, as they were off playing in World Junior Championship. It’s kinda sad, as Kyle Okposo is by far my favorite player (since Ryan Potulny went pro--and scored a game-winner for the Philedelphia Flyers in a recent game). Senior Tyler Hirsch was officially dismissed from the team this weekend as well. It’s a shame really, but there have been struggles with him for the past couple of years, so it was surprising, but not shocking to fans. No reason was given, but he sat out last year for “personal reasons”, has been benched repeatedly for performance-related reasons, and has had issues with the coaches.

I attended the Timberwolves game last Friday night. It was fun and exciting, but I’ve never seen a more unenthused crowd at a sporting event since watching minor high school sporting events. My brother’s little league team got more cheers than the Timberwolves did when they took the court. Maybe that’s why Kevin Garnett’s play was so lax that night. He was doing decent on the rebounding, as far as I was concerned, but his shooting skills were…well, I’ve seen him play better. And that was only my third time seeing him play. However, it was a good game: my cousin Scott caught a t-shirt, the Wolves won, Garnett did score in the double digits (he was taken out when he got ten points--with about three minutes left in the game), Ricky Davis was clearly the star of the night, and Randy Foye became my favorite player on the team. That’s what the Wolves get for trading Wally Szczerzbziakz on me.

When I got back to my aunt and uncle’s with my cousin, who attended the Timberwolves game with me , we watched the end of the Inisight Bowl, which Ryan mentioned. All I can say is that I’m very, very glad that I only saw the end of it. Seriously, what team is ahead 38-7 in the third quarter and loses? Oh, right, a Minnesota football team. As my aunt said, “At least they’ll be in the history books.” It’s the first time that a team was ahead by 31 points, and lost--the previous record was 30 points. Part of me wonders what happened, but most of me just doesn’t want to know.

I would tell you about the Wild game on Sunday, except I couldn’t listen or watch it. There was a snow storm in the area, which left me without power. One needs power to run ones radio that has the Wild game. Unless one is bright enough to realize that one owns a battery-operated radio, but I am not bright. Apparently the game was a dramatic win, and I’m sure it was exciting to all who listened/watched/attended but did not listen or watch. On exciting news, Marian Gaborik might be back soon. I might be a little biased because he is my favorite player, but I’m very excited to see him come back. In fact, Wild fans might get a chance to spot the elusive forward in this homestand, but, alas, I will not. Tonight is Marian Gaborik hockey puck night that I am attending, but he won’t be on the ice to show off. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

I’m pretty sure that a team called the Vikings played on Sunday, but I’m pretty sure many Minnesotans really didn’t want to think about that.

Tomorrow shall include more information about the Wild game tonight. Unless something major happens in the sporting world AND I hear about it. Since I get most of my information from Ryan’s blog, well, I wouldn’t count on it.