The biggest project of watching the Harlem Globetrotters play basketball is to wind down your sports-watching adrenaline from Intense to Moderate, and then to Relax-and-Enjoy.
In the aftermath of the college basketball madness, and the stunning results of the NCAA hockey tournament, we might be justifiably exhausted. So you go down to AMSOIL Arena and take a seat as the Globetrotters worked their magic last Sunday afternoon.
No, it’s not feverishly competitive, but it is fun, once you get dialed down to enjoy it. They still do the Sweet Georgia Brown warmup, and they still run a bunch of weird trick-shot things into their game against the U.S. All-Stars -- who were really good, actually. But the most fun for me was to watch their familiar old routine during the game, where one big guy stands at the free throw line, and the other four Globetrotters race around full-speed, in a giant circle where they can make swift pass exchanges in perpetual motion.
On Sunday, not all their trick shots worked, but when they tried a long shot, or a back-to-the-basket shot, or a bounce-shot, they also finished it off. Thunder Law, a rookie on the club who played at High Point college a year ago, is 6-foot-3, but has a 44-inch vertical jump. He was the beneficiary three times early in the game when a trick shot didn’t quite go in, because he would come soaring along to slam dunk the leftovers.

...Now, On With the Cup

The Minnesota Wild made the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a strong finish, and while everyone was wondering whether they would face St. Louis or Anaheim, they wound up matched against Colorado -- a tough draw made tougher by the emergence of Patrick Roy, who made the transition from emotionally-charged goalie to emotionally-radiating coach.
The playoffs are already under way, as of Wednesday, and I’m going to pick the Wild to beat the Avalanche, partly because I want to see them do it, but mostly because after all they’ve gone through with injuries, they deserve some post-season success. All the talk centers around Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, but my pick for the team MVP is Jason Pominville.
Acquired from Buffalo just in time to get injured by a blind-side hit that prevented him from facing the Chicago Blackhawks in last year’s first playoff round, Pominville was criticized by some media hockey lightweights in the Twin Cities. I defended him as another of those two-way standouts who is a leader on and off the ice, and that he may end up scoring 30. The wild played an awful last game, when the pressure was off, but Pominville scored a goal in that game. It was his 30th. Joining Koivu and Parise, Pominville and the balanced gang behind them make the Wild a formidible foe for any team. If Ilya Brsyzgalov can stop a few pucks, the Wild could go onward and upward.
All the first-round match-ups are intriguing, but none more than St. Louis against Chicago -- the two teams I thought would fight it out to win the Stanley Cup. They collide right off. Also, San Jose and Los Angeles could cause a few Calilfornia tremors.
In the East, you’ve got to love the Boston-Detroit collision of old-six-team-league rivals. Now that Detroit is moved to the East, that could be a great match, but if Pavel Datsyuk isn’t fully healed, and if Henrik Zetterberg isn’t back from the injured list, it could be a short challenge by Detroit against a Bruins team that might be the top challenger to take out Pittsburgh in the East.
Also, the nasty rivalry between the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers opens another pivotal season. I’m taking the Flyers, but it should be a great match.  

Union Might Ask: What
Western Superiority?

Maybe it’s time those of us who have been guilty of boasting of the superiority of Western college hockey powers step back and make a deep bow to those Eastern teams we got so comfortable thrashing at NCAA tournament time.
All season long, we listened to the Twin Cities publicity machine grind out how great the University of Minnesota was this season. The Golden Gophers were talented, and balanced, and had the best defense in the nation. The always available Lou Nanne proclaimed them the fastest college hockey team he had ever seen. On top of that, goaltender Adam Wilcox was the best, as well.
We were impressed, and then UMD went down to Mariucci Arena and faced the Gophers. UMD played very well in the first game, but the Gophers whipped them 6-1 in a strange game where the Bulldogs seemed to have the upper hand everywhere but on the scoreboard. Maybe there was something to this superiority thing. But wait. The next night, the Bulldogs completely dominated and overran the Gophers 6-2, outplaying them on virtually every shift.
That memory stayed with me all season. Yes, I’d like to have Kyle Rau on my team, and yet, Mike Reilly is a good young defenseman, and the speed of their freshmen is impressive. But UMD made the Gophers look disorganized and eminently beatable.
UMD finished fifth in the NCHC, while the Gophers went on and won the Big Ten in the first season for both leagues. Minnesota was ranked No. 1 almost all season, and carried that through to the NCAA tournament, even after Ohio State upset the Gophers in the Big Ten tournament semifinals.
The Gophers won a thrilling 2-1 game over North Dakota when defenseman Justin Holl scored his first goal of the season with 0.6 seconds left, and the Gophers were in the title game. Surely they would meet Boston College in the final. Or would they?
Union, a team that managed to stay unheralded all season while winning the ECAC league title, and the ECAC tournament, and the East regional, overran BC with an amazingly skilled and swift attack, and in Mat Bodie, the best defenseman I saw play all season in college.
In the final, the Gophers started out flying, got an early lead, but Shaye Gostisbehere -- the only player on the Union team drafted by the NHL -- had a spectacular game, and Union took the game over, romping to a 7-4 victory that got more incredible with each passing minute.
In the aftermath, Gopher apologists said that Union had some older players. Every team that recruits players who have played junior hockey to age 20 will have some 24-year-olds. Apparently it’s only worth noting when your team loses to them. Quality is more important that age, and we might also ask where the NHL scouts have been, to draft 14 members now skating for Minnesota, and only one of those thoroughbreds from Union. Union is a Division III school, and as a member of the ECAC, they do not give out athletic scholarships. They have academic aid, but nothing like the enormous budgets of Western teams, or Hockey East teams. That means every scholarship-offering college had a shot at those Union players, but failed to attract them. It might be noted that both Bodie and Gostisbehere were selected to the East’s first team All-America unit. They were the best TWO defensemen I saw play all season.
And for the Western purists who, like me, think Western hockey is superior, we have to notice that Yale, another ECAC team, won the NCAA title last season. That makes two national titles in a row for the conference that used to scornfully be called the “EasyAC.” But here’s a better one: Six of the last seven NCAA titles have been won by Eastern teams. And here’s a trivia quiz startler: What was the only college to dent that Eastern superiority in the last seven years? The UMD Bulldogs.