Enough, already. After listening and reading for most of a week about the terrible insult perpetrated by the Minnesota Wild, who had the audacity to NOT win the Stanley Cup this spring, it is time to analyze all the analyses.

Otherwise-sane media types apparently were so caught up in jumping on the Wild bandwagon that they felt personally insulted that the Wild didn’t beat the Blackhawks, so they’ve lashed out in a torrent of brainless accusations and childish reactions. The worst was a Twin Cities radio guy, whose diatribe was carried by a Duluth station Saturday morning. It was simple, he said, the Blackhawks “rope-a-doped” the Wild by purposely losing some games and showing vulnerability during the regular season, purposely failing to win the Division to further sandbag the Wild – just to set up the Wild for the playoffs.

Honest. He said that. In his insult to the Blackhawks, the Wild, the game, the fans, and all of our collective intelligence, he apparently forgot a couple of things. First, scoring ace Patrick Kane broke his collarbone and missed six weeks, which caused the Hawks to fade in the standings. Meanwhile, the Wild flew into the playoffs on a stirring second-half charge that built up the hopes of all Minnesota sports fans, but they were still considered a definite underdog against Division champ St. Louis in the first round, while Chicago had its hands full against Nashville. We might have picked the Blackhawks to beat the Predators, but the Blackhawks wouldn’t have picked the Wild to beat the Blues. So how could the Blackhawks arrange a strategy that would include throwing a few games along the way, to set up the Wild, when there was no assurance they would even play the Wild?

Other serious attempts at analysis went through all the names of all the Wild players, breathlessly stating which ones should be retained, resigned, or traded. One of those pieces went strictly by the statistical ledger. Those who scored a few, stay; those who didn’t score against the Blackhawks have to go! Right there on the radio for all to hear, he named Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter as two prime examples of players who fell short. In my opinion, those two particular players were as effective as anyone the Wild had, going hard to the net every shift despite being frustrated by the bunching Blackhawks who beat the Wild at their defensive game.

This is not like Major League Baseball, where every player in every lineup gets to bat three or four times a game and take your swings. In hockey, a player who works hard all the time may or may not get a scoring chance. And he may or may not score on that chance, depending greatly on the hot hand of the opposing goaltender.

We know Thomas Vanek failed to get a single goal, and his lack of production gets its own page. When the Wild signed him to a large, three-year contract, I suggested it was a mistake. Yes, he’s a former Gopher who can score goals, but he is one of those players who must score goals because he doesn’t fit into the Wild mode of hard-hustling defense and aggressive forechecking. He ended up without a single goal, and his lack of effort was obvious. Particularly when Zack Parise, Koivu, Zucker, Pominville, Granlund, Niederreiter and a few others – notably Matt Cooke -- were playing hard enough every shift to be valuable, whether they score or not. Successful teams need that sort of players.

When the Wild beat St. Louis in six games, all was fantastic. The Wild contained the mercurial Vladimir Tarasenko, but he got loose in two games, when he scored five of his six goals in the two St. Louis victories. Brilliant players like T.J. Oshie, David Backes, Jaden Schwartz, Tomas Steen and Paul Stastny scored one goal each – in the whole series. Do we think the media and fans in St. Louis are clamoring to get rid of all of them? Don’t be absurd. Apparently, it’s a Minnesota thing.

Personally, I thought the Wild played a very strong series against the Blackhawks, and in each game there was a play that turned the result against the Wild. Remember the deflection off the crossbar that was bouncing out when it hit the knob end of goalie Devan Dubnyk’s stick and bounced back, settling an inch over the goal line? True, Chicago goalie Corey Crawford, who isn’t an elite goaltender, certainly is exactly that against the Wild. If you throw out the empty-net goals, the Wild were one play away from winning all four games. Three for sure.

While attending a couple of games, I shot a lot of photos from the press box of potential scoring plays. With only a few exceptions, every time the Wild had all three members of a line attacking hard, the Blackhawks had all five skaters tangling with them at the crease. In one, one defenseman comprised a fourth attacker, but the Wild was still outnumbered at the crease. The Wild played solid defense, but Dubnyk was just a tad short of the brilliance he’d shown leading up to the series. And yes, the Wild don’t have an absolute sniper like Patrick Sharp.

   When it was over, looking at two rounds, Kane has 7 goals, Jonathan Toews 4, Patrick Sharp 4, with Seabrook and Saad 3 each; for the Wild, Parise and Niederreiter had 4 each, Pominville 3. Now we have a quiz. Only one team can win the Stanley Cup, and the Wild – as well as many other teams – never won one. So let’s assume they might be a few years away from winning a Cup.

If we had the choice, would we rather have a team that could win the Division over 82 games, but NOT win the Cup? Or a team that could fail to win the Division, AND not win the Cup? I’ll take the team that can win over 82 games, then take my chances in the playoffs. And for that, the Minnesota Wild filled us up with excitement through the last three months of the regular season and another month of playoffs.

With 200 Down, Saints Win Kemp’s 201st

The first day of the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference baseball tournament was last Thursday, in a persistent drizzle that drenched everything but the new artificial turf at Wade Stadium. St. Scholastica, which virtually always wins that tournament, was facing a potent Bethany outfit.

I endured about as much as I could take, rain jacket and all, and shot a few photos of the Saints at work. I left before it was over, and the Saints went on to win 13-3 behind the pitching of Padriac Getchell. A senior from Stillwater, Getchell kept firing from the mound, even as the rain grew more intense and was dripping off the visor of his cap.

Several hours later, my wife, Joan, and I decided to go down to the Dairy Queen near Canal Park for a treat. Only a couple of tables were taken, one of them crowded by five or six young men. They weren’t loud, they weren’t obnoxious, they were very well-behaved. As we walked past, I noticed the jacket worn by one of the young men had a Saint Scholastica logo on it.

“Are you guys ballplayers?” I asked. They all nodded, adding that they all played for the Saints. I asked the final score, and apologized for not staying through the rain to see the end.

Afterward, I thought about what a classy group they were. These are college kids, pushed to their potential by coach Corey Kemp, and now it was later in the evening and when they went out to celebrate a major victory in their UMAC Tournament, they went to Dairy Queen.

Could have been a recruitingposter.

The next day, Friday, was really nice. Winner against winner, the Saints led Northland 2-0 through three innings, and 2-1 through five. Daniel Wood was striking out five with a 4-hitter. Then the Saints scored three in the last of the sixth, one more in the seventh, and five in the eighth, with the fifth runner coming in to make it 11-1 and end the game on the 10-run rule.


0There was one interesting play. With runners on first and third in the last of the eighth, a sacrifice fly scored a runner from third. After he was called safe, the catcher immediately threw the ball to third, where the third baseman touched the bag in a premature appeal that the runner might have left early. He didn’t. But at that moment, the Saints runner from first swiped second. Brilliant, heads-up play, and proper evidence to show how and why Corey Kemp was winning his 200th game as Saints coach.

Bethany, meanwhile, came back out of the loser’s bracket to beat Northwestern, and then Northland to get another crack at St. Scholastica in Saturday’s final. Jordan Risse, a senior from Sioux Falls, was masterful on the mound, while the Saints got a run in the third, another in the sixth and one more in the eighth. It took two relievers to get through the top of the ninth, as a pair of former Duluth East hurlers got their turns.

Freshman Jake Turner looked like he had good stuff, but the Vikings loaded the bases on two singles and a walk before getting two outs. Senior Zack Farmer came in and ended the game with a called third strike.

That gave the Saints a 3-0 victory, their 45th consecutive victory at Wade Stadium, on both grass and artificial turf, and their 18th consecutive conference title. That sent the Saints off to the NCAA Division III regional tournament, where the competition will be decidedly tougher, but it will be the 11th straight try at the NCAA regional for St. Scholastica.
And for coach Corey Kemp? He’s already started on his second 200 victories, with Saturday’s title game his 201st as Saints coach.

Maybe the team should hold its season banquet at Dairy Queen!