How do you like Pohlad Park or Wheaties Field as possible names for the new Twins baseball stadium?
The University of Minnesota is campaigning to sell tickets for the Insight Bowl through its ticket allotments. If Gopher fans buy tickets through University inventory then the school can document its fan following and potentially use this to diminish the reputation that Minnesota boosters don’t support the team at bowl games. Fans interested in a travel package to the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Arizona can contact Creative Charters, 651-748-0080, www.creativecharter.com. Ticket information is also available from the Gopher ticket office, 612-624-8080, or 800-U-Gopher.
M Club president George Adzick is inviting University letter winners to play in the first annual “Bowl Cup” golf outing on Friday, December 29, the same day as the Insight Bowl. If interested contact Adzick at 612-626-7305.
Matt Boockmeier, a former all conference football guard for the University of St. Thomas, is a State Farm Insurance agent and offices in Edina. His first career was as a pro football scout including with the Vikings, Packers and Saints. In1994 he started his pro football career as a training camp intern with the Vikings, earning $5 per hour. He then “begged” for an internship in pro personnel scouting with the Vikings and was hired at $300 per month. The NFL later hired him as a regional college scout where he “lived out of my trunk,” spending about 220 days per year on the road. Scouting assignments with the Packers and Saints followed before Boockmeier got married and decided to give up the nomadic life of scouting in 2001.
The Fanball.com Fall Poker Classic, Canterbury Park’s signature poker event, recently paid out a record $1,448,736 in total prize money. There were a record 4,303 entries, from 22 states and three countries.
Local tennis pro Greg Wicklund, who writes a newsy column for Tennis Life magazine, reports in the December issue that former Gopher coach David Geatz is “now in corporate real estate with the Staubach Corporation in Minneapolis.”
Recently retired tennis legend Andre Agassi won his first professional tennis tournament at the Minikahda Tennis Invitational at the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis in 1987.