Author: David Shama

Sunday night’s game at Arizona is a benchmark for the Vikings, a team that may deserve being ranked as first or second best in the NFL.

The 10-1 Vikings have played against teams with a combined 32-49 record.  The Vikings’ only loss is on the road to Pittsburgh (6-5), one of only three teams Minnesota has played with a winning percentage above .500.  Arizona is 7-4 and played in the last Super Bowl, losing to Pittsburgh.

Sunday night’s national telecast on NBC is much anticipated including in the metropolitan area where viewership could reach 1.3 million, according to John Remes. He is president and general manager of KARE 11, the local NBC affiliate.

Remes told Sports Headliners that about 80 percent of televisions in this market will be tuned into the game.  The game will certainly have the attention of men ages 25-54, with Remes expecting about 50 percent of that group to be watching.

Among the storylines for viewers to watch is whether Arizona’s 38-year-old quarterback Kurt Warner will play after having a concussion last month.  He missed last week’s game, a 20-17 loss to Tennessee.

Like 40-year-old Brett Favre of the Vikings, Warner has been a Super Bowl winning quarterback.  The comparisons between the two are likely to come often on Sunday night’s telecast if Warner plays.  Favre has overcome a list of injuries during his career that sometimes seems as long as his game statistics.  Former Vikings assistant coach Dean Dalton told Sports Headliners that Favre is even “tougher” than Warner.

Dalton also said second year Vikings center John Sullivan has improved since the season began but he’s not as good yet as the man he replaced, 12 year veteran Matt Birk.   Favre has praised Sullivan’s intelligence and line calls.

Sunday night’s game will be the third time that Minneapolis native Larry Fitzgerald, who ranks with the NFL’s best wide receivers, will face his home town team wearing an Arizona uniform.  Fitzgerald said this week that the experience isn’t becoming old.  “No, it’s not old-hat,” he said.  “I’m 0-2 against the Vikings right now; 0-3 if I count the preseason. That’s not good enough.”

Using Wall Street stock trading terms, I asked Patrick Reusse to label several of the local teams with either “buy, hold, or sell.”  Here’s what the Star Tribune columnist and KSTP Radio host had to say during an interview early last week.

No surprise that the 10-1 Vikings receive a “buy.”  Reusse said vice president of player personnel Rick Spielman was “supposed to be the guy who ruined the franchise with his personnel decisions” in Miami but “he’s done well” with the Vikings.  Reusse described the team’s drafts as “okay” but found particular praise for the team’s free agent signings.  “Their personnel decisions have been exquisite,” he said.

While some may fret about the future beyond this season because of quarterback Brett Favre’s age (40), Reusse has optimism about the franchise’s future because of all-world running back Adrian Peterson (24).  He said as long as Peterson stays healthy the Vikings have a “winning formula.”

The Twins rate a “buy” also, and for more than on-field performance.  In 2010 Reusse predicts a second consecutive Central Division championship and a new contract retaining all-world catcher Joe Mauer.  He believes the pitching staff will be okay and the Twins will win easier than last season when they struggled all the way to a division playoff with Detroit.  The new ballpark is also an obvious asset.

He looks at the franchise’s marketing and evaluates it as a “wonderful job.”  Several years ago the Twins brand was suffering and talk included contracting the franchise.  Reusse said Twins home crowds now are filled with fans wearing team apparel in percentages that rival the Vikings fandom.

Reusse is intrigued with new Timberwolves basketball boss David Kahn who has shuffled players in and out of town like he owns an airline.  So far the results, 2-16, are the stuff of bottom feeders.

“I kind of like Kahn,” Reusse said.  “Anyone that arrogant is almost priceless.  He’s so sure of his intelligence it’s almost comical.  But wow!  It’s just horrible (on court results).  I don’t know how far removed they are from being a factor in town.  It’s a sell obviously.”

The Wild didn’t make the playoffs after last season and might not qualify for Stanley Cup participation in 2010 either.  The Wild reloaded last spring with the departure of the two leaders since the franchise started in 2000, general manager Doug Risebrough and coach Jacques Lemaire.

Opinion by many is that Risebrough and Lemaire didn’t leave behind a roster brimming with talent.  How to label the Wild made Reusse pause before settling on “maybe a hold.”  Then he said: “I don’t know. I think Jacques fooled us for a lot of years thinking they had decent manpower over there just because he was able to win half his games or a little more with pretty mediocre talent.”

Reusse went to the past when asked about Gophers hockey.  He said he was the first in town to “start making fun” of coach Don Lucia after the famous Holy Cross loss.  That was a signature defeat for the Gophers who had been ranked No. 1 in the country during the 2005-2006 season.  In the NCAA playoffs the Gophers lost to the No. 15 seeded Crusaders in overtime.

This season’s Gophers haven’t impressed much either, dropping from the national rankings and compiling a 5-8-1 overall record, 3-6-1 in the WCHA.  The record includes five losses at Mariucci Arena. “That place over there has got 3,000 empty seats every game,” Reusse said.  “They’re happy when they split with Bemidji State on their home ice.  That’s a sell.”

The Gophers have a football palace in TCF Bank Stadium.  But Gophers football coach Tim Brewster has been a Reusse target for three years.  “I think it’s pretty clear where I stand on coach Brewster, so that’s a sell,” Reusse said.  “I just want to hear one sincere sentence from the guy and I’d have a better attitude about him.  It looks like he’s brought in some athletes, but… scattering a few athletes here and there is not the answer.  Changing your coaching staff every 10 minutes isn’t the answer either.  I don’t see a big turn around that would cause me to say buy, but boy, they get the right guy in here it’s a buy because that stadium…(puts the program on a higher level.  You should be able to hire a big time coach, I think. …There’s no excuses any more.”

Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi is a Minnesota native and plans to live here after he retires.  At the end of the 2009-10 school year Maturi will have two years remaining on his contract.  Maturi told Sports Headliners he doesn’t plan to be involved with the process of selecting his successor.  His integrity and openness with people inside and outside the athletic department is much admired.

Point guard Jai Lucas, who was recruited by the Gophers, has transferred from Florida to Texas and will play for the Longhorns this season.  He’s the son of former NBA star John Lucas.

The Gophers women’s basketball team opens its Big Ten season on Sunday at home against Penn State.  Coach Pam Borton, starting her eighth season at Minnesota, has a winning percentage in conference games of .629, fourth best in the league.

Former Twins pitcher Johan Santana will make $19.8 million next season with the New York Mets, according to USA Today Sports Weekly.  The publication reported that Santana will earn $24.3 million in the final season of his contract in 2013.

Santana’s teammate and former Twin Luis Castillo, 34, is still on the Mets roster and apparently a candidate to be the team’s second baseman next season.  Castillo hit .302 last season after batting .245 in 2008.

Former University of Minnesota quarterback Marc Trestman made a place for himself in Gophers history when he recently coached Montreal to the Grey Cup title.  Bud Grant, who played for the Gophers, and Dave Skrien, a former Gophers assistant football coach and player, also coached teams to Canada’s Grey Cup title.

Six MIAC seniors have been invited to play for the North team in tomorrow’s inaugural Division III Football Senior Classic in Salem, Virginia. The players are Bethel cornerback Tim Cornish, Bethel wide receiver Joel Quick and Bethel outside linebacker Nathan Voronyak, Concordia offensive tackle John M. Anderson, Hamline placekicker Derek Johnson, and St. Olaf linebacker Adam Concannon. The game will feature 90 seniors from NCAA Division III teams

Six-foot, seven-inch Derek Boogaard is not usually the third-tallest player in a hockey game, but he was late last month when the Wild faced Boston’s Zdeno Chara, 6-9 and John Scott, 6-8.

Cottage Grove native Dan Sova was named the USHL’s Defensive Player of the Week after earning six points and a plus-eight rating for the Waterloo Black Hawks last week.

Former Wild forward Marian Gaborik, now with the Rangers, led the NHL with 21 goals through November, and was named the league’s third star of the month.

Rochester’s Raphael Butler and Joey Abell of Coon Rapids will fight for the Minnesota heavyweight title (first such bout since 1977) on tonight’s boxing card at Target Center.