Author: David Shama

A crowd of 15,000 or more is likely at Canterbury Park on Sunday for “Extreme Race Day.”  Back for a third consecutive year is camel and ostrich racing.  These are non-wagering races that have entertained past audiences as part of “Extreme Race Day” that also includes horse races featuring unusual matchups, surfaces and distances.   Gates open at noon with the first race at 1:30 p.m.

Ken Lien watched Kahalid El-Amin’s team win the Howard Pulley summer league playoff title last week and recalled that of all the Mr. Basketball winners through the years El-Amin had more “will to win” than any of them.  El-Amin, who won the award in 1997, went on to win a national title with Connecticut and has been playing overseas for years.  Lien is still a leader with the Mr. Basketball program.

Zach Parise, a native of Faribault and a former Shattuck-St. Mary’s star, is ranked No. 1 on NHL.com’s list of U.S.-born players.  In his fourth season with New Jersey, Parise finished third in the league with 45 goals and added 49 assists for 94 points in 2008-09.

The Houston Aeros, the Wild’s AHL affiliate, have announced Mark LeRose as the new assistant coach of the team.  LeRose, 39, is a native of Aspen, Colorado and has previous minor league hockey coaching experience.

Michael Forney, a Thief River Falls native, signed a multi-year contract with Atlanta.  Forney led the Green Bay Gamblers of the United States Hockey League with 60 points (26-34-60) in 59 games in 2008-09.  Forney helped Green Bay win the Anderson Cup as regular season champions and led the team as it completed the biggest season turnaround in USHL history (50-point improvement in the standings.)

NHL coaches and former players will be at Saint Paul’s RiverCentre for USA Hockey’s 2009 National Coaches Symposium, August 12-15.  The event is part of USA Hockey’s Level 5 coaching certification – the highest level in its coaching certification program.  (See a list of speakers at https://www.usahockey.com/Template_Usahockey.aspx?NAV=CO_05&id=265846).

Tonight (Friday) the Lynx play at Target Center against former Gopher Lindsay Whalen and her Connecticut teammates.  Friday is Breast Health Awareness Night and the Lynx players will wear all-pink uniforms.  On Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Macy’s Rotunda of the Mall of America, the players will participate in a cancer fund-raising event, “Catwalk for a Cure.”  Their runway modeling will display the latest fashion in support of the Minnesota Lynx and Jean Stankoski foundations that help increase breast cancer funding and awareness in the state. There will also be an autograph session and silent auction on Saturday.  Ticket and other information about Saturday’s activities is available at 612-673-8400.

The opening of TCF Bank Stadium this summer will be remembered for 100 years or more.  In my lifetime the new football facility ranks near the top on a short list of extraordinary Gopher news.

Nothing surpasses the 1960 achievement of Minnesota’s last national championship.  When the Gophers played in back-to-back Rose bowls in 1961 and 1962, college football hysteria peaked in this town.  The Gophers split those two games, losing to Washington in 1961 but winning a revenge game the next year by beating and thoroughly dominating UCLA.

The 1967 season was the school’s last as Big Ten champs.  Then the most excitement in the program came 15 years later when the Gophers moved off campus into the Metrodome.  The facility put the Gophers in the newest stadium in the Big Ten Conference and placed spectators in a weather protected environment (not to mention plastic seats with backs instead of the wooden planks in Memorial Stadium).

In 1984, master coach and pitch man Lou Holtz took over as head coach.  Holtz created so much excitement and improvement in the program during his two years he still has Gophers fans wondering what kind of 10-year run Minnesota might have experienced if he had stayed here instead of leaving for Notre Dame.

The earlier part of this decade showcased a running game ranking among the better ones in college football history.  Characterized by both total rushing yards and spectacular runs, the Gopher teams that included center and Outland Trophy winner Greg Eslinger and running backs Marion Barber III and Laurence Maroney provided hold-your-breath shows on Saturdays.

Last week I made another entry in the best memories file after touring TCF Bank Stadium.  I hadn’t been inside the now all but completed stadium for about a year.  Many times during the last 12 months, though, I admired the gorgeous brick exterior and welcoming archway entrances with the names of Minnesota’s counties.

Once inside, you hardly know where to look and what to admire next.  The planners (HOK Architects and U officials) have built a nearly $300 million stadium that seems like it should cost even more.  The grand designs like the stadium’s sightlines and intimacy are mission accomplished, but so, too, are the details.

“To be quite honest with you, every time I walk into that stadium I see a new detail,” Gophers coach Tim Brewster told Sports Headliners.  “I see something that catches my eye.  Something that makes you reflect upon the history. … Reconnecting with the championship history of the University of Minnesota.  And I truly believe that the missing link (in the program) is the stadium.”

Details? A visitor saw block M’s embedded in the stadium’s water fountains.  In the premium seating areas cloth-covered chairs have the words to the school’s fight song, the “Minnesota Rouser.”   On field level workmen are placing the last bricks along the retaining walls.  A Hall of Fame and memorabilia elsewhere will preserve Minnesota’s football past.

Fans will be able to move around in a concourse four times bigger than the Metrodome’s, according to Dan O’Brien, Brewster’s director of football operations.  And fans can spend their money on more than food and drink when they make their way into the stadium’s merchandise store, Goldy’s Locker Room.

O’Brien said upper deck seats are only about 30 yards from the field and fans will watch one of the largest videoboards in college football.  It is located in the stadium’s open west end and looking that direction provides views of the downtown skyline.

From the stadium’s higher levels the view of both downtown and campus is impressive.  Those views and the stadium’s beauty are expected to attract activities on non-game days including wedding events.

Most of the Big Ten stadiums were built more than 80 years ago.  Indiana’s Memorial Stadium opened in 1960 and was the conference’s newest on-campus facility until TCF Bank Stadium came along.

How does Brewster believe the stadium will impact the branding of Gopher football? “It makes a loud statement that we’re committed at the University of Minnesota to playing great football, to having a great football program and it’s our responsibility as coaches and players to go out and do a great job of honoring who we are,” he answered.