Gophers Hockey – Page 35 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Fitzgeralds Keep Father-Son Bond

Posted on January 22, 2016January 22, 2016 by David Shama

Minneapolis native Larry Fitzgerald Jr., the Cardinals slot receiver who is on track for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, will know his dad is in the stadium watching him Sunday when his team plays in Charlotte against the Panthers for the NFC Championship.

Larry Sr. will see a game that will send the winner to Super Bowl 50 to play the AFC champion in Santa Clara, California. Dad hasn’t missed a Cardinals game all season, or in the playoffs. The Fitzgeralds are that kind of family.

Growing up in south Minneapolis, Larry Sr. and his late wife Carol emphasized to Larry Jr. and his brother Marcus the importance of family and the right way to behave. No drugs or alcohol. Get your rest and don’t associate with the wrong people. Don’t do anything crazy.

“That’s the way we raised him—to be careful—and to make certain not to run with the crowd and not be a problem,” Larry Sr. told Sports Headliners. “He’s a leader. He’s a winner.”

Larry Sr. grew up in Chicago and played football at Indiana State, and then briefly with the NFL Giants. He knows how violent the game can be. He was hesitant when Carol started Larry Jr. playing football at age 10. “We had some issues in the family about that, but by blessings we got through it,” Larry Sr. said.

Dad could see the passion his namesake had for football. “From that point I could see he wasn’t afraid of football. He wasn’t afraid of contact. That’s the first hurdle right there. Not fear the game.”

Larry Jr. & Larry Sr. (photo courtesy of Lou Lampson)

Larry Sr. still lives in the Minneapolis area and is a veteran sportswriter and sports radio commentator. He will in the press box of Bank of America Stadium on Sunday covering the game. His relationship with former Vikings coach Dennis Green gave Larry Jr. the opportunity to be around pros like Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter. By the time Larry Jr. was starring for Holy Angels Academy pro scouts were telling dad his high school age son could already play in the NFL.

Although Larry Jr. grew up here, he didn’t dream about being a Golden Gopher. Schools like Miami, Oklahoma and Pittsburgh (his eventual college choice) wooed him during the recruiting process. “They were in our house a lot earlier than Minnesota,” Larry Sr. said.

Dad was convinced after his son’s freshman year at Pitt that he had the skills and determination to be a pro. For the last 12 years Larry Jr. has more than proven that including last Saturday night when his long run after a reception set up the winning points against the Packers in an overtime playoff classic. He finished things off with a short run for the winning score.

In seven of Fitzgerald’s seasons he has had over 1,000 yards in receptions including 2015. He had a career high 109 receptions during the last regular season and in December became the 11th player in NFL history to reach 1,000 career catches. Six seasons he has had 90 or more catches. He has been selected for the Pro Bowl eight times.

At age 32, Fitzgerald is one win from his second Super Bowl. The Cardinals lost 27-23 to the Steelers in the 2009 game. “We’ll see if this is the best Cardinals team that he’s played on,” his father said. “We’ll find out pretty soon, I guess.”

The Cardinals’ offense was No. 1 in points per game during the regular season. The defense No. 5 in points allowed. Dad thinks his son plays for the league’s best team. “I think they have a group that can go win it all.”

The Cardinals, 14-3, will play a Panthers group that had an NFL-best 16-1 record. If Larry Jr. wants any advice for Sunday he knows his dad is available. “Never stop being a parent,” Larry Sr. said.

Worth Noting

Fitzgerald is on this week’s regional cover of Sports Illustrated on sale in Arizona and other western states, according to SI.com on Tuesday. Legendary quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are on the cover in most states, including Minnesota, as part of the buildup for the AFC title game between Manning’s Broncos and Brady’s Patriots.

Greg Bedard, writing in the January 18 issue of Sports Illustrated, ranked the Cardinals the best NFC team in the playoffs. S.I. said: “Talent, physicality, aggression, daring play-calling—they’re all qualities you look for in a Super Bowl contender, and no one cam match Arizona’s mix of the above.”

Approximately 87 percent of the work is completed on the construction of U.S. Bank Stadium. All the glass for the huge pivoting doors (95 feet at their peaks) will be installed in the next 30 days. Proposals will be solicited for the artificial turf, expected to cost between $1 million and $2 million.

The Vikings have yet to determine how to best acclimate their players to the facility before the team has its first games in the building next summer. Nothing has been decided regarding practices or even scrimmages.

Jedd Fisch, the former Gophers offensive coordinator under Tim Brewster, joined Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan staff last winter as passing game coordinator. Fisch must have done well because this week he received a two-year contract extension paying him between $650,000 and $750,000 annually, according to a SI.com story on Tuesday.

Former Gophers basketball coach Jim Dutcher has written a letter to M Club Director George Adzick recommending Darryl Mitchell be inducted into the M Club Hall of Fame. Mitchell was captain of the 1982 Big Ten champion Minnesota team Ducher coached. Mitchell was an All-Big Ten selection that season and has become an attorney. “He’s got all the credentials,” Dutcher told Sports Headliners.

Gophers senior Rachel Banham ranked 39th all-time among NCAA women’s career scorers after her 32 point total on Wednesday night in Minnesota’s win over No. 20 ranked Northwestern. She has 2,613 career points. The Gophers, 12-6 overall and 4-3 in the Big Ten, play in Madison tomorrow starting at 11 a.m. against the Badgers. Wisconsin is 6-11 overall and 2-5 in league games.

The Gophers men’s hockey team, 11-10 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten, plays the Badgers in Madison tonight and Saturday evening. Wisconsin, 4-10-6 and 1-5-2-1, has been struggling but the roster includes pro prospects Luke Kunin and Matt Jurusik. The two freshmen were listed by NHL Central Scouting on Tuesday as top 20 players.

Kunin, who at the beginning of the season was on Central Scouting’s Watch List as a potential first round draft pick, is listed as the 16th best North American skater on Central’s latest rankings. A forward, the Chesterfield, Missouri native leads the team with 9 goals and 18 points.

Jurusik, from La Grange, Illinois, is listed as the 15th best North American goaltending prospect and has a 3.18 GAA this season. He is the only Division I goaltender to make the list. He has one shutout this season, 3-0 against Michigan State.

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Vikings Answer Skeptics in Defeat

Posted on December 11, 2015December 11, 2015 by David Shama

The Vikings and their fans can feel additional confidence after last night’s 23-20 loss to the Cardinals in Arizona. Predictions earlier this week were the Vikings would not only lose but by a big score.

It was known during the week the Vikings would play without three of their best defensive players and that unit would be reshuffled with lesser personnel. Teddy Bridgewater was coming off a disappointing performance last Sunday in a 38-7 loss against the Seahawks, and Seattle linebacker Bruce Ervin said the second-year quarterback played scared.

The Vikings showed a character check last night, playing the Cardinals to a 10-10 halftime tie before losing by a field goal in the fourth quarter. With the win the Cardinals, now 11-2, further positioned themselves among elite teams in the NFL. The Vikings, 8-5, are no longer in first place in the NFC North but still are having a season that is surprising critics who didn’t see them as a serious threat to unseat the Packers as division champions, and thought even less of Minnesota after an opening game 20-3 loss to the mediocre 49ers.

Teddy Bridgewater (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)

Bridgewater threw for a career high 335 yards and had a passer rating of 108 last night. That kind of work will be needed the rest of the season when the Vikings play the Bears and Giants at home, before closing out at Green Bay. No one, including critics, should be surprised if the Vikings win two or three of those games against the Bears and Giants, both with 5-7 records, and the 8-4 Packers.

If the Vikings follow the lead of head coach Mike Zimmer and his staff, good things should continue to develop in their march to the playoffs. After last Sunday afternoon’s game in Minneapolis against the Seahawks, Zimmer let it be known he expected his players to prepare their bodies for a short week of practice and Thursday’s game in Arizona. The majority of them headed for Winter Park before nightfall on Sunday. “We followed suit,” said placekicker Blair Walsh on Tuesday.

Three days of rest and rehab is different than the typical Sunday to Sunday game schedule. “You don’t come in Sunday after the game usually, unless you’re severely hurt or you need treatment,” Walsh said.

Defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd arrived at about 4:30 p.m. and stayed for more than one hour. Massages, foam rollers and cold tubs are used by players to revitalize worn bodies targeted since training camp last summer.

“It’s just hard work,” Floyd said about the rehab. “You can’t complain about it, you just gotta do it…nowadays.”

Key defensive players Anthony Barr, Linval Joseph and Harrison Smith were unable to play last night because of injuries. But Floyd said earlier in the week it does no good for the team to worry about the injured and absent.

“Never worry. If you worry you’re setting yourself up for failure,” he said. “No need to worry. Just come in with a game plan and fight as hard as possible. That’s all we ask for. We’re not asking you to do something out of the ordinary, just come do your job and be prepared to play tough.”

Even the critics can’t knock the Vikings’ effort last night.

Worth Noting

Tom Moore, who turned 77 last month and was an assistant coach for the Gophers in the 1970s and Vikings in the 1990s, is assistant head coach of the Cardinals. This is his 51st season of coaching, 37th in the NFL. Moore attended high school in Rochester, Minnesota and played college football at Iowa.

The Cardinals have sold out every game at University of Phoenix Stadium since the retractable roof facility opened in 2006, and noisy crowds provide the team with a home field advantage. Dating back to 2006 and going into last night’s game against the Vikings, Cardinals’ opponents had 132 false start penalties, the most in any NFL stadium during that period.

Both Sports Illustrated and the National Football League Players Association have ranked the playing surface at University of Phoenix Stadium best in the NFL. The playing surface is natural grass that can be moved outside in one giant tray to grow and be effectively maintained, and then put in place for Cardinals games.

It’s an oddity having the Vikings last night, then the Wild tonight and the Timberwolves on Sunday all playing games in the Phoenix area over a four-day period.

Andy Dalton, the Bengals quarterback who the Vikings could have drafted, has thrown for 3,000 yards in all five of his first NFL seasons. Only Peyton Manning has done that. In the 2011 NFL Draft the Vikings chose Christian Ponder with the No. 12 selection in the first round. The Bengals selected Dalton with the third pick in the second round.

More than half of the St. Thomas football roster could play Division II football, according to Tommies head coach Glenn Caruso. The talented Tommies, 13-0, host 12-0 Linfield tomorrow in a 2:30 p.m. Division III semifinals game. The Tommies have reached the semifinals for the third time in five years.

Caruso said Linfield has been a favorite since week one of the season to win the national title. “They are supremely loaded with talent,” he said.

Linfield will need to not only match the Tommies’ talent but also Caruso’s willingness to take risks. A trick play or surprise move like an onside kick is who the Tommies are. Caruso believes too many coaches are “risk averse.”

Would Caruso welcome moving indoors to U.S. Bank Stadium if the Tommies are playing home December playoff games in future years? “I don’t want to give away home field advantage (outdoors and on campus),” he said.

The Tommies, though, would consider a regular season game in the new Minneapolis stadium—perhaps against legendary rival Saint John’s.

Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor has heard the rumors Prince and Jimmy Jam Harris have interest in buying the team but said no one representing them has approached him.

Among the highlights of the Minnesota prep basketball season will be tomorrow’s annual Breakdown Sports Tip Off Classics at Minnetonka High School involving boys and girls teams. Class 4-A boys powers Apple Valley and Hopkins play at 3:45 p.m. in the most anticipated game. The schedule of games throughout the day and into the evening will showcase nationally ranked prep players including two seniors who are Gophers recruits, Amir Coffey from Hopkins and Michael Hurt whose Rochester John Marshall team plays an 8 p.m. game against Shakopee.

Hurt’s brother and teammate Matthew is a Rivals.com five-star recruit in the class of 2019. Other players in the tournament being followed nationally include Tre Jones and Gary Trent Jr. from Apple Valley, and Theo John and McKinley Wright from Champlin Park. Class 4-A Champlin Park plays 3-A DeLaSalle at 7 p.m. in another anticipated game.

Two of the winningest college hockey coaches face each other tonight and tomorrow evening in Ann Arbor. Michigan coach Red Berenson has won 818 games while the Gophers Don Lucia has 680 victories. The two rank second and third for most wins, with Boston College’s Jerry York first with 997.

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Vikings Harris Talks O-Line ‘Pressure’

Posted on December 4, 2015December 4, 2015 by David Shama

It’s no secret the Vikings’ passing offense ranks near the bottom in the 32-team NFL. Even more to the point, improvement could well be the key to whether the team wins the NFC North.

Guard Mike Harris acknowledges expectations that the line must do its part to help quarterback Teddy Bridgewater have time to throw as the team prepares for Sunday’s home game with the Seahawks, and looks toward four more regular season games.

Mike Harris (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)

“We’re coming along (with pass protection),” Harris said. “We’re not perfect, where we want to be, but each week in practice we’ve been harping on working on stuff that we need to work on…like (defensive) stunts, picking up blitzes. The run game—I feel like that’s our strong ability—because we have big tough guys that like to move guys around.

“If we can have a good balance of run and pass, this team will be able to beat anybody. The team goes as far as we go. I know we have a lot of pressure on us.

“We (the line) didn’t do so well a couple of weeks ago against the Packers but I feel like we’ve grown from that and we ought to continue to play better.”

Bridgewater was sacked six times in a 30-13 loss to the Packers in Minneapolis last month. He has thrown only eight touchdown passes this season and while he sometimes holds on to the ball too long, pass protection is an issue for the division leading 8-3 Vikings who top the NFL in rushing yards.

This Sunday the Vikings’ offense faces a Seahawks defense that is among the NFL’s best against rushing and passing. The defensive unit includes formidable players such as end Michael Bennett and cornerback Richard Sherman. “Playmakers are at every position that we’re going to have matchups with, and (we need to) go out and execute,” Harris said.

The Seahawks aren’t bad on offense either, including quarterback Russell Wilson who threw five touchdown passes in a win over the Steelers last Sunday. His passer rating of 97.4 puts him near the top among NFC quarterbacks. His strong arm and mobility will test the Vikings defense.

Vikings defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd acknowledged the major challenge of keeping Wilson in the pocket. “Him and Aaron Rodgers (Packers) are the only two (quarterbacks) I can truly think of that can throw touchdowns from the 50-yard line on the run,” Floyd said.

The Seahawks played in the last two Super Bowls and despite a 6-5 record now certainly aren’t a team to sleep on. Seattle has dealt with injuries while playing some of the NFL’s best teams and losing three games by a total of 10 points.

Harris is a West Coast guy and has known of Seahawks coach Pete Carroll back when he was coaching USC to powerhouse seasons. He expects Carroll will have the playoff-worried Seahawks ready on Sunday. “Just a players’ coach,” Harris said. “I feel like guys just want to go out and play hard for him because he has a winning history. …”

Worth Noting

With expected temps well above freezing today, the Vikings plan to practice outdoors at Winter Park. The forecast for Sunday in Minneapolis calls for similar temperatures with perhaps a high of 42.

Stefon Diggs, the Vikings rookie wide receiver from the University of Maryland who leads the team in receptions with 40, was asked if there’s a major difference between Big Ten defensive backs versus those in the NFL: “Yeah, it’s a big difference. As far as the NFL, everybody is pretty much good.”

Vikings center John Sullivan, who has missed the entire season because of a problematic back including surgery, said this week he isn’t in pain and expects to be on the field in 2016. Sullivan comes to Winter Park for rehab but watches all the games, home and away, on television at his residence where he and his wife have a four-month old baby, the couple’s first child.

That was former Gophers football coach Jerry Kill and wife Rebecca having dinner at Murray’s Restaurant earlier this week with WCCO Radio friends Sid Hartman, Dave Lee (with wife Julie), and Mike Max.

With the signing of Korean slugger Byung Ho Park, the Twins have yet another player on the 40-man roster who has experience playing first base. Joe Mauer apparently will be given most of the time at first next season with Park as the team’s likely designated hitter. But others on the roster also have experience at first including Trevor Plouffe, the team’s regular third baseman, and Miguel Sano (an infielder headed to the outfield), and Kennys Vargas, Max Kepler and Adam Walker.

Vargas impressed in 2014 with his hitting but not last year when he fell off from .274 to .240—with home runs and RBI declining from 9 and 38, to 5 and 17. He looks like a player who perhaps isn’t in the Twins future, partially because he doesn’t fit well in the field except first base. A switch hitter, Vargas might complement the right-handed hitting Park as a DH. Kepler and Walker are likely to play in the outfield in the minors next year.

The 5-2 Gophers basketball team earned its most impressive win of the season on Monday night against Clemson, and plays South Dakota tomorrow at Williams Arena. Expectations this season are minimal for Minnesota but the Gophers could be a surprise team if they continue to score like they did in the 89-83 victory over Clemson.

Freshman forward Jordan Murphy led all scorers with 24 points and had a team high 10 rebounds. The 6-6, 230-pound Jordan once scored 44 points for Brennan High School in San Antonio.

Former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher praised Murphy’s advanced fundamentals for a freshman. “He’s got a good basketball I.Q.,” Dutcher told Sports Headliners.

College basketball has new rules to speed up play, but deliberate fouling in the closing minutes can still be agonizing to watch. ESPN2 viewers saw Illinois State drag out the end of its game against Kentucky on Monday night when it took about 10 minutes to use up almost two minutes on the game clock. The Gophers-Clemson game was joined in progress on ESPN2 because of the slow finish with Illinois State and Kentucky.

Don Lucia’s Gophers hockey team hopes to have continued outstanding performances from sophomore forward Leon Bristedt tonight and tomorrow evening against Ohio State at Mariucci Arena. Bristedt has at least a point in seven of the last eight games and leads the team with 12 points (seven goals, five assists) in 11 games this season. His seven goals have already surpassed his freshman total of five in 35 games last season.

Bristedt, from Sweden, is one of only four non-North Americans ever to play for the Gophers, a program whose rosters have been dominated by Minnesotans. The others are Bristedt’s Swedish teammate Robin Hoglund, and NHLers Erik Haula (Finland) and Thomas Vanek (Austria).

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