Gophers Hockey – Page 36 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Playoffs? Vikings Need Road Wins Now

Posted on October 23, 2015October 23, 2015 by David Shama

The Vikings haven’t had a winning road record since 1998 when they were 7-1 in away games and 8-0 at home. The franchise hasn’t even reached .500 since the 2009 team was 4-4 on the road. And more recently the Vikings have really struggled in NFC North road games, not having won a division game away from home since 2012.

Wide receiver Mike Wallace acknowledged the Vikings need to win Sunday’s game in Detroit against the 1-5 Lions. “We know why need to win this game. We need to get it going, do something on the road,” he told Sports Headliners. “We can’t make the playoffs (alternating) win and lost, win and lost.”

During September the Vikings opened the season with a road loss to the 49ers, then followed up with home wins against the Lions and Chargers. Early this month there was a road loss to the Broncos and last Sunday a win at home versus the Chiefs. That adds up to a 3-2 record including no wins on the road.

Mike Wallace (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings)

While the Vikings are undefeated at home, they can’t count on a perfect record at TCF Bank Stadium, and even if they could go 8-0 that wouldn’t for certain qualify the club for the playoffs. Wallace believes the Vikings should think about winning five of eight games on the road. But with six road games remaining, the goal of going 5-1 seems daunting.

Awaiting the Vikings are away games with the Lions, the 2-3 Bears and Raiders, 5-1 Falcons, 4-2 Cardinals and 6-0 Packers. The best the Vikings might accomplish are three or four road wins.

Regarding the remaining home schedule, the Packers are the only opponent with an above .500 record. A win over the Packers at TCF is possible, but victories are more likely against the Bears, 2-3 Rams, 3-4 Seahawks and 3-3 Giants.

Add up the potential wins and losses and the Vikings could go 9-7 or even 10-6 but they need to help themselves both on the road and at home starting this Sunday in an almost can’t lose game. The Lions were 11-5 last season and defeated the Vikings twice, but they have been a major disappointment in 2015.

Vikings wide receiver Charles Johnson anticipates plenty of support from Lions fans on Sunday at Ford Field, a covered stadium. “A place like Detroit is going to be really amped up, and it’s super loud. (I) think it’s going to be a good test for us,” he said. “We already beat them once but I know they got something else up their sleeve.”

Johnson said encountering extreme noise on the road can limit communications among players and restrict game plans. “Some things that we would do at home we won’t be able to do on the road because of the crowd noise and certain situations that may occur,” he said.

Told that the Vikings haven’t had a winning road record since 1998, Johnson said: “We’ve got a great group of guys here willing to work and we’re gonna try to change that statistic.”

What does Vikings coach Mike Zimmer think is needed to play better on the road? “Probably start fast (in the game) would be a good one. I think we’ve started fast at home pretty good. …Handling the crowd noise, making sure we don’t turn the ball over. We’ve got to protect the quarterback better than what we’ve done on the road. Those will all be big things.”

Worth Noting

Phil Loadholt said this Vikings team has more rapport than any he has played on. The offensive tackle is in his seventh year with the Vikings and although a torn Achilles tendon has ended his season he is around the players. Teammates are supportive of one another and while coaches are critical they avoid humiliating players. “They don’t do that,” Loadholt told Sports Headliners.

Rookie wide receiver Stefon Diggs has been mentored by teammate Charles Johnson. “He’s definitely helped me out a lot,” Diggs said. “More than he knows as far as watching him run routes. Watching what he does really helps me. …”

The 21-year-old Diggs has 13 catches for 216 yards in his last two games. Johnson, a three-year NFL wide receiver who joined the Vikings last year, is enthusiastic about Diggs, a fifth round draft choice from Maryland.

“I love Diggs,” Johnson said. “Since he came in he’s been under my wing and I’ve been helping as much as I can.”

The Gophers basketball scrimmage on Sunday at Williams Arena will consist of four eight minute quarters. The scrimmage, free and open to the public, begins at 4 p.m. with doors opening at 3:30 p.m.

The team’s potential star, at least early in the season, looks like sophomore guard Nate Mason. Gophers coach Richard Pitino predicts Mason has the potential at some point to become one of the Big Ten’s best guards. The 6-2 Mason, who averaged 9.8 points and almost three assists per game as a freshman, told Sports Headliners he doesn’t have a preference between point guard and shooting guard.

Mason’s assignment could be shooting guard if 6-foot much hyped point guard Kevin Dorsey, a freshman, impresses Pitino in practices and early games including the November 1 exhibition matchup at Williams Arena against Minnesota Crookston. Mason likes what he’s seen of the speedy freshman and would “welcome” playing along side of him. “We both came in (to the Gophers) with a lot of confidence,” Mason said.

Minnesota junior forward Charles Buggs also talked about Dorsey. “He’s one of the fastest guys I’ve ever seen at the guard spot in college basketball,” Buggs said. “He can get to the rim, and shoot.”

The Gophers men’s hockey team should be on a mission tonight and tomorrow evening in games against Northeastern at Mariucci Arena. The Gophers 0-3 start to the season contrasts to their first three games a year ago. With a revised roster of players this fall, Minnesota has been outscored 9-1. In the first three games last year coach Don Lucia’s team was 3-0 and had outscored opponents 12 goals to five.

The Gophers have 10 freshmen on the roster after graduating six seniors and having three juniors sign professional contracts.

A streak of mediocre seasons and discontent with coach Kirk Ferentz resulted in Iowa attendance being down this season. The Hawkeyes haven’t sold out a game in 2015 but the Iowa athletic department announced yesterday only single seats remain for the November 14 Minnesota game. Although Iowa is off to a 7-0 start, 9,500 tickets remain for the Maryland game and 15,000 for the Purdue game.

Nationally-ranked St. Thomas, the MIAC’s only undefeated football team, hosts Bethel (4-2 overall, 3-1 MIAC) on Saturday afternoon. The Tommies (6-0 overall, 4-0 in league games) will see a Bethel squad that lost close games to nationally-ranked Wartburg and Concordia.

The game will feature two of the MIAC’s top running backs in St. Thomas’ Jordan Roberts (730 yards, 7.0 yard average, 14 touchdowns) and Bethel’s Marshall Klitzke (642 yards, 6.2 average, 8 touchdowns). The Tommie defense leads the conference in scoring (6.8 points per game), yardage (209.2 a game) and sacks (22), while the Royals aren’t far behind, allowing 18.2 points and 333.6 yards per game. The two football programs are 3-3 in their last six games.

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Nobody Builds Stadiums Like Minneapolis

Posted on March 27, 2015March 29, 2015 by David Shama

Like it or not, by the year 2018 the Minneapolis-St. Paul market could have five new stadiums that opened during a 10-year period.

Dr. Bill McGuire’s intent to build a soccer-specific stadium to house his Major League Soccer expansion franchise puts MSP in unique territory on the American sports scene. Three or four years from now it looks like this town will be the only area in the country that can list the opening of five major stadiums in a decade—at a cost of about $2 billion.

“It is an incredible phenomenon,” said Bill Lester.

Lester (center) with dome colleagues Steve Maki & Dennis Alfton.

Lester was executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission from 1987-2012. Part of that period he contended with restlessness among the Metrodome’s major tenants who wanted their own buildings. The campaigns to move on were all successful, with the Gophers opening TCF Bank Stadium in 2009, the Twins moving into Target Field in 2010 and the Vikings now working toward a first season in their new covered stadium in 2016.

The independent baseball St. Paul Saints will open their new $60-plus million stadium in Lowertown this spring. And this week comes news the MLS is granting a franchise to McGuire and his group who want to build an open air soccer stadium in the Minneapolis Farmers Market area that might cost between $100 million and $150 million.

The Gophers, Twins, Vikings and Saints facilities received major funding from the public sector. Indications are most city, county and state political leaders aren’t in favor of public money for a soccer stadium. Yet even if the facility is privately financed there surely will be at least indirect taxpayer money involved to help with surrounding roads and other elements. “There are some ways you can help them without it being a direct subsidy,” Lester said.

The real possibility of five new stadiums at a $2 billion collective price tag is completely different than what’s going on around the country where building one major venue sometimes gets done, but not always. Atlanta is building new football and baseball stadiums for its NFL and MLB teams at the same time but that’s unusual. Los Angeles has been trying to agree on a football stadium plan for decades to attract an NFL franchise—perhaps the Rams who once called LA home but now find themselves trying to convince the city of St. Louis and state of Missouri to build them a new palace. Oakland is in danger of losing its baseball and football teams because no progress has been made for years in finalizing a plan for new stadiums. Other cities and teams are at odds, too.

Long ago there was a reluctance here to invest in facilities but Lester thinks that changed with the successes of the Metrodome and Xcel Energy Center. He noted the dome was “built on time and on budget,” sending a message of accountability to a skeptical public. The versatile facility also kept the Twins and Vikings from moving out of town for 25 years. “The public portion of the investment was very successful,” he said.

The Xcel Energy Center had a cutting edge design and enhancements. The facility showed the public how a gameday experience there, or later at Target Field, could be so much more than what fans once experienced in other Minnesota sports venues.

MSP, once a reluctant player in the stadium building game, has become the parade leader among American cities. Lester believes the change in attitude is also explained by how team owners are no longer viewed as billionaires running out of town with the money from their new riches generated in new stadiums. “It just didn’t hold up to very much scrutiny,” Lester said.

Minnesotans have come to realize stadiums ensure the commitment of teams to stay here and the facilities make major league sports entertainment possible. Fans enjoy the experiences in the stadiums and realize those venues create jobs, generate taxes and can lead to neighborhood developments providing more economic stimulus. There’s also the benefit of maintaining and building this area’s national image of being a high quality place to live, offering exceptional education, health care, housing, live theatre, major league sports and more.

Lester said the diversified sports scene here plays a role in attracting and keeping young professionals and entrepreneurs, “part of a broader picture” to feed the vitality of this area.

By 2018, Minneapolis-St. Paul will be home to not only major league baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer but also big time college basketball, football and hockey with the Gophers. In addition, MSP has professional women’s basketball with the Lynx and men’s pro lacrosse with the Swarm. No other city can match that lineup, including metros with three and four times the population of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

The already intense competition among teams for ticket buyers, sponsors, suite purchasers and advertisers will kick up a notch with an MLS club and new stadium. Can all those pro teams, and the Gophers, be successful at the box office and with their overall balance sheets?

Lester isn’t sure while taking an optimistic but cautious view. “If the economy is healthy and the business climate is okay…I am not so sure anymore that there is a point at which it implodes. I used to think there was but I am not so sure anymore.”

Worth Noting

Sports Illustrated’s baseball preview issue, on newsstands this week, predicts Twins AL Central Division rival Cleveland will not only win the division but also will defeat the Nationals in the World Series. The Tigers, White Sox and Royals will trail the Indians but finish ahead of the Twins who will be last in the division, per S.I. The magazine forecasts a Twins record of 67-95, the worst in the AL. The club was 70-92 last season and S.I. believes the 2015 team is improved but so is the division with tough competition.

The magazine—quoting an anonymous scout—said “the starting pitching is respectable now.” But outfield defense, including with a declining Torii Hunter, is a minus and while the club has power hitters in Oswaldo Arcia and Kennys Vargas, the long ball isn’t part of Joe Mauer’s future, S.I. wrote. “Joe Mauer has lost his power, and in that ballpark (Target Field) it’s not coming back,” said the scout. “He’s an opposite-field singles and doubles hitter now.”

New manager Paul Molitor? “The team stopped listening to Ron Gardenhire, so the manager change was smart,” the scout said.

The Gophers hockey team and coach Don Lucia have plenty of incentives in the NCAA Tournament. The Gophers have a tournament opening Northeast Regional game late this afternoon against Minnesota Duluth. A win advances Minnesota to the regional title contest tomorrow, with the winner earning a place in the Frozen Four April 9-11 in Boston. The Gophers were the national runner-up last year at the Frozen Four.

A national title would be the third for a Lucia-coached Gophers team. If Lucia is successful in winning the NCAA title, he receives a bonus of $75,000, according to a schedule of incentives document he and the University agreed to in July of 2012. Lucia has already earned $30,000 and $15,000 bonuses for winning the 2015 Big Ten regular season and conference championships, according to that document.

Union defeated the Gophers in the national championship game last April but didn’t qualify for this year’s NCAA Tournament after a 19-18-2 season. The Union team of last year showed the Gophers an aggressiveness and physical style that could help Minnesota in this year’s tournament.

Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk is 2-0 against the Flames this season with a 0.98 GAA and one shutout. The Wild play the Flames at Xcel Energy Center tonight. While the Wild is 2-0 this season against Calgary, Minnesota is 0-2 versus the Kings who are at Xcel tomorrow night.

Should be fun having the Matthews brothers in the NFC North together next fall. The Vikings signed linebacker Casey Matthews as a free agent this week. Casey’s older brother, Clay Matthews, is a six-year NFL veteran and standout linebacker for the Packers. Casey started a career-high 11 games for the Eagles last season. A four year pro, he also had a career-best 62 tackles last season.

Timberwolves president Flip Saunders and general manager Milt Newton rank No. 24 in ESPN.com’s listing this week of the NBA’s front office decision makers. The top five front offices among the 30 league franchises are the Spurs, Warriors, Rockets, Heat and Trail Blazers. ESPN ranks Saunders No. 25 among the league’s best coaches, with Gregg Popovich of the Spurs No. 1, the Hawks Mike Budenholzer No. 2 and the Warriors Steve Kerr No. 3. Former Wolves coach Randy Wittman, now head coach of the Wizards, ranks No. 26 despite a winning record in Washington.

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2010 Final Four Inspired Tyus Jones

Posted on March 25, 2015March 25, 2015 by David Shama

Tyus Jones and his Duke teammates will try to win the South Region of the NCAA Tournament this weekend and advance to the Final Four in Indianapolis. It will be fitting if the Blue Devils freshman point guard from Apple Valley High School returns to Indy where several years ago as an eighth grader he was inspired by the Final Four.

Al Nuness, the former Gophers basketball captain, took Tyus and his grade school age brother Tre to Indianapolis in 2010 when Duke won the national championship in a field that included Butler, Michigan State and West Virginia. As a Jostens executive, Nuness had to be in Indianapolis for the Final Four, so he drove his young cousins, the Jones boys, to see college basketball played on its biggest stage.

The weekend had a lasting impact. “I think that (experience) solidified what he (Tyus) wanted to do,” Nuness told Sports Headliners. “He sat there as a student of the game. They both did (Tyus and Tre). We went to practices and they wouldn’t leave.”

At the time it was Tre—this winter a freshman starting point guard for Apple Valley—who was a big Duke fan. Tyus? He was all in for Michigan State. Ironically, the Spartans could be part of the Final Four field when the teams start playing on April 4 in Indianapolis.

Nuness won’t travel to Houston for this Friday night’s South Region Sweet 16 game between Duke and Utah, but if the Blue Devils win that game and the regional title on Sunday, he will head for Indy to see Tyus play. Nuness, though, knows March Madness is unpredictable and is concerned about Duke’s lack of depth behind star freshman center Jahlil Okafor. “He goes down, they got nothing,” Nuness said.

The NCAA Tournament’s one-and-done format seems like the best of places for Tyus who in both high school and college has shown exceptional poise and ability to make clutch plays when needed. “That’s a gift and there are few that have that kind of gift,” Nuness said. “His gift is the game slows down for him. He sees the game at a different pace than the normal person sees the game. He’s not exceptionally quick. He’s not exceptionally fast, but he’s on point with decisions and passes.”

Nuness’ memories of the trip to Indianapolis in 2010 included his surprise about the many college coaches that knew of Tyus. He and the boys were at a shopping mall when a Michigan State assistant coach told Tyus the Spartans wouldn’t worry about winning if they had a guard like him.

“I said, ‘These guys all know you’?” Nuness recalled.

Back then Tyus was attracting attention as an outstanding AAU player and eventually became a McDonald’s prep All-American at Apple Valley High School. And in Indy that year he and Tre got noticed for their shooting skills. At a convention where Nuness had business there was a shooting contest that attracted participants including college-age kids. Tyus won the contest and Tre finished second.

For first place Tyus won uniforms for his Apple Valley team. “It was an unbelievable trip for those guys (Tyus and Tre),” Nuness said.

It was pretty memorable for Nuness, too, who ended up securing the national championship ring order from Duke for Jostens. Nuness and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski knew each other as high school players in the Chicago area. When Krzyzewski learned Jostens wanted him to buy rings from the Minnesota-based company, he had a message for Nuness: come see him at Duke.

Nuness did exactly that and it didn’t take long for the legendary Blue Devils coach to good-naturedly go after him. The two men had played together on an all-star team in the 1960s. “You never passed the ball at all,” Krzyzewski said.

Nuness laughed in recalling the accusation and, of course, denied it. But there’s no denying he would love to join Tyus, Coach K and the rest of the Blue Devils in Indianapolis next week.

Worth Noting

Kevin Garnett played his first game this season for the Timberwolves on February 25 in a Target Center win over the Wizards. Since then Garnett has been in and out of the lineup to rest his 38-year-old body and bothersome knee. His last game was March 7. The Wolves record since February 27 is 3-11 and it’s evident Garnett’s presence on the roster hasn’t changed the losing ways of the Wolves who are 16-54 for the season which ends on April 15.

The Vikings have the No. 11 first round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft to be held in Chicago April 30-May 2. Fans can hope the Vikings are fortunate enough to find a player who develops like a couple of the more famous all-time No. 11 selections. That list includes NFL Texans defensive end J.J. Watt and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

The Gophers football team, off from spring practices since March 12, resumed workouts yesterday. The Gophers practice tomorrow starting at 4:15 p.m. and Saturday at 9:50 a.m. Both sessions are at the Gibson-Nagurski Football Complex and open to the public.

Last weekend’s WCHA Final Five attendance at the Xcel Energy Center was up 34.8 percent from the previous year when the two-day tournament was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Total attendance was 15,048 compared with 11,162 in 2014. Minnesota State won the WCHA Final Five and is in the NCAA Tournament’s 16-team field with fellow league member Michigan Tech.

Brad Frost, who Sunday coached the Gophers women’s hockey team to a third national championship in four years, has made a career of coaching women. The Bethel graduate and native of Ontario started his career as an assistant girls hockey coach at Eagan High School from 1996-1999. Then he was a men’s assistant coach at his alma mater from 1999-2000 before becoming a Gophers women’s assistant in 2001 and taking over as interim head coach in 2007.

When athletic director Joel Maturi was looking to permanently fill the head hockey coaching position he worked diligently at searching for candidates of both genders. At the search’s end in 2008 he decided the best candidate was a person already on staff, Frost. “His success speaks for itself,” Maturi told Sports Headliners this week.

Maturi said Frost relates effectively to his players and can “push the envelope” when needed. He has the respect of the young women who are on the team. Frost is likeable too and relates well with others including media and boosters. “His humility comes through,” Maturi said. “He’s not a big ego guy.”

Women’s teams in town have achieved championship success including Frost’s Gophers and the two-time WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx. The Gophers swimming and diving team recently won a fourth straight Big Ten championship. Former Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak offered this Facebook post earlier in the week:

Be it hockey or basketball/
Or even swimmin/
When Minnesotans want a title/
We turn to the women

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