Although it hasn’t been announced, look for Johan Santana to be the Twins season opening game pitcher on Monday, April 2.  Santana, twice a Cy Young award winner, will be making only the second opening game start of his career. 

The guess is the Twins will come up with the extra money needed to help Hennepin County pay for acquisition of the land for the new ballpark near Target Center.  An alternate land site will not be pursued. 

Target Center announced this week it will be the site of a boxing card featuring an IBA America’s heavyweight title fight on Friday, April 6, the third boxing promotion at the building in the last several months.   The Xcel Energy Center, with a card headlined by St. Paul’s Jason Litzau, will host boxing on April 25.

“There’s a boxing war going on,” said Rob Leer of Leer Communications, publicist for the Target Center event.  “Xcel is tired of seeing St. Paul boxers fighting in Minneapolis.”  Xcel Energy Center general manager Jack Larson said, “I don’t think there’s a boxing war going on.  I think both buildings are trying to build up boxing.” 

Lou Nanne is providing analysis on telecasts of the state hockey tournament for the 43^rd year.  He has four grandsons, ranging in age from 11-16, who want him to continue in future years with the possibility one or more will be playing while grandpa is in the TV booth. 

Nanne said a strong Minnesota Wild run in the playoffs will depend on the goal tending and defense.  He’s been pleasantly “surprised” by the play of rookie goal tender Niklas Backstrom. 

Gopher football coach Tim Brewster said players came to him this winter and said they wanted to adopt the following motto for the 2007 season: “We will make history again.” Minnesota’s football resume includes 18 Big Ten Conference championships and six national championships. 

The Gophers began spring football practice on March 1, the earliest start anyone can remember.  The annual spring game, open to the public, is Saturday, April 7 at the Metrodome.

Tim Brewster told Sports Headliners on Sunday he hasn’t signed his contract as University of Minnesota football coach, but agreement is “imminent.”  He said there’s some “dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s” required but he expects the contract to be finalized within 30 days.  The agreement will not include an escape clause allowing Brewster to leave the University for another school such as Texas.  His ambitions for the Gophers include some day winning a national championship.

Brewster has been working as the Gophers new coach since January 17.  It’s not unusual for a coach to work initially without a contract.  Former coach Glen Mason hadn’t signed his contract in the fall of 1997, his first season as Gopher coach. 

Brewster is expected to sign a five year, $1 million contract.  The absence of an escape clause was discussed on Sunday with the 46-year-old Brewster who became a head coach after many years of being an assistant in the NFL and for college teams.  While he is months away from coaching his first Gopher game, Brewster has brought optimism and expectations to the program not seen here since Lou Holtz was resurrecting Minnesota football in the 1980s.  Those afflicted with paranoia, or just good memories, recall Holtz had a clause in his Minnesota contract allowing him to leave for Notre Dame.

So let’s assume that during the next few years Brewster has his Gophers challenging for a Big Ten Conference title and playing in New Year’s Day bowl games.  And let’s assume his former boss at Texas, 55-year-old Mack Brown, decided to retire.  Would Brewster gallop off for cowboy country or other places where talent is plentiful and college football is a religion?

“This (coaching the Gophers) is a dream come true for me,” Brewster said. “The University of Minnesota meets all the needs that I have, all the goals that I had to be a head coach at a tremendous state university in the Big Ten.   So I look to have a long, long stay at the University of Minnesota.

“I would love to put down roots here with my family.  It’s a wonderful place. … Most importantly are the people. The people I have met here at Minnesota have been just phenomenal to me and my family.”

But wouldn’t a place like Texas, where Brewster helped recruit players who led the Longhorns to the national championship, be tempting?  “My focus and attention is reclaiming the status (18 conference titles, six national championships) here at the University of Minnesota with the football program,” he said.  “I’ve got my hands full with this job and I am just totally excited about this opportunity.  To be honest with you, I have no thought or consideration whatsoever of thinking about another (place).  I’ve got a big, big job to do.  I want to win a national championship here at the U.  I believe we can and that’s going to take some time.  I am committed to that time. …”

Will Randy Moss end up in Green Bay or some place other than Oakland in 2007?  Can Daunte Culpepper recover from his devastating knee injury of 2005 to become a productive quarterback for Miami?  I asked Dean Dalton, the former Vikings assistant coach and now a knowledgeable NFL analyst in the media, for his views on Moss and Culpepper, the former Vikings stars who have struggled to find success since leaving Minneapolis.

Moss, 30, hasn’t been as effective in two seasons in Oakland as he was here.  His pass receiving numbers with the Raiders include 1,558 yards and 11 touchdowns in two years.  His last two seasons here: 2,399 yards, 30 touchdowns.

The big play wide receiver, though, has sustained his reputation as a malcontent. “There’s a chance they (the Raiders) will trade him,” Dalton said. “He’s a premier guy.  He won’t bring the premier value he would have even a year ago.   They’ll probably look to shop him. . . .”

There was a report last week the Packers were interested in Moss.  Will Moss’s reputation preclude other teams from being interested?  “Yes, absolutely,” Dalton answered.  “In today’s era, especially after seeing what Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith did with two teams that were built with a core of high character players and the success they had, teams are going to tend to get away from the headaches of the prima donna types and focus on players that put the team first.”

Dalton, who was an assistant with the Vikings for seven seasons through 2005, was enthusiastic about Culpepper who had difficulty rehabilitating his right knee last off-season and only played in four games in 2006.  His numbers included two touchdown passes, 929 yards.

Can Culpepper recover physically and mentally?  “Yes,” Dalton said. “One thing about Daunte Culpepper is he’s one of the most intense competitors I’ve been afforded the chance to work with.  I think strongly that if his knee is healthy enough to play and he’s not premature in his rehab like he was last year, he will come back and come back strong.  And I feel that he once again can get in that upper echelon of quarterbacks in the NFL.”