David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

U Basketball Tickets Hold Steady

Posted on December 10, 2019December 10, 2019 by David Shama

As of last week, the University of Minnesota reported 6,738 public season tickets had been sold for men’s basketball. That total for the 2019-2020 home schedule compares with 6,647 sold last season, according to information provided to Sports Headliners.

Minnesota finished with a 9-11 regular season record last winter but had an entertaining team that won two games in the Big Ten Tournament and later advanced to the NCAA Tournament where the Gophers upset higher seeded Louisville. Amir Coffey, Minnesota’s best player down the stretch, opted to turn professional in the spring rather than return for his senior year. His decision lessened optimism for this season and almost certainly negatively impacted new season ticket sales.

With Coffey the Gophers would have been projected as an upper division or perhaps title contender in preseason Big Ten media forecasts. The U renewed almost 93 percent of its season tickets, and sold 565 new public season tickets.

U marketers have been proactive in pricing and packaging including offering Mini Plan tickets. Season ticket prices start at $340, while six-game Mini Plans begin at $70. A total of 1,914 Mini Plan tickets have been sold. The Gophers will play 17 home games, with 10 of them against Big Ten opponents.

The student season tickets total as of last week was 1,335 compared to 1,457 for 2018-2019.

Interest in Gophers basketball has sharply declined from what it was in the 1980s and 1990s when packed houses were common and season ticket totals were thousands higher than today. The best season attendance average Minnesota had in the last four seasons was 12,133 for the 2014-2015 schedule. The Gophers averaged 11,850 last season and the two seasons before had averages of 10,309 and 10,791. Williams Arena seating capacity is 14,625.

The Gophers play their first Big Ten home game next Sunday against No. 3 ranked Ohio State, one of the early season surprises in a league that can make a case for being the best in the nation. Based on information from the U last week, the Michigan State game at Williams Arena January 26 has the best presale with a total of 9,826 tickets committed.

The Gophers are 0-1 in the Big Ten after last night’s loss at Iowa and have a 4-5 overall record. Their 72-52 Iowa loss was an embarrassing performance highlighted by not hustling on transition defense, poor shooting by Minnesota’s three starting guards (made three of 29 field goals) and turnovers (center Daniel Otruru had at least five travelling violations and eight total turnovers). A popular preseason prediction for the Gophers before the season was a 10th place Big Ten finish and right now it looks accurate.

After last night’s Big Ten season opener, Minnesota head coach Richard Pitino has a 40-71 record in league games. Pitino is in his seventh season at Minnesota.

3rd Anniversary Herbie’s On The Park

Three years ago this month Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold opened a restaurant in the historic Minnesota Club, at 317 Washington Street in St. Paul. “The motivation” was to provide hockey fans and others attending events at adjacent Xcel Energy Center a convenient and appealing place to stop by for food and beverages.

What is the financial bottom line at Herbie’s On The Park? “We don’t lose money,” Leipold told Sports Headliners. “We make a little bit every year.”

There is nearby competition from places like Pazzaluna and the St. Paul Grill but the restaurant named after legendary coach and St. Paul native Herb Brooks has a built- in customer base and hockey niche. Brooks, who coached the hockey Gophers to three national championships and the 1980 U.S. Olympic team’s Miracle on Ice, died in 2003 but his brother Dave Brooks owns the building that overlooks Rice Park and provides offices to the Wild. A Herb Brooks statue is near the restaurant’s front door.

Leipold said the food is outstanding, and the ambiance “is just so fantastic,” partly because of the building’s history and warm tavern feeling. What are his beverage and entrée favorites?

“I love Uncle Nearest, it’s a great whiskey,” Leipold said. “The pork chop is tremendous, and the squid ink pasta is one of the best pastas I’ve ever had.”

The Wild recently announced five-game flex packs are now available for purchase for the remainder of the 2019-20 season. Fans can purchase tickets in the upper, lower and club levels starting at $64 per game for any five remaining home games.

Starting with a game at Xcel Energy Center tonight against the Anaheim Ducks, the Wild has its first three-game homestand of the season this week. The Edmonton Oilers visit on Thursday with the Philadelphia Flyers in town Saturday.

Minnesota has a seven game homestand January 16-February 6. That ties the record for second longest in franchise history.

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Vikings Tales to Soothe a Pain

Posted on December 8, 2019December 8, 2019 by David Shama

We are reminded constantly there is stuff in life you just can’t plan for. This fall I thought about breaking the piggy bank to pay for a trip to the 2020 Rose Bowl. Instead I am shelling out a couple grand for a root canal.

To make me feel better I am offering memories and observations about the Minnesota Vikings past and present because the NFL is celebrating its 100th season this fall. The Vikings organized as an expansion franchise in 1960 and their first NFL season was in 1961. As a schoolboy I witnessed the beginning years both from the stadium stands and the TV screen.

Lordy, the league was different back then including at the box office. The Vikings first took the field August 5, 1961 in a preseason game in Sioux Falls, South Dakota before an announced crowd of 4,954.

Honest.

Neither the Vikings nor the NFL was that big of a deal in 1961. Lead owner Max Winter once told me team marketers held a promotional event in St. Paul to sell tickets, and hardly anyone (maybe zero) made a purchase.

Before buying into the Vikings, Winter was owner of the five-time world champion Minneapolis Lakers. He was known for saying that if there is an attractive event the public wants to see fans will show up in large numbers even if the doors open at midnight.

It took awhile for Minnesota to completely warm to the Vikings. The first rosters were filled with castaways from established NFL clubs. Sprinkled into the talent pool were a few players new to the league, including a 1961 rookie quarterback named Francis Asbury Tarkenton. What a pro debut he made in front of me and 32,325 other fans at Metropolitan Stadium in Minnesota’s first regular season game September 17, 1961. Fran came off the bench to replace starter George Shaw and led the Vikings to a stunning 37-13 win over the legendary Chicago Bears franchise.

To this day the Houdini-like Tarkenton remains my all-time favorite Viking. Most of us had never seen a scrambling quarterback anything like the Georgia native and son of a preacher man. He could extend plays so long your mom had time to leave the room, go in the kitchen and flip the pancakes on the griddle.

Tarkenton not only drove opposing coaches like Vince Lombardi nuts with his scrambling escapades, he made his coach bonkers, too. Norm Van Brocklin had been one of the NFL’s great quarterbacks as a pocket passer, and he led the Philadelphia Eagles to an NFL title in 1960. With no prior coaching experience, he was made the Vikings first head coach. Van Brocklin was rigid and set in his ways, while Tarkenton might draw up a play in the dirt. The two clashed for several years while the Vikings played entertaining but losing football.

As a journalist I started covering the Vikings in the 1970s. I remember one particular encounter with head coach Bud Grant. Bud had his way of drawing lines with players and journalists. He could be intimidating. “Are you going to offer your hand every time we meet?” Grant once asked me.

The “Iceman” caught me off guard. I don’t think I was scared, more annoyed is how I recall things. I am not sure I remember shaking hands with Grant since that time, but don’t misunderstand. I like Bud and he has interviewed with me over the years including a scoop he offered not long ago about a frightening airplane landing he experienced.

Bud’s teams of the 1970s were the only ones in team history to reach the Super Bowl, playing four times in the big game and losing every one. They were a talented and tough bunch. They also had characters capable of mischief.

Former Viking Doug Kingsriter told me about a prank before the 1975 Super Bowl involving his team and the Steelers. Sportscaster Howard Cosell was interviewing Takenton at the Vikings hotel when Wally Hilgenberg and Alan Page interrupted by dosing Cosell with water.

Kingsriter wasn’t involved, but observed the shenanigans. “They hit Cosell square (with the water),” Kingsriter said. “When I say square they knocked his toupee off, not totally off, but it was off to the side. He quick grabbed it and put it back on before he turned around. They got him in the back, in the head, and really soaked him.”

Cosell spotted an amused Page, but not Hilgenberg who had run away. Known for his arrogance, Cosell was angry and vowed revenge on Page. He got it in an odd way, and with a scoop. The next fall the Vikings and Bears were playing on national TV but Page was sidelined. Cosell told his ABC Monday night viewers that Page wasn’t playing because he had hemorrhoids.

I flirted with being interviewed by the Vikings in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Max Winter liked me and I let it be known to general manager Mike Lynn I was interested in the team’s PR job. Lynn was kind of a different cat and I recall him calling me at home on a Sunday morning and saying something like, “What’s happening, Shama?”

Lynn was a slick operator and thought highly of himself. By chance I once encountered him at the MSP airport. He was wearing a blazer similar to those worn by Northwest Airlines personnel. An airline customer, an older lady, thought Lynn was an NW employee and asked for assistance. Probably a humbling experience for the Vikings executive.

There have always been plenty of egos dressed in purple. To this day I can hear former owner Red McCombs bellowing, “Purple Pride, Purple Pride, Purple Pride!” I figure old Red learned the line from his car dealership days in Texas where he might have implored the public to: “Buy my cars, buy my cars, buy my cars!”

What a cast of Purple characters from 1961 through today! I remember being around Randy Moss from his early days with the team. You didn’t stand in his path when he was exiting the locker room. What was the sometimes food critic and downtown traffic cop favorite so angry about?

Approaching interviews with some Vikings players over the years has been interesting. Not to say, though, there aren’t guys who appreciate and understand the role of journalists, even if most of them protect information like Coca Cola guards its secret formula.

Certain players I avoid, while others I welcome a conversation with. A favorites list from the last 20 years includes Matt Birk, Kirk Cousins, Kyle Rudolph, Ryan Longwell, Terence Newman, Harrison Smith and Adam Thielen, plus assistant coaches Dean Dalton and George Stewart, and college scout Scott Studwell.

Thielen has missed several games with an injured hamstring. I can commiserate in my own way. Earlier this fall I shared with him my back pain misery including painful spasms I was experiencing. As we talked, I could tell he had a genuine interest in my ordeal. Thielen is authentic and that characteristic will stay in my memory longer than any play he will ever make on the field.

Thielen won’t play against the Detroit Lions at U.S. Bank Stadium today. The 8-4 Vikings probably won’t need him to win. Minnesota is 75-39-2 all-time against the Lions and defeated 3-8-1 Detroit earlier this season. There will be a full house of about 66,000 fans chanting Skol in perhaps the nation’s best stadium, while fully expecting another win from the Vikings who are among the NFL’s better teams. Yes, things are different for this franchise than in 1961.

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Wild Close on 2021 NHL Winter Classic

Posted on December 5, 2019December 5, 2019 by David Shama

Target Field could be the playing site for the 2021 NHL Winter Classic. The Twins and Wild would host the prestigious annual game that has never been played in Minnesota, and a January 1, 2021 date could help commemorate the 20th anniversary of the local NHL team.

Wild owner Craig Leipold acknowledged to Sports Headliners yesterday that his franchise is competing with one other NHL city for the Winter Classic, but the league has yet to inform him of its decision. An announcement of the 2021 playing site for the outdoor game is likely to come January 1, 2020.

Known as the “State of Hockey,” the NHL Winter Classic seems overdue for a Minnesota date. “It should be us,” Leipold said. “We think that we’ve got exciting players. We think that we have a good team, and a very competitive team, and we have a great market. No one will ever question that. Our fans are fantastic. So I think we check most of the boxes, and…we hope it’s our time.”

Local interest in attracting the nationally televised event has been ongoing for a long time by the Twins and Wild. Twins president Dave St. Peter spoke of his interest in the game as recently as August of this year. The Wild hosted a successful NHL Stadium Series game at TCF Bank Stadium in 2016, but that event is less coveted than the Winter Classic that last January was played at Notre Dame Stadium, and January 1, 2020 lands in the Cotton Bowl.

The Winter Classic was first played in 2008 to evoke the outdoor roots of hockey. The event uses football and baseball stadiums, with one game drawing over 100,000 fans to Michigan Stadium. A Sports Headliners hockey source said the NHL and TV rights holder NBC prefer historic league teams from the United States like the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks. Planners also want winning teams that can attract a large TV audience.

The Wild has been a mediocre team for years and that’s been a factor in the NHL not granting the Winter Classic to Minnesota. But the team has been impressive of late and with the franchise’s 20th anniversary looming since its inception for the 2000-2001 season, and the fact so many other cities have already hosted the game, Minnesota’s lobbying efforts could finally pay off.

The Wild’s opponent might be the Blackhawks because of the rivalry between the two teams and the size of the huge Chicago TV market. The Dallas Stars, the team once based in Minnesota as the North Stars, may well be another possibility. Activities surrounding a Minneapolis Winter Classic could include an alumni game between former Wild and Blackhawks or Stars players.

The Wild is undefeated in its last 10 games, going 7-0-3. Leipold said the team is showing skill and depth, referring to the third and fourth lines as playing “fantastic.” With three goalies and a sound defense, he is excited after the Wild had a slow start to the season. “We don’t have any weaknesses,” he said.

New general manager Bill Guerin has had time to evaluate the personnel but Leipold doesn’t think there are any trades in the works right now. “But I think the next month, and month-and-a-half, is going to tell a lot as to where we think this team can go,” Leipold said.

Worth Noting

It will be interesting to see if Gophers athletics director Mark Coyle is rewarded with increased compensation this month, or shortly after the first of the year. Coyle’s work since being hired in 2016 is highly regarded, but his annual compensation of $850,000 remains unchanged from the original contract—although he did receive a three-year extension last October taking his deal through 2024.

There are many major college athletic directors earning well over $1 million including some of Coyle’s colleagues in the Big Ten. An increase of $150,000, taking Coyle to $1 million, could make sense to new University of Minnesota president Joan Gabel after the breakthrough season in football under the direction of coach P.J. Fleck who Coyle hired in 2017.

The University regents meet December 12 and 13 in Minneapolis but the agenda for the meeting is as yet unknown. Possibly blocking a Coyle increase is this week’s announcement of faculty layoffs at UMD. Although Coyle’s compensation comes from the largely self-supporting Gophers athletic department, a University system perception problem could arise because of the fiscal challenges at UMD.

Coyle’s success at Minnesota, including popular hires of hockey coach Bob Motzko and basketball coach Lindsay Whalen, is noticed by other universities. There was speculation earlier this fall USC was interested in Coyle for its AD opening. Coyle, an Iowa native who first worked for the U athletic department about 18 years ago before taking AD jobs at Boise State and Syracuse, has often expressed his liking for working at Minnesota and living in the Twin Cities with his family.

Sid Hartman’s 100th birthday will be March 15 of next year, and that day just happens to be a Sunday. It’s perfect timing to celebrate the milestone on WCCO Radio where Hartman has been heard for decades on the Sunday morning “Sports Huddle” program.

Show co-host Dave Mona told Sports Headliners the station will do a “Sidtennial” celebration. A list of about 50 potential celebrity guests for telephone interviews is being reviewed to reach a smaller total. The Sid salute March 15, Mona said, will continue during a WCCO Radio Twins spring training broadcast in the afternoon and on into the evening with more interviews, stories and tributes to the legendary radio personality and Minneapolis newspaper columnist.

The Twin Cities Dunkers organization that supports Minnesota professional and amateur sports has provided $690,500 in combined gifts to the athletic departments of the Minneapolis and St. Paul high schools over the past eight years. The organization was originally known as the Minneapolis Dunkers and dates back to 1948.

Gophers wide receiver Rashod Bateman was named the Big Ten’s wide receiver of the year Wednesday (Richter-Howard Award). Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck raved about Bateman recently, describing him as “incredibly talented.” But Fleck also praised the sophomore for his work ethic and selflessness. “When you start combining the skill with that, that’s an inferno, that’s a bonfire, instead of the fire in your fireplace with one log,” Fleck said.

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