The Wild ranked ninth best among 30 NHL teams in composite scores by ESPN The Magazine as part of its NHL preview issue of October 5.  Using a one (desperate) thru 10 (dominant) scale, the magazine gave the Wild a three for face-offs, six for shootouts, three for injury, seven for defense, eight for goaltending, five for power play, nine for penalty killing, two for scoring, two for five-on-five play, and five for intangibles. Overall rating: 4.7.

Ali Lucia, Gopher hockey Don Lucia’s daughter, is a Fox news anchor in Rochester, Minnesota.

The Gophers basketball team opens practice on Friday, October 16 with Tubby’s Tipoff at Williams Arena.  The public is invited to watch coach Tubby Smith’s team starting at 7:30 p.m.

Single game tickets for Gophers basketball went on sale Monday.  Season tickets are also available.  A Gophers spokesman emailed that 98 percent of season tickets have been renewed.  A public season ticket total of about 9,500 is expected.

The Wolves will be on local TV twice during the preseason with the first telecast on October 14 from Chicago and the second in Detroit October 22.

The new Minnesota Blizzards American Basketball Association franchise has scheduled a player tryout from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at Bloomington Kennedy High School.  The Blizzards plan to begin play in the ABA in 2010.

Wayzata High School football coach Brad Anderson and Buffalo coach Gerald Rohl won their 100^th career games earlier this season and now have 101 and 102 wins respectively.  Terry Ogorek, Kittson County Central coach, earned career win 200 recently and now has 203 victories.

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame named Saint John’s senior defensive back Dominic Haik and Gustavus senior defensive back T.J. Ridley as two of 154 semifinalists for the 2009 William V. Campbell Trophy (formerly known as the Draddy Trophy).  Haik, from Minneapolis, is a political science major (pre-law emphasis) with a 3.75 grade-point average.  He is a three-year starter at cornerback for the Johnnies.  Ridley, from Edina, is a 2008 CoSIDA Academic All-American and a biology, pre-medicine major with a 3.95 grade point average.

Minnesota State Mankato is ranked No. 7 nationally in the Division II football coaches’ poll and is 6-0 for the first time since 1926.

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With such a busy sports calendar, where does a writer start?  It seems best to report on a little here and there. ….

On Friday morning my friend John Bell Wilson gave me his predictions for the weekend.  “I think the Twins are in a playoff on Tuesday,” he said.  “I think the Tigers choke.”

Wilson was upbeat about the Gophers and Vikings, too.  Minnesota beats Wisconsin 24-21 and the Vikings “crush” the Packers, 28-10.

There will be plenty of jawing back and forth these days with two “border wars.”  Seems like bad timing to question the worth of Gophers for the school nickname but another friend, Mike Wilkinson, sent a group email last week reporting on Web sites taking “issue” with school nicknames.

Wilkinson asked what local school made most of the lists and then wrote the following: “Yup, our beloved University of Minnesota, thanks to what I have always felt was an awful nickname and mascot….a Gopher!!”

As consolation, though, Wilkinson offered that Illinois College is stuck with a bad one, Blue Boys.  Others he listed included the California-Santa Barbara Banana Slugs and the Cal-Irvine Anteaters. Richard Nixon’s alma mater, Whittier College, is the Poets.  Wilkinson’s other schools with “embarrassing names” are the Delta State Fighting Okra, the Tufts Jumbos, the Trinity Christian Trolls and the Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys.

The Wild’s first regular season game was a loss in Columbus on Saturday night.  The Gophers won an exhibition game against the British Columbia Thunderbirds on Sunday.  Too early for hockey.  My golf clubs are in still in the car.

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I felt guilty about not attending the Twins’ final scheduled game ever in the Metrodome.  A family commitment on Sunday took precedence in Rochester.

I did attend the final Twins game at Met Stadium and skipped out on work that afternoon to attend.  I feel guilty about that, too.  I thought going to the game was important but there were only about 16,000 of us who thought so.

A story from long ago is that a new Twins broadcaster, confident of his skills to promote interest in the club, pronounced that attendance would increase by 200,000 in his first season with the club.  Before the last game of the season he was told, “If the Twins don’t draw 176,000 today, you’ll miss your prediction.”

The last games in the dome might be a final Twins goodbye to several players including pitchers Carl Pavano and Glen Perkins, catcher Mike Redmond, third baseman Joe Crede and second baseman Alexi Casilla.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and his coaches did a lot with less including a starting pitching staff that had two guys left from the five-man rotation that began the year.  Gardenhire, his staff and players deserved the capacity crowds and roars of approval heard in the final days of the dome and the regular season.

The fans turned out in attendance numbers of over 40,000 four times in the last five games.  The season total of 2,362,149 is third best in franchise history.

Michael Cuddyer’s inspirational hitting and play at first base will long be remembered by Twins fans as one of the best late season performances in franchise history.  Leo Durocher was wrong when he said, “Nice guys finish last.”

The Twins were 16-4 in their last 20 games.  Their unlikely heroes included outfielder Delmon Young who hit his first career grand slam home run on Friday night, the same game that rookie starter Jeff Manship won his first game.

Then Young hit two home runs yesterday as the Twins swept Kansas City in three games to tie Detroit for first place in the Central Division and force a tie-break game at the dome with the Tigers tomorrow afternoon.

The joy in Twinsville helped Minnesotans feel better after a sixth straight loss to Wisconsin in football.  After the Gophers lost to the Badgers on Saturday, Minnesota coach Tim Brewster said: “It just rips your guts out.”

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