The calendar shows we’re halfway through the year and I am listing 25 things I am hoping for in the next six months.
Alert: recognizing the varied tastes of readers regarding humor, please note the word “wink” will be used to indicate anticipated levity. Feel welcome to use this as a prompt to laugh (howl?), like in the TV studio when a sign says: “APPLAUSE!”
Well, it’s already July 10 so best get to these 25 gems whether they be well-intended, sarcastic or funny.
1. The Timberwolves are bringing back 36-year-old Joe Ingles for another season at a reported $3.6 million to provide karma in the locker room and cheerleading from the bench. How cool would it be for the seldom used Ingles to have a double-digit scoring game playing in front of his autistic young son Jacob?
2. New Wolves owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez could have a “wandering eye” when it comes to keeping the team in Minneapolis. Hoping the replacement for Target Center will stay in the city rather than be built in the ‘burbs. The city is the economic hub of the region, and a new arena is vital to its future as a place where Minnesotans want to be.
3. Let’s hope when the 2025-2026 schedules come out, there are fewer same night home conflicts involving the Wolves, Wild and Golden Gophers men’s basketball than ever before. Also, we can do without those Gopher basketball games on the same Sundays the Vikings play.
4. A longshot, but how inspiring it would be to see all the NHL Russian hockey players join with North American-based past and present Ukrainian amateurs and pros in leading a public peace vigil to encourage an end to the brutal war that has saddened the world for years.
5. Wink: Wondering if Wild GM and woodworking enthusiast Bill Guerin might send me a table for outside grilling. Por favor, have the table on wheels, with a butcher block top, hooks and a beer bottle opener.
6. Wink 2: Hoping our area can attract an American Cornhole League franchise so we can move a step closer to having every kind of sports franchise under the sun.
7. Any chance Twins shortstop Carlos Correa, among the highest paid at his position in MLB, can hit like a $33 million player?
8. Fingers crossed that center fielder Byron Buxton plays a career high 140-plus games this season.
9. It will be a classy union if anticipated new Twins franchise buyers include Joe Mauer in the ownership and he becomes a prominent face of the franchise for decades to come.
10. Hoping for more games where the Twins use former manager Paul Molitor as the analyst on broadcasts. His insights are among the best in Twins broadcast history.
11. Get ready to applaud if the Vikings announce plans for statues outside U.S. Bank Stadium including one for legendary coach Harry Peter Grant. At the same time also commit to honoring the famed “Purple People Eaters” with a statue. That defensive line scared the deuce out of opposing offenses for about a decade and consisted mostly of Alan Page, Carl Eller, Jim Marshall and Gary Larsen.
12. The Gophers need to get into the statue-erecting business too outside of Huntington Bank Stadium. There are a lot of ultra worthy names to choose from starting with Bobby Bell, Bernie Bierman, Greg Eslinger, Paul Giel, Bronko Nagurski and Bruce Smith.
13. Shocking: 2016 Vikings No. 1 draft pick Laquon Treadwell, considered a consensus bust in Minnesota, has stayed in the NFL playing for five other teams including in two games with the Colts last season. But, no, he isn’t returning here in 2025.
14. Fingers crossed Jordan Addison doesn’t have a three-peat of summer driving incidents.
15. More fingers crossed: Quarterback Max Brosmer makes the Vikings’ 53-man roster or at least the practice squad.
16. Miracle: Vikings fans choose not to boo the snot out of first-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy when he screws up. And he will.
17. Miracle 2: the football Gophers win either at Oregon or Ohio State.
18. Happy Birthday, Reusse: Coach P.J. Fleck and the Gophers defeat Nebraska on Patrick Reusse’s 80th birthday, October 17. (For the unaware: Google Reusse on Fleck.)
19. Networking: let’s get new Golden Gophers basketball coach Niko Medved together with Jim Dutcher, the 92-year-old wise man who was head coach of the 1982 Big Ten title team.
20. Bulletin board locker-room material: In the last 20 men’s basketball seasons the Gophers have one winning season in conference games, while neighboring rivals Wisconsin and Iowa have 17 and nine respectively.
21. Wink 3: Potential speaking invitations for yours truly? Nope. Don’t like speaking and no good at it. (Available, though, for a five-figure fee!)
22. Appropriate: The Lynx win the WNBA championship against the Liberty on a controversial call by the refs.
23. Appropriate 2: The Lynx acquire Minnesota native Paige Bueckers prior to next season.
24. Canterbury Park and Running Aces get dealt in on sports wagering when state legislation is finally approved.
25. And we all need to remember this quote from Samuel Johnson in the next six months and beyond: “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
Sorry, but most out state people do not want to go to downtown Minneapolis anymore. Fact. It is not the same as it once was.
And those same outstate people were not exactly coming into downtown before… though. Target Center was full all this last year, you couldn’t get a ticket during the playoff run, and fans pretty much all had a good time. Twins games this summer next door also are a good time, and the people there all seem to say the same as you walk in and out. Any large city with a downtown is going to have its share of pockets of problems (that’s been going on for 100 years, and ebbs and flows) but I assure you – come down to the city in 2025. You’ll have fun. Our teams may lose, but at least don’t blame Minneapolis for that!
Running Aces and Canterbury Downs (Park) are currently sitting on Native land. They both also want to infringe on the rights of the Native community to continue own(ing)the rights of gambling. Much has been taken right here in Minnesota. That includes land taken away from them in the middle of an Indian Reservation that they have been trying to get back. The bleeding needs to be stopped.
I think it would (be) interesting on the passing of former Gopher greats to feature an article on their accomplishments. It would be a treasure to family and fans who followed their careers.