If Prince ever wrote a song about his home state’s illustrious hockey history, Saturday’s three-OT thriller between Eden Prairie and Duluth East for the class 2a title would be his muse.
I have no idea whether, like most Minnesotans, Prince enjoys hockey, but he loves muses.
Check out how this contest ended…
I would go to the Minnesota high school hockey state finals before I’d go to game seven of an NHL finals.
Deadspin has a video where you hear one of the announcers say this was a horrible way for this game to end. They watched three periods and 2+ OTs worth of this game, and I watched a shift, and I still say that guy is wrong.
By now most hockey fans (and tangential hockey fans like myself) have had the pleasure of chuckling at Tampa Bay Lightning center Steve Stamkos’ botched penalty shot last night.
For the few of you who have not…
I like the butt slide in defeat after the fact.
It bears mentioning, however, that Stamkos is – or at least once was – a veritable stick handling wizard of sorts. In 2008, TSN.ca featured him in a segment showing off some master shootout moves – such as the spin-o-rama and the probably illegal flick-and-bat.
I think he was going for the flick-and-bat when he ate it last night.
I decided to go withBlades of Glory by John Rosengren, which I picked up for a dollar off Half.com right before this (love me some Half.com). Minneapolis sportswriter Rosengren tells the story of the the Jefferson High School Jaguars of Bloomington, MN – coached by “the winningest hockey coach in the state,” Tom Saterdalen.
From Amazon:
Granted unlimited access to the team in its 2000-01 season, Rosengren attended “every team meeting, practice, and game” and became intimately involved with the team, its members’ parents, and its fans. Despite some disturbing incidents, such as discovering that some players were taking banned performance-enhancing substances, Rosengren found that the Jaguars’ “quest revealed the beauty and goodness of the game” even as it “exposed issues troubling to youth sports.” Kind of a Season on the Brink for hockey, Rosengren’s portrait of this highly rated team of teenagers–first ranked nationally among high-school hockey teams–its travails, and its accomplishments is not to be missed.
If there’s one good story about a fight in stands between hockey parents, I’ll be satisfied.
Thanks to the hockey bloggers who helped me out with their insights, especially Frank from Pensburgh and Chemmy from Pension Plan Puppets. I like doing these posts looking for good sports read. I may have to start a separate blog dedicated to such. Call it Voracious ______ (Walt Clyde Frazier, help me out).
Last spring, I was interested in reading a good boxing book. I put the message out on here and was strongly urged to read The Harder They Fall, by Budd Schulberg. It was an excellent, excellent book. So, I’m doing it again. This time looking for recommendations on a good hockey book. Thank you, HBO 24-7, for recapturing my interest in the sport.
Looking for suggestions, but here are six I pulled off Amazon that look solid. Leave insights in the comments and help me spend those Kindle dollars, puck fiends.
If your head did not explode from reading the title of this post, I suspect you are probably laughing or are confused as to what the hell the Beanpot is. In the grand scheme of sporting events, yes, comparing the two is bombastic. It’d be like comparing, ladies and gentlemen, sex with a model to that first awkward drunken make-out/groping session you had freshman year of college.
While the Super Bowl is the grandaddy of all American sporting events (so grandaddy-licious this year that it’s the most watched broadcast event in history), the Beanpot is a tournament involving Boston’s 4 big schools: Harvard, Northeastern, Boston College, and my alma mater, Boston University. Each year, the 4 schools are paired off for a 2 week tournament for the coveted Beanpot trophy. More importantly, these four schools play for pride and bragging rights…and yes, ads do not cost $3 million for 30 seconds.
If you watched BC’s 4-3 Beanpot victory on Monday night at a local sports bar, it made for an unbelievably satisfying sports dessert to The Big Game’s main course. As a BU alum, it was disappointing to lose, especially to our hated rival (Thank god for $1 dollar draft Mondays at Third & Long) and I was not exactly thrilled wake up and watch ESPN’s Top 10 yesterday morning. What was the #1 play you ask? Chris Kreider, BC’s 18 year old freshman, deking out BU freshman Max Nicastro and finishing with a fluid backhander past BU goalie Kieran Millan to put BC up 3-1 during the Beanpot.
Now, I can drunkenly berate the other 3 BC goals (and believe me, I did) but none of us could argue this was a helluva play. Oddly enough, I quickly changed my tune since, if you watched the game, you’d know BU’s David Warsofsky had an equally amazing top-shelf backhander later on. Surprisingly, I was happy. I was happy that college hockey, a sport that doesn’t get nearly enough recognition and is the pride of the BU faithful, was getting it’s due on Sportscenter. Hopefully next year, we’ll reclaim the trophy for a tournament that’s continually ours (29 titles and running). Until then…
What? You didn’t think I’d really end this on a sad note and praising the enemy, did you? GO B.U.
Sent from my man on the inside at the NHL who loves the arrogance of the subhead. As do I.
That winning streak that was snapped was five straight gold medals by the Canadians, or by my calculations, nearly 30 straight wins in World Championship competition.
Oh, did I forget to mention this momentous feat happened yesterday? Some of the hockey community is pretty enraged that we didn’t pay more attention to this. Personally, I’m surprised we didn’t get a plug for the junior team from the 1980′s Olympic heroes during the Winter Classic last weekend – you’d think Eruzione and friends would take an interest in a bunch of 20-somethings taking out a powerhouse in dramatic fashion. I guess there wasn’t time during the segment…possibly because they had to clear up the fact that the game against the Soviets wasn’t actually the gold medal game.
