Weekend Wrapup or Whatever

So some stuff happened this weekend.

- First off, Sergio Garcia won the Players at Sawgrass, beating little known Paul Goydos in a playoff. Goydos missed a par putt on 18 that would have won it, but a lot of people bogeyed that hole, so I wouldn't overly hold it against him. Goydos is featured prominently in the John Feinstein book, "Tales From Q School" which I can't recommend highly enough. If he could have held on, it would have been like a 16 seed winning in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Alas, it was not meant to be, and Sergio takes it down. Look for Garcia to end up winning his first major this year as well. I'm betting the British but the US Open or the PGA wouldn't surprise me.

- The Twins went 2-1 against the Red Sox a this weekend, including holding onto a 9-8 victory while waving around pretty pink bats on Sunday, despite Nathan's best efforts to give the game away. Of note was Craig Monroe's two homeruns. Also of note is that his mother's name is Marilyn. Yes, Marilyn Monroe. Not that one.

- In a shocking turn of events, Patrick Reusse actually wrote a good article. Of course, it's basically a beat writer style recap of the Twins game, and he's actually supposed to be an opinion columnist, but whatever, it's an improvement. Fear not, as Jim Souhan used Reussian logic in part of his article, wondering whether Gardenhire did a great managerial job in 2002. Using arguments like, "Corey Koskie is hurt now" and "Torii Hunter was bad then" and "Jacque Jones is bad now" to try to show Gardy got the most out of his players. I'm not going to break the whole thing down, but it is truly a dizzying mess and I'm actually pretty surprised it came out of Souhan rather than Reusse or Sid.

- A scandal has been uncovered involving former USC star OJ Mayo, who recently declared for the NBA draft. According to one of Mayo's former friends, Mayo received money and gifts including a flat screen TV for his dorm room. Allow me to speak for everyone when I say, "Well no shit." This story must have broken by the same guys who broke the "Barry Bonds used Steriods" story.

- Oh yeah, Nicky Punto is on the DL, which would normally be good news but it means we're going to see a whole lot more of Adam Everett than anyone could ever want to. Yes, I'm aware he hit a homerun Sunday night, but let's not pretend he's good when we all know he sucks dirty Dawg ass. By the by, that gives Everett 36 career homeruns, 9 more than Scott Stahoviak, about whom Bear once said, "he'll be a perennial 30 homerun hitter" and I'm not even kidding.

- My baby is the cutest baby ever. If you don't believe me, just look:



I asked her once what she thought of Delmon Young, whereupon she shat herself. So she's smart too.

PODS

Well, well, well. Being a "great blog mind", i was thinking to myself all weekend how i would start this weeks blog off. Nothing was really coming to mind, until I remembered Nick Faldo a.k.a. a big dumbass who clearly knows nothing about golf telling me that Matt Kuchar was gonna win this weekend, HA! Here's this Faldo guy giving me shit because i picked Luke Donald (2nd), but he was gonna pretend he had a great PGA tour mind and pick Matt Kuchar (T43 or some crap.....what he clearly did down his leg Sunday) So "Nick" who's your pick this week???

Now that i got that off my chest, let's talk some golf. This year's Honda Classic was a definite one to remember. For the first time since 2004 "The Big Easy" Ernie Els got back in to the win column on the PGA Tour. Being the top ranked player in the field, his ath to victory was not as easy as some might think. With former Honda Classic Champion Luke Donald and former PGA tour winner Mark Calcavecchia hot on his heels all day Sunday, Ernie knew he would have to play a mistake free final round. With a final round 67 and a little case of "Calc" pooping down his leg on 15, Els let the field know he is getting back to where he belongs. Did i mention that Matt Kuchar finished T43?? Just want to make sure everyone knew that.

One player i was extremely impressed with over the week was the young Australian Matt Jones, whoooooooooooo??? This was my first thought. This kid has now made 6 of 6 cuts this year, he's got a great swing and a whole lot of upside. Being in contention for the first time in his career clearly got to him Sunday, but when this kid learns how to close your gonna be hear alot from this guy.

This week the Tour heads to the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club for the 2008 PODS Championship. This weeks sponsor got me to thinking if "Nick Faldo" guy just shoved himself in a POD after that ridiculous prediction from last week. Anyways, this years field on paper looks to be one of the strongest of the year to date. This year like every year at the copperhead course will come down to who's hitting the ball the best this week. This course with its tree lined fairways is all about finding fairways if your going to score well, and placing the ball in the right spot on the greens to give yourself the best chance at birdies. My pick to win this week is Floridian Joe Durant. If he can get the flat stick rolling, I look for him to have a good week. And I'm gonna have an honor mention pick, and that is the big swede Carl Pettersen.

- Grandslam

Gopher Hockey Travel West

The Gophers travel to Denver, Colorado this weekend to take on the Pioneers of Denver University. WWWWW, get the picture? Oregon Trail......the Gophers play the Pioneers..... get it! Pure brilliance on my part. That picture does remind of one thing that always pissed me off as a kid. How in the hell was that little slut Mary always breaking her arm or getting sick? Every time you would start making some progress on your journey to Oregon you would receive an urgent message that little slut girl is hurt again or drank some water and has diarrhea. Seriously, someone should have just traded Mary to the indians for a bottle of fire water and 2 blankets. Having Mary on the Oregon trail would be like driving home from Canada or Madison with Dawg, only 10 times worse. Back to hockey. Minnesota's mission is to see if they can actually get more than 1 pt this weekend. With the way the Gophers have been scoring this season I would say no chance, but things haven't been going very smoothly for Denver the past 3 weekends either.

Denver has lost 4 of their past 5 games (loss to Air Force and twice to Mankato, ooouch) and their leading scorer, Brock Trotter, left school earlier this week. Rumors have been flying all over the internet about why Trotter left school. He has been accused of cheating on a test, plagiarism (WWWW, you should have him write for this blog), legal troubles or having personal issues. Seen as how this is part of that internet thing I am going to go on record as saying the reason Trotter left school is his teammates outed him on a road trip a couple weeks ago. How is that for breaking news! The University has kept quiet about the matter, only saying the Trotter is still a member of the team. The only thing that is known for sure is Trotter will not be playing this weekend and I still say he is gay and ashamed. Sophomore Tyler Ruegsegger was injured last weekend when Denver was swept by Mankato State and is questionable for this weekends series. If both Trotter and Ruegsegger are out this weekend it is very likely a pair of soccer matches will break out again this weekend.

A couple notable Denver players that will actually put on a pair of skates this weekend are freshman forward Tyler Bozak (12 goals and 11 Assists) and sophomore forward Rhett Rakhshani (9 goals 10 assists). Both are extremely talented young players who could be dominant when Trotter and Ruegsegger are also in the lineup. Chris Butler is the lead man on Denver's D and is a classic offensive defenseman. Butler is strictly a puck mover and nothing illustrates that more than his zero penalty minutes for the season....pussy! Lastly, the key for Denver this weekend will be goalie Peter Mannino. Mannino is one of the elite goalies in college hockey and that spells trouble for a Gopher team that couldn't score with puck bunnies right now.

As usual the key for this weekend will be wether or not the Gophers can actually score 3 goals in a game. If I was Bogart, and bet on everything humanly possible, I would bet the Gophers would not score 3 goals in a game this weekend. To make things worse, Denver's penalty kill is one of the best in the WCHA. That is not good since the Gophers sport one of the worst power plays in all of college hockey. The two bright spots for the Gophers the past couple of weeks have been the play of Defense and of course Alex Kangas. The Defense was suppose to be this teams weak link coming into the season and since December have been very good. If the Gophers could ever find a couple of goals their D and goalie are actually playing well enough for them to make a run. Alex Kangas should have his jersey retired right now. Not only has he been outstanding, he is also the guy who banished Jeff Frazee from my life. For that I will always owe him and would gladly give him my first child in return. I love you Alex.

The Gophers will play Friday nights game without Tony Lucia who is suspended for "the fight" at the end of last saturdays game. Expect Hoeffel to move up to the 2nd line and fill Lucia's spot. I have heard a lot of crap this week from homer gopher fans who think the little slap and tickle episode with UND last weekend will bring this team together??? Seriously, if all it takes is a cat fight to get this team playing well I will be the first guy through the doors at Blarney's next October looking to start shit with next years incoming freshmen. It would almost be worth the beating to actually watch good hockey next winter.

My prediction, the Gophers tie 2-2 and win 3-1. That is right, I am now changing what I said earlier in this post, the gophers will score three goals in one game. Probably not, but I didn't want to be all negative like WWWWWWW. Friday nights game is on BTN at 8 PM and Saturdays game is on FSN following the Wild game. Also, why is the gophers game part of hockey day MN (or what ever cheesy name FSN is calling saturday), but the game isn't in MN? Why wouldn't FSN work with the WCHA and have MN play UMD or another MN team this weekend??? F'ing retards. Hockey Day MN my ass!

**Extra** Alex Goligoski was called up by the Pittsburgh Penguins this week. Add another player to the list of players the Gophers coaches never developed.