HockeyFan31

True. Like I said, a lot of the ripping Gibby takes is deserved. And I totally agree, the consistency is just not there. Pineda on the other hand......you pretty much know what you're getting every time out. Dick alluded to that last night during the broadcast if I'm remembering correctly. He gushes over Big Mike basically every start, though, so it's tough to remember sometimes.

Gotta love Big Mike, dude just goes out and throws strikes. He got hit a little last night but obviously the bats picked him up. A shame they couldn't do the same for Gibson Monday but it happens. We all rip Gibby, deservedly so more often than not, but he only gave up one more run than Big Mike did last night. Also, I literally LOLed when the squirrel ran through Kepler's legs.

So true, all or nothing with Gibson.

Seriously bad. Horrible throws and missed a couple of catches that a 3rd grader could have probably made on force outs and/or potential double play turns.

Couple first inning solo bombas for him. Let's see if Gibson can hold up his end of the deal and the bats can add some runs as we go. EDIT: No sooner do I submit this message and Gibson goes lead off single, passed ball, walk......

Harper had a pretty good first half of the season, but he's been really rough for the past month or so. I don't necessarily disagree with you but Rocco can't pitch Romo and Rogers every day. Not to mention Rogers has been horrendous on the second day of pitching back to back. Other guys are going to have to piece some innings together when you have a starting staff as inconsistent as the Twins have. Not saying Rocco is above criticism but to say he's been bailed out all season.....meh.

Your description of him is too kind IMO. What a tool that guy is..... Bummer of a weekend. Oh well, on to the border battle.

The crazy part is the when the Twins hit they don't even need really good pitching. They just need to be average. Twins have scored 5 or more runs in each game this week and have only won a single game. That's on the pitching IMO. That said, the bats had their chances to pick up their pitchers last night in the 8th and again in the 9th, couldn't get a big two out hit. Cleveland has used a lot of relievers in their doubleheader Wednesday and again last night. Hopefully the Twins can keep it close with Bieber starting tonight and take advantage of the tired bullpen late.

Gotta hope the rotation can hold it together for the remainder of the regular season. Do teams usually go with a three man rotation in the playoffs? I could handle Berrios, Odorizzi, and Gibson(on a short leash) in the postseason. I mean, it's no Verlander, Greinke, and Cole but, really, who is? I'd like to think Perez would be good to move to the bullpen but he can't even make it through the order one time so I have trouble picturing him coming out of the pen to get out of a jam. All in all, I agree it's just fun to be talking Twins at this time of the year. New biggest series of the year starts tonight, I hope Target Field is just electric!

Not sure I buy all this.

Notre Dame's original decision to go Hockey East after the realignment was a head scratcher for me though. Yes, Notre Dame instantly made the B1G more competitive but truthfully it made sense for both parties way more so than Notre Dame's jump to HE. I don't think the B1G hockey conference said "Hey, we suck. We need to add a new member to be more competitive nationally.", it just worked out that Notre Dame was on an upswing(while Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan outside of their Frozen Four run have all been very underwhelming) and rolled the conference in their first year. Plus I think the B1G still holds out hope that by catering to them in other sports Notre Dame will join for football/all sports even though that ship has sailed a million times over

Well when you have like fifty player recruiting classes you're bound to land some good players and you can weed out who you do/don't want. This won't be the first year that an incoming class has had high expectations for Granato though and it has yet to work out. Not saying it won't ever work out with Granato in Sconnie but I am in "I'll believe it until I see it" mode until those highly touted classes turn out the expected results. But like I've said in other threads, I don't understand how Wisconsin lands all these huge recruiting classes. At some point you'd think the kids/parents would look at their class on paper and ask "where do I fit in?" and start bailing.

I understand that. But the B1G gets nothing from regular season ticket sales though so I'm not sure where your "double whammy" comes in.

Yeah, I'm not sure what that post was getting at. Regular season ticket revenue all goes to the institutions, the only thing the B1G gets anything out of is the playoff series.

Doubt they would do that because it would be an absolute waste trying to go up against the NFL games for any neutral viewers. Minnesota has big time football attendance issues as well so I don't think they'd want to go up against family time. You'd cut into potential Wisconsin travelers as well that way. I know a few B1G teams play Friday of Thanksgiving weekend but that still wouldn't help this situation unless, again, you go to a Sunday game. But you'd be going up against the NFL again if you do a Sunday game that weekend although that is a bye week for the Vikings which would be a minor plus in favor of a Sunday game in the Twin Cities at least I suppose.

Correct and most football game times aren't announced until a week or two before the game. They often try to bump better matchups to the later time slot for more viewership. So Minnesota, having no idea what time that football game will be played, didn't have much of a choice aside from a Friday/Sunday series and most people seem to despise college hockey being played on a Sunday and/or a day off in the middle of a series. Televised college football games are averaging almost three and a half hours these days(which is ridiculous, but that is a different discussion). If that football game ends up being a 2:30-3ish kickoff.....well, I'm not great at math but that would be a MESS with traffic, (lack of) parking, bars/restaurants, etc coinciding with hockey fans arriving. I don't really like it either but there wasn't much of a choice with the particular weekend, JMHO. That said, if it's ok with my family I might just make an appearance at Mariucci after our traditional early afternoon Thanksgiving meal.

In the second half of last year it sure seemed like it. But I think they lost 4 of the 5 forwards they skated out on PP1 so it will be interesting to see if anyone can pick up the slack there. They had no D to quarterback and that's a big ask of a freshman D. EDIT: That said after looking it up, overall the NCHC had better PK teams than the B1G with four teams in the bottom 15 in the country. Minnesota very well could have been loading up on PP goals against bad teams.

Agreed, I wish there was a way college hockey could mandate that but with many older rinks and underfunded programs it would be next to impossible to get everyone on the same playing field(rink size). But it is interesting on a week to week basis during the season keeping an eye on where your team will play on the road next and what size rink they have.

Interesting take on the rink size. Heard a fair amount of chatter over the last few years that the big rink size at Mariucci is a recruiting detriment for guys with NHL aspirations. I thought I heard they were going to shrink the ice sheet but that obviously has not happened at this point. No one seems to be complaining about rink size in St Cloud, though.

Wrong

Agreed on St Cloud's arena. Had some fun times pregaming though. MC's Dugout has a free shuttle to the game, that's really the only place I've even pregamed there. I've heard tons of stories about the Red Carpet though Lots of fun places to pregame in Mankato but the arena is a lot like St Cloud IMO. I always love Duluth trips. So many places to go there! Would love to make a Denver or CO Springs trip one of these years. Omaha is still one of my favorite/memorable roadtrips. The outcomes of the games sure helped on that one but our group had so much fun! That was the old arena though, not sure what their new barn is like.

Jury is still out on Granato IMO. He's got the talent coming in for sure, I'm still kind of in a "believe it when I see it" mode of thinking to see if he can piece it all together from a coaching standpoint. p.s. They always have good classes on paper because they have 50 player classes it seems. I can't believe the commits they get at a certain point when most of them won't make it to campus.

It seats a little over 5k for hockey so I'd think UND could pack 'em in if they got placed there.

Call Motzko about that if he needs advice since, according to Husky fans, the only reason he took the Minnesota job was for the money.

I believe Bucci and Melrose mentioned multiple times that he committed prior to the coaching change and still stuck with it. In a time where it seems recruits flip flop all too often, it's nice to see someone stick to their word.