The Vikings' New Stadium Gets a Super Upgrade

The new NFL logo went into use at the 2008 draft. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You really didn't think that the (nearly) billion dollar glass palace of a football stadium, about to be constructed in downtown Minneapolis, was going to be the biggest white elephant in Minnesota's history, did you?

Erasing at least some of the doubts about the new Minnesota Vikings' stadium's ability to land national attractions, the National Football League awarded its 2018 Super Bowl to Minneapolis.

This is Minnesota's second shot at the Big Game, which they last hosted in 1992.  Back then, the since-demolished Metrodome was considered state of the art enough for the NFL to put its championship game in a city that's colder than, let's say, Miami or San Diego in the winter.

This time, Minnesota's competition was Indianapolis and New Orleans, both of whom have hosted Super Bowls in more recent years.  The fact that the Vikings successfully convinced (to put it mildly) the Minnesota legislature to help fund the new stadium was reportedly a deciding factor.

The other factor is that the NFL is no longer averse to putting its biggest game in colder climates, now that the season has been pushed into February.  The success of the last Super Bowl had to do with two things:  It was held outdoors, and it was played near New York City.  The league has yet to announce any more such games, so the move to an indoor stadium in Minneapolis should be considered a hedged bet.  Besides, how often can you get lucky outdoors without a snowstorm or an arctic blast messing things up?

Come February 2018, the Twin Cities will be on NFL lockdown.  Besides all the freebies (also known as "financial considerations") the league is getting from the state just to host this shindig, every hotel and restaurant in the area will be packed with league officials, corporate sponsors, media and other hangers-on.

What's in it for the general public, besides watching the game on the big screen?  Not much, aside from a few bones the league is going to toss them with "The NFL Experience", or something like that.  Only one percent will be able to see the game in person, and that's if you're fortunate to win a special ticket lottery.  For all you stadium haters out there (and you know who you are), the taxpayers' bill for the Super Bowl won't be revealed until after the game has been played, if at all.  That's to avoid rioting in the streets, we suppose?

The people who run the glass palace tell us that they're going to bid for more events in the future, to fill in the time between Vikings games.  Such as a men's basketball Final Four, a Major League Soccer franchise, or a major convention.  Right now, they should focus on what the stadium is going to look like once it's built by the 2016 NFL season.  If it really does become a white elephant, would it be worth going into on a cold day in February?

Wild 2013-14: They Made The Playoffs. Now What?

Minnesota Wild (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another up-and-down season for the Minnesota Wild was redeemed by its most extensive playoff run since 2003.  They defeated the Colorado Avalanche in seven games in the first round, only to fall to the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks in the next round in six games.

The Wild finished the regular NHL season with 96 points, which is good enough for fourth place in the Central Division and a wild card playoff spot.  Once again, they have done just enough to get by.

They did all this despite the lack of scoring, a constant carousel of goaltenders, and the inability to win on the road.

• The efforts of Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise, Ryan Suter and others notwithstanding, the Wild scored 207 goals during the regular season, which is par for the course unless you were expecting more.  Still, there were too many nights where one-goal games were the norm, and almost all of them ended in overtime and/or a shootout.
• There were at least four players who tended goal at various times this season:  Niklas Backstrom, Darcy Kuemper, Josh Harding and Ilya Bryzgalov.  (Did we leave anyone out?)  Because of injuries and illness to Backstrom and Harding, the stretch run and the playoffs fell to a young minor leaguer (Kuemper) and an NHL journeyman (Bryzgalov) who performed very well under the circumstances.  This can't happen again.
• You'll notice that the Wild won only once on the road during the playoffs, and that was Game 7 at Colorado.  That reflects what happened away from the confines of the Xcel Energy Center this past season.

Thanks to the playoff run, coach Mike Yeo will likely get a contract extension.  Should that happen, he'll be under more pressure to produce a winner.  Wild owner Craig Leipold will be more than happy to open up his vault and sign whatever free agent he can get his hands on.  The priorities, of course, are for more scoring and stable goaltending.  But having Thomas Vanek, currently enjoying playoff success with the Montreal Canadiens after having suffered in Buffalo and Long Island, might be too good to pass up for Leipold.

We can't say whether the Minnesota Wild will be a Stanley Cup contender in the near future.  It's more likely that they'll be the Midwestern version of the San Jose Sharks--a perennial playoff team that for some reason never quite got over the hump.  But the self-proclaimed State of Hockey won't mind, just so long as the Wild keep playing deep into the spring every year.

NFL Draft: Passing On Passers

National Football League Draft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It always happens.  For months, you've seen every Tom, Dick and (maybe a few) Marys give their take on what player their favorite NFL team should draft in every available form of media.  As for the people who do this for a living, their picks seem to change by the hour depending on what kind of information the teams themselves choose to tell them.

Thursday's first round of the NFL Draft in New York showed why many of these so-called speculators would be better off scratching lottery tickets.  In a year where all we've heard about was the plethora of high-value college quarterbacks (i.e. Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M and Teddy Bridgewater of Louisville), most teams went for offensive or defensive line help.  Which is fine, because we're told defense wins championships.

The only quarterback chosen among the bottom of the barrel (that is, the first ten teams in the draft) was Blake Bortles of Central Florida, chosen third by the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Manziel, Bridgewater and a baffled nation watched as team after team in the first round passed on these passers.  Even the Cleveland Browns and Minnesota Vikings, teams that were known to be seeking its latest franchise-saving QB after their last ones didn't pan out, went with defensive help first.

So why did it take until the 22nd pick (and a trade with the Philadelphia Eagles) for the Browns to choose Manziel, or the Vikings with the 32nd pick (and a trade with the Seattle Seahawks) to choose Bridgewater?  Is it Manziel's sophomore status or his baggage?  Was it Bridgewater's reportedly lousy audition that undermined his otherwise stellar collegiate career?

Whatever it was, all the fake drama succeeded in making the ESPN crew covering the draft look like fools after having hyped "Johnny Football" for so long.  But after awhile, it became a bit much to watch analyst Jon Gruden constantly defending his man when the possibility existed that Manziel might not get drafted in the first round at all--until he was.  For a quarterback with two years of college experience, he sure sucks a lot of the air out of the room.

As the draft continues through Saturday, this is only Step One of a long process to see whether any of the players drafted has what it takes to be NFL material.  If not, at this time next year, others will be chosen by either the league or ESPN as the Next Big Thing in football.  That's why we have college football.  Like it or not, they exist to prime the pump for (to paraphrase Joni Mitchell) the starmaking machinery that is pro football.