Gopher sports take center stage, Wild continue hot streak

With the Vikings on their bye week, the sports world in Minnesota turned to the U of M and Wild for their weekend entertainment. The Gopher hockey team looked to improve on its already hot start to the season with a weekend series with rival North Dakota Fighting Sioux (yes they still are the Sioux) at Marriucci Arena, while the Wild were riding a 3 game win streak going into their Saturday match-up with the St.Louis Blues in St.Paul.

Freshmen Kyle Rau scores his game winning goal with 45 sec left on Saturday

The start of the sports weekend would be with the Gopher hockey team, who was ranked 5th in the nation, taking on the rival #15 North Dakota Sioux. In the past, all of the games between these two schools has always been chippy to say the least and this series would be more of the same. With a total of 29 penalties and 1 game misconduct, you could say that the two teams don't like each other. As far as the actual game, the Gophers and Sioux would take a full period to feel each other out, skating to a 0-0 tie after 1 period. In the second period, the Gophers would strike first on a 5-3 opportunity. Freshmen Kyle Rau fed Nick Bjugstad who scored top shelf over goaltender Aaron Dell and 10,176 fans erupted. The period would end with the Gophers holding a 1-0 lead. The third period would again show some excitement as Tom Serratore scored on a break away beating Dell five hole to give Minnesota a comfortable 2-0 lead. That would be all they would need as hot Gopher goaltender Kent Patterson shut out the visitors from North Dakota earning his 5th shutout of the year, which ties Robb Stauber for most shutouts in a single season in Gopher history.

Game two would be a nail biting finish. The 10,234 fans, tenth most attended game in Marriucci Arena history, would see the home team score first when Nick Bjugstad gave the Gophers a 1-0 lead. The lead wouldn't hold up for long as Brock Nelson for UND scored to tie the game at 1-1 after 1 period. UND would ride the momentum as UND forward Rocco Grimaldi scored to give the Sioux their first lead of the series and it would stay that way until mid way through the third period. The Gophers would draw even late in the third period when Nick Larson scored to make it 2-2. It looked like the game was certain to head to Overtime but a brilliant feed from Bjugstad through the goal crease found Kyle Rau's stick and Rau stuffed it home with 45 seconds left in the game to put the Gophers up for good and a 3-2 win and complete the series sweep of North Dakota, first home sweep since the 1995-96 season.

Dany Heatley celebrates his goal with Mikko Koivu

The Minnesota Wild are not the only hockey team in this state that is not on a hot streak. The Wild have won their past 3 games versus some of the better competition in the NHL. The beat the Detroit Red Wings 1-0 at home and 2-1 in Detroit and most recently beating Vancouver 5-1. Goalie Josh Harding through that period was 3-0 with a 0.99 goals against average. He would get the start on Saturday vs St.Louis.  After a scoreless first period, the Wild would score first with Dany Heatley (Koivu, Prosser) scoring on a 2 on 1. The Wild would not back down and late in the second, Guillaume Latendresse scored muscling a St.Louis defender off him and scoring backhand over goalie Jaroslov Halak to give the home team a 2-0 lead after 2 periods. Late in the third period, after pulling Halak for the extra skater, St.Louis forward and Minnesota native Jamie Langenbrunner scored his first of the year to get them on the board. The Wild would go on to win the game and push its winning streak to 4 games. A impressive note is that Minnesota has killed 14 straight penalties.