Final Five: We Hardly Remember Ye

Now, many of us are attending WCHA's Final Five this weekend, and I know how excited we can get about it. Some of us have been busily emailing each other all week in preparation and excitement, while others have been doing fuzzy math during our night shift at the liquor store on the how much we'll save on cheese curds alone if we don't go down to the cities until Saturday night. Needless to say, it's occupied a great deal of our time so far. So much so, that I fear some of you have missed out on a very important day. This past Tuesday was a day that deserves observance, and I think we really missed the boat, collectively. It's a day that celebrates a wonderful story. A day that should be honored. I am talking, of course, about...












Wait for it...






Wait for it...







Just a little more...





Almost...

... Patrick Duffy's birthday!

Now, unless you're me, you probably don't go to theonion.com everyday to read the American Voices section. If you are me, you would have noticed that the last three days' American Voices have all been devoted to Patrick Duffy's bday for some reason. At first I didn't understand why, so I did some digging... and figured out he was the dad on Step-by-Step, and most likely banged Suzanne Sommers in her prime. And maybe had a fling with that brunette stepdaughter from the show that was being so relentlessly pursued by everybody's favorite: Cody (or whatever the dumb guys name was). Who knows - he's fucking Patrick Duffy, anything is possible. In addition, he was on a show called Dallas, which I'm told was a big hit at the time. I think it was about rich cowboys from the 70s, judging by pictures on the interwebs.



In any event, I just wanted everyone to take a second to reflect on what Patrick Duffy and Step-by-Step (No , not Step-by-Step by NKOTB [New Kids on the Block], Step-by-Step the hilarious long-running sitcom with the classic nerd kid with glasses) meant to them. Thanks for your time.



Notcho

Yes, I do realize I am going to Hell

CROOKSTON PIRATES SPECIAL OLYMPICS BASKETBALL TAKE SECOND!!





The Crookston Pirates Special Olympics basketball team completed their season in Perham in the Region 4 tournament. The morning session was individual skills and the athletes all placed well in their divisions. The afternoon had games. There were 3 on 3 half court games (which the majority of teams played) and full court. There were only 2 teams entered in the full court, of which the Pirates were one. The other team was the Perham team, who are the 5 time state champions in the highest division. Apparently no one else wanted to take them on, but the Pirates were willing and able. Last year, they lost 62 -0. This year was different. The Pirates lost both games of the best of three, but there is more to the story than that. This time the scores were 48-6 and 41-5. The athletes stood toe to toe with them and did not let down. By the end, they were exhausted. But, they lived the spirit of the special olympics oath, "Let me win, but if I do not win, let me be brave in the attempt."

Cock Tease from "The Classic"

Seeing this headline got me a little excited, "Punto injures elbow at Classic" Then it all came crashing down as I read the article.

BRADENTON, Fla. -- Nick Punto's departing gift from the World Baseball Classic was not exactly a pleasant one.
The Twins shortstop returned to the clubhouse at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, Fla., on Thursday morning with a swollen right elbow, the result of getting drilled by a pitch in Italy's loss to Venezuela on Tuesday night.
Punto had an X-ray on the elbow after that game and it came back negative. The Twins medical staff was going to look over the X-rays he had taken, but the expectation was that Punto will just miss a couple of days while he waits for the swelling to go down.
"It's pretty stiff," Punto said of his elbow. "We'll see. ... The swelling has gone up a bit. It could just be the flight [back to Florida] too."
Although the swollen elbow was a disappointing way to end the Classic for Punto, he said the overall experience was more than he could have imagined. Italy's 6-2 victory over Canada at Rogers Centre in Toronto was an especially memorable moment.
"It was unbelievable," Punto said of the win. "It was exciting for everybody, but it was truly like they won Game 7 of the World Series -- from the manager to the players to the president of the Italian Federation."
While some of Punto's teammates have teased Justin Morneau and Jesse Crain about Team Canada's loss to Italy, the shortstop said he won't be giving those guys any grief.
"I don't even want to touch that," said Punto, who went 1-for-12 with an RBI in three games for Italy. "I'm sure they are still a little sore about it."
The Twins shortstop had so much fun in the event that he said he'd love to take part in when the next Classic rolls around in three years. But he came away with one lesson from it as well. Punto, who has been hit by only one pitch in his Major League career, said that he's going to try to stay out of the way of any errant pitches in the future.
"It hurt," Punto said. "Now I know why I don't get hit by pitches."


I guess it was just too good to be true, cue the blue balls. The shit news for the Twins is that his 0.083 WBC batting average will probably be ready for the regular season. What a fucking pussy, I hate Punto.


And by the way, Doc, did you get the Flux Capacitor fixed and take the fucking Delorean out again? You have an explanation of events on 3/9/2009 posted on 3/6/2009. Simply amazing!

Explanation of Events on 3/9/09

First of all, had I known about the events that had transpired earlier in the day, I would've never thought the Wild would lose last night's game. It wasn't until this morning that I was given the full story, and I'll recount that here to let all of you know exactly how the Wild won last night.

7:00am C-Town Time(CTT)

Here we see our favorite goalie Reeser starting the morning off workin on the rails. I'm not sure where he was planning on going, but I'll bet he never got there.

9:00am CTT
The call comes in from SJ Sharks GM Doug Wilson telling Reese to get his pads out of the basement. It seems Nabakov is out and they're in a pinch. Naturally Reeser is busy having a ciggy so he misses the call, but he'll get the biggest voicemail ever soon enough.

11:00am CTT
Reese puts in a call to Bob Montague pleading for any advice that might help him settle down and be ready for the game. "You've only got one job to do, stop the puck." Nuff said.

12:00pm CTT

Reeser is on a plane and heading for California. Soils all three barf bags in his row. Now working on some Copenhagen.

4:00pm CTT
Rumors start flying around San Jose that this kid from Minnesota is being called up by the Sharks. Nabakov has no comment.

6:00pm CTT

Reeser arrives at the arena to throngs of reporters wondering just who the hell he is. "No comment, talk to the birdie."

8:30pm CTT
Dressed and ready to go, the puke count up to 5, It's finally time to hit the ice. Rob Blake taped over Reese's skate blades and his entrance onto the ice for warmups is a memorable one. That crafty old fuck. In another bizarre move, the Sharks allow The Feever to warm up their new goalie, and all this results in is about 30 head shots and a stick in the nuts. Needless to say Reeser is rattled.

9:30pm CTT
Game Time. Reeser looks to be shitting bricks right now.

10:45pm CTT
We're about half way through the second period and the Sharks have built themselves a 3-0 lead. Reese hasn't had this many shutout minutes since...well never. Maybe in mens league that one time, but that really doesn't count.

11:00pm CTT
Bergeron finally solves the mystery goalie from Minnesota. Apparently someone on the Wild staff was watching film of warmups to get an idea on this kid's weaknesses and noticed after about 13 or 14 head shots he was turtling on every shot above his waist. The call came in to the bench and before anybody knew what happened we were heading to the 2nd intermission with the Wild down just 3-2.

12:00am CTT
With about 8 minutes left in the game and the Sharks clinging to a one goal lead, another tip comes into the the Wild bench. It seems the coach of the high school team in Detroit Lakes is watching the game, and apparently knows a surefire way to get the Wild another goal. He tells the lockerroom staff about a play they ran back in '98 that worked like a charm. "Just bounce the puck from as close to center ice as possible, make sure it hops a couple times and he'll lose it 5-hole." What happened next will live on in highlight shows forever.

Here's a still shot, bulletin board material if you will.

1:00am CTT
Overtime now. Scrum in front of Reeser, he gets shoved aside like a salad in front of skippy, and just like that the Wild leave California with two points. San Jose sent Reese packing, probably his last soiree in the NHL, but you never know.

I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it, but it all makes sense now.

Gross

That's all I can say about the picture that previously occupied this space. Thanks pipe smoker. Anyways, I've been hoping somebody would post anything to get that picture to drop down, unfortunately that didn't happen so I'll have to step in. Wilbur sent me a link to his blog, which includes a pretty in-depth preview of the Twins season. I refuse to post it on here due to a couple things; A)My preview is better. B)It's like 6 pages long. C)My preview is all you need to know. Anyways, here's the link to his blog. My only suggestion is to drink more when posting, it makes everything better.

God I can still see that fucking picture.

Hopefully this will take care of that.

Oh yeah, and the Wild are in the midst of a serious ass-whipping at the hands of the Sharks. Either San Jose is really good or the Wild are all drunk. Probably both. It reminds me of what would happen if a varsity high school team played the JV. Which reminds me of one of the worst movies of all time; D3. My favorite part of that movie is when Charlie is crying because he isn't captain anymore and Hans throws a bunch of C's at him. Then he dies. I blame Charlie.

Doug (I shit my pants when it comes doing something productive) Risebrough

Once again another trade deadline has passed us and Doug is caught with his pecker in his hands. This guys has not been able to pull the trigger or get anything done since he made a mess in the 90's out of a Gilmour trade. I am going to suggest he, just like the reporter in Colorado, walk his children to school. Douggie R., congrats, you are the biggest f ing joke right next to Marian (my pussy hurts all day everday) Gaborik. I love Belanger's comments on Gabby when told he was taking some tests, "what, is he getting a degree, he has had enough time off to study for one." I am glad that Doug was working those phones so hard today in attempt to better his team. I guess he felt confident in the fact that we score two goals a game and have a line that includes...Weller, Boogard, and sometimes AHL all star Krys Kolanos. Doug was found in his office today wearing this shitty diaper.

Note To Josh Harding:

Have fun in Detroit next year.

Sincerely,
Doc


SAINT PAUL/MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Minnesota Wild President and General Manager Doug Risebrough today announced the National Hockey League (NHL) club has re-signed goaltender Niklas Backstrom to a four-year, $24 million contract that will run through the 2012-2013 NHL season

And So It Begins...

Kangas is out. Patterson is in. Long overdue in my book.

Congrats C-Town Bloggers

I just want to say how proud I am of all you handicapped mofo's that participated in the section blogging tournament. We came out with first place ribbons and a quality picture to show for it. Now let's gather all the helmets up, hit the road, and do our best blogging to capture the state title. And who knows, one day we may even get to participate in the real blogging sections and not just the retard version.

By the way, Doc you might want to try some sun screen, you're looking a little "burnt" and not to mention gay holding onto Skipper's leg.

Vikes Get Jewwier

If you haven't heard, the Vikes traded for Sage Rosenfels at some point today. The only good part of this is that we won't have to watch Gus play in a Vikes uniform ever again. Well, atleast not until Jackson is hurt again. So we'll get about 3 games Gus-Free this season, make sure to enjoy them.

Rosenfels is first and foremost the owner of the gayest name in professional sports, and if it doesn't scream "JEW" then I don't know what does. Now I don't know for sure if he's a Jew or not, but it sure sounds like it. And the Vikes have the Jewwiest Jew I've ever seen as an owner, so who knows. Maybe Ziggy is secretly trying to field an all Jew team at some point down the road and this is just starting to lay the foundation. who knows. Jews.

Twins Preseason Opener - LIVE

Going to try doing this a little different this year, we'll see how it works and go from there. As for the webcam, couldn't get anything worthwhile on there so i'm scrapping it for now.

Top 1st - Pedroia lined a double to left center off of Perkins, but other than that no problems. Cuddy showed off his arm on a throw to third from RF and he still has a laser.

Bot 1st - I didn't even see who led off, one pitch and done. Casilla followed suit. DERR with a looping double to left center, looked like he got jammed, but he didn't. he's stronger than me. Cuddy follows with a walk. All this off of Wakefield and his knuckler. Kubel up now. And he pops up to 3rd base. gay.

Top 2nd - First mention of Red Sox Nation by the play by play guy. i hate every one of them. Promptly followed by the first K by Perkins. Not sure how to type a backwards K, but if i could i would.

Bot 2nd - Delmon leads off with a single. He's good. Buscher follows with a single, Delmon to 3rd. Nobody out. Red Dog with a bloop single and we're on the board. Delmon almost gave himself a concussion when he "slid" into home head first. Might wanna tell him to dial it down a notch, it's a long season. And a sac fly later from Pridie and it's 2-0. Ok, Casilla is up now, so he clearly didn't bat in the first. I'll assume it was Punto who got out on one pitch. Casilla with a bloop RBI single and it's 3-0. They're fucking unstoppable. Until this little homo gets up. I'm banking on a DP. Check that, Casilla steals 2nd taking the DP out of play. And then little Nicky fouls one off his own head. Don't ask how, but it happened. God he's a fag. Nick Punto 0-2, rest of team 5-7. God i hate him. Ok inning over after a DERR walk and cuddy ground out. I'm gonna give the live stream a go and see what it looks like. stand by...

Ok, we're live again. I couldn't find a good picture, but whatever. The twins are in white and the Sox are wearing blue if you can't decipher that.

Top 3rd - Not sure how, but there's 2 outs and Pedroia is up.

Bot 3rd - Wakefield is out. I could tell he was losing velocity off his fast ball right from the start. Seriously, he couldn't have been throwing more than 70mph. It was only a matter of time.

Typing is boring when I'm not drunk. I'm gonna try to set up the cam a little closer and broadcast the game that way. Again, no promises, this might be the best you're gonna get.

Well, that's it for tonight. I've got nothing but time on my hands tomorrow so we'll see what happens with the blog, but for now, i'm out and so is the live broadcast.

New Look for C-Town Blog

I have to say I'm kind of impressed with the new look to the blog Doc. I'm not sure where you found the motivation to update to a Twins theme, I know you're one of the laziest bastards I've ever met. And that says a lot looking at all the d-bags connected to this blog. I like the new banner too, you even found a way to emphasize the class of this blog by adding the Natty Lite can. Your feed for the game tonight, and all future web casts, better be flawless and in HD or I'll be sending D-Gordo down there to hook it up. Keep your jug of water handy...

Twins 2009 Preview – Doc Style

First and foremost, Russel is already questioning my opening day lineup, and I say go blow yourself. Not that I need to defend my decision, but I will anyways. I’m going to assume that most people, including Russel, would hit either Cuddy or Crede in the 5 hole. The only other person on the roster who would fit in as a number 5 hitter is Kubel, but that won’t work here. So, our three options for protecting the M&M’s are Delmon, Cuddy, and Crede. I can see all three of them in there at one point or another this season, but my biggest argument for giving Delmon the nod to start the season is health. Cuddyer is coming off a year where he played only 9 games after June and Crede played just 11 games after the all star break. Cuddy’s injury doesn’t appear to be anything that will carry over to this season, but you never know. Crede on the other hand could go either way with his back. He had surgery over the off season and only time will tell if it’s healed this time or if it’s just an on-going problem. Plus they’re both old. Old for baseball, not old for the earth. Delmon meanwhile was hitting .297 after the break including heating up in September with a .330 batting average. In other words, it would appear the sophomore slump ended early for him, if you can call it that. But if you take a look back, turns out he was just three at bats shy of using up his rookie status in 2006 and therefore was technically still a rookie in 2007. If you break his career down into 162 game sections, he finished up his second season last year towards the end of August. In games after that (start of his 3rd season) he batted .337. Keep in mind this kid is only 23 years old and a former first overall draft pick. I’m pretty sure he’s going to surprise the hell out of everyone this year; I’ll say batting over .300 with 15-20 dingers and should close in on 100 RBI as well. So blow me.
One concern I have with the Twins is the determination to pencil Nick Punto into the lineup every fucking day. This guy is probably a good clubhouse guy and services Gardy for playing time, but in reality should never see the field unless the Twins have a lead in the 8th inning and need to put him in as a defensive replacement or a pinch runner or some shit like that. He’s garbage as an everyday player and deserves to get kicked in the balls by Donald Igwebuike.
You can’t really argue too much with the 1-4 guys in the lineup, maybe Gomez in the 2 hole when he plays, but I think he’s a 9 guy regardless so we’ll move on with that. The other argument people have is hitting Mauer and Morneau back to back instead of putting one of the righties in between them. All you have to do is look at the numbers and you’ll see that it doesn’t matter one bit what side the pitcher is throwing from, these guys are gonna get their hits. Mauer hit .361 off lefties last year and Morneau wasn’t bad at .284. Your righties against lefties last season – Delmon .300, Redmond .277, Gomez .270 and it just gets lower from there (Crede hit just .122 off lefties last year). Argument over.
I’m too lazy and bored right now to look any numbers up for pitching, so let’s just say the twins are going to have one of the best starting rotations in baseball. If these guys stay healthy and consistently do what they are capable of, we’re looking at a staff that will rival the braves of the 90’s when they had Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux. Not even kidding.
1. Scott Baker RHP
2. Francisco Liriano LHP
3. Kevin Slowey RHP
4. Glen Perkins LHP
5. Nick Blackburn RHP
Biggest concern for these guys is throwing more than 4 innings per night. They need at least 2 of these guys to throw over 200 innings this year to take some pressure off the pen, which was overworked as hell last season. If someone wants to look up innings pitched between the starters and bullpen last year go for it, but I’m going to guess the Twins had one of the worst ratios in baseball.
On to the bullpen, and still too lazy to look stuff up, so I’ll just say that the new fat left handed Mexican needs to be as good or better than the last fat left handed Mexican. And he was good when he was here. Not sure about Ayala, he seems like a bum to me, but I honestly don’t know shit about him so I won’t pretend I do. Hate Crain. Hate Guerrier. Hate Bonser. Hopefully either Humber or Swarzak can show something this spring and make the club eliminating the need for Bonser. Other than that, you’ve got the other lefty Breslow who was solid last year and Nathan who is a horse.
Before I end this garbage, there’s one other thing that drives me up a wall with Gardy; the need to bat Redmond 3rd when he gives Mauer the day off. Now we all love Redmond and he’d be a perennial all-star if they voted in a backup catcher, but come on man. Bat him 8th, do what you need to with the rest of the lineup. Problem solved.
Remember, I’m planning on doing a live blog during the game tonight and I’ll try to get the streaming webcam going as well. No promises, but that’s the plan. Peace Bitches.

*UPDATE* Bonser is out for the season with strained vagina or something. I'm not quite sure how today could get any better. Maybe Punto will be involved in a car accident or found to be a member of the Italian Mafia and be forced to leave the country, never to be heard from again. Keep your fingers crossed.

Streaming Live!

I'm kind of kicking myself for not forking over the extra $20 for a better webcam, but I also never thought it could be used for something as sweet as this. Anyways, here it is, you're looking at what I'm looking at...Live! Well, it might be live. That all depends on whether or not I'm on the computer and have the cam hooked up. I feel like a porn star with a live webcam. How long until Skippy asks me to take off my shirt and lick on my man nipples? I can't wait. This should make the live blog of the Twins game tomorrow a little more interesting, as you queers can technically watch the game live right here. I realize the quality is pretty shitty right now, but I'll try it out on the other TV and try different settings on this one and see if i can get something that is worth your time. I won't lie though, I lose motivation quite easily and I hate every one of you, so don't bank on anything. I'll leave this shit rolling throughout the Wild game tonight, and probably through the end of the Coyotes game, so if anyone is on here while I am let me know.

It's Twinkie Time

Well, it's finally here. Spring training. Twins on TV. The only thing missing will be Dick and Bert, but they'll be back soon enough. For those of you who aren't blessed with the Extra Innings package from DirecTV, I'm not so sure when your season will kick off, but I'll be sitting on my fat ass tomorrow night watching the Twins and the Red Sox in the first game of spring training. The only bad part is the game is on NESN, which means I'll be forced to listen to some east coast fuck with a horrible Boston accent drooling over dustin pedroyer all night. I'm not bitter though. The Gophers are in the middle of a really embarrasing stretch, and unless something drastic changes (kangas quits putting vodka in his water bottle or patterson performs a miracle) they're going to be done in a couple weeks anyways. So now it's Twins time. I'll be doing my version of the season preview at some point tomorrow. What that means is a half-assed ill-informed prediction of how many times nick punto slides into first and how many times jesse crain will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. God i hate them both. Also, I'm fully prepared to do a live blog during the game tomorrow for those of you who won't be able to watch. Should be a good time. I haven't been drunk on a weeknight in quite some time, but i can't think of a better reason to break that streak. So be here tomorrow, 6pm C-Town time, I know I will. And as a preview of my preview, here's how the opening day lineup looks if I'm in charge of the team. I'm not saying or thinking Gardy will run this out there, but regardless...

1. Denard Span CF
2. Alexi Casilla 2B
3. Joe Mauer C
4. Justin Morneau 1B
5. Delmon Young LF
6. Jason Kubel DH
7. Joe Crede 3B
8. Michael Cuddyer RF
9. Brendan Harris SS

Where have all the bloggers gone?

Is something the matter? Did something drastically change since - oh, I don't know - January 9th, year of our Lord 2009? I don't get it. The posts from most of the C-town bloggers seem to be much more dreary. It's like the tale of two different two-month stretches.

I'm completely lost. If anybody knows what could have possibly changed everybody's level of enthusiasm on Janurary 9, 2009, please let me know.

My energy is up. I seem to be blogging at another level; destined for a successful post-season blogging run. A lot of you, on the other hand, seem beaten up. Embattled. Some would say you guys aren't even going to make it into the big conference blogging tournament, let alone the national rounds of post-season blogging. Still others are saying that you will finish the year ranked behind the bloggers of University of Alaska Anchorage. I'm not even sure they have computers up there!

In summary, I would really like to encourage those who are dragging to pick up the blogging a bit. It's a big deal, this conference blogging tournament, and it's not gonna be the same if you don't blog your way there. So pull your collective heads out of your asses, and start blogging already.

Notcho

Chris Lagasse A.K.A Wade the Blade Demarais

AHHHHH BOOOOOGAURD Fans!

Crookston man gets heckled at Wild game According to reports out of the Xcel Energy Center, fan Chris Lagasse(Crookston, Minn.) received a healthy dose of verbal harassment from a sizablegroup of die-hard Wild fans at a recent game at the St. Paul arena. Reportedly,Lagasse had to ask for security assistance from ushers in the second period ofthe Valentine’s Day game vs. Ottawa when a group of fans heckled the24-year-old graphic designer for tucking in his replica Derek Boogaard jersey. “My wife and I were enjoying the game when out of nowhere this group offans in our section started yelling at me to untuck my jersey,” Lagasse said.“They were merciless. They had half the upper deck chanting, ‘Untuck yourjersey,’ followed by the familiar ‘clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.’”

As if the bacon explosion wasn't enough

Click here to see some pictures of Skid's latest conquests.

Screech Sighting in Fargo

I heard a rumor that the one and only Screecher is going to be ripping up Courtney's in Fargo this weekend. Hopefully one of you queers is going tonight and taking advantage of half price night and $5 pitchers. I wonder if that MC that opens it up still uses the same shitty joke about turning off your pager before he introduces the comedians. What the fuck was his name? I can't remember, but he was gay.

I'll have what he's having

Check out this footage of a young doc after a trip to the dentist.