Jon Marthaler (.com)

Weekend Lowdown: What to watch this weekend

Oct 12, 2013

NOTE: This appeared at RandBall.

Game of the weekend: #2 Oregon at #16 Washington, 3pm, Fox Sports 1

It may only be week seven, but the beauty of college football is that it already feels like the playoffs – and this is game two of the three-game round-robin playoff between Oregon, Stanford, and Washington in the Pac-12 North.

Washington lost game one of the series, a 31-28 heartbreaker at Stanford last week, and comes home to Seattle knowing that a 10th consecutive loss to Oregon will derail the chances of the best Huskies team in years. With coach Steve Sarkisian the focus of the USC coaching rumor mill, you could excuse UW fans for feeling like this is their best chance for greatness.

Over in Oregon, meanwhile, the University of Nike juggernaut keeps chugging along, despite the departure of head coach Chip Kelly to the NFL. The Ducks haven’t been tested yet, under new coach Mark Helfrich — their closest win so far was a 55-16 destruction of Cal, and Oregon led that game 41-3 at halftime.

The SEC gets the press, but the Pac-12 may be the best league in college football. Even better, this game is at a normal time in the afternoon, instead of being one of those late-night post-apocalyptic West Coast slugfests that ends at 1am Central time.

Your weekend viewing schedule

2:30 Saturday: #17 Florida at #10 LSU, CBS. First, if you didn’t read Patrick Reusse’s story of how he became an LSU football fan while growing up on the Minnesota prairie, I encourage you to do so. Second, Florida is an offensive disaster, but LSU has grinning death-train conductor Les Miles at the helm, so who knows what will happen in Louisiana today.

7 pm Saturday: Dallas at Wild, FSN / New Hampshire at Gophers, FSN PLUS. It’s your first chance of the year to flip back and forth between the two local hockey squads. The Gophers looked good in dismantling Mercyhurst last night; the Wild have looked less so in their four games. Curse one, hit the swap button on your remote, and watch until you curse the other and flip back. Hockey!

Noon Sunday: Panthers at Vikings, FOX. You can have your Saints-Patriots marquee matchups; this is the truly fascinating NFL game this weekend. Well, for Vikings fans it is. Actually I don’t know why I listed this game. You’re going to watch it whether I put it in this list or not.

3:25 pm Sunday: Saints at Patriots, FOX. Well, fine. Watch this potential Super Bowl preview then. See if I care.

8 pm Sunday: Seattle at Portland, ESPN. The Sounders were Major League Soccer’s hottest team – but in the span of five days, they lost 5-1 to Colorado and 4-1 to Vancouver. Now, they head to Portland, for the renewal of the league’s best rivalry in one of the league’s best venues – and second place in the West is on the line.

What to read this weekend

At SB Nation, NBA editor Mike Prada explains what makes Nikola Pekovic such a load in the post. It breaks down everything from his footwork to his positioning to how he runs the floor, and it is absolutely tremendous; it’s simple to understand, yet incredibly in-depth. This is what the internet should be like. I actually pumped my fist after finishing this article, it was so good.

SoccerCentric Gameday: Injuries, TV deals, and goalkeepers

Oct 12, 2013

NOTE: This appeared at SoccerCentric.

It’s nothing like the team’s injury problems in the first half of the season, but for the first time this fall, United will be affected by an injury. Striker Pablo Campos – who has scored five times in the fall season, the same number as the rest of Minnesota’s players put together – will miss tonight’s game in Atlanta with an unspecified lower-body injury.

Midfielder Sinisa Ubiparipovic has an ankle injury, and also did not make the trip to Atlanta. Central midfielder Floyd Franks returns to the squad, however, after missing out on last week’s game against New York with a hamstring problem.

Goalkeeper Matt Van Oekel was limping around at Thursday’s practice, and had an ice bag on his ankle / foot – but is in the travel squad. He shrugged off a question about the ankle, so he may well be good to go for the match tonight.

Four strikers – Mike Ambersley, Max Griffin, Nate Polak, and Travis Wall – are in the eighteen-man squad for tonight’s game. If Polak plays, it will be his first appearance for the team since 2012, and his first since being diagnosed with a blood clot in his shoulder early in April.

United on TV

Minnesota announced this week that their final two home games will be televised. Fox Sports North will show the team’s 2:30 match against Carolina on October 19, and the 6pm game against Fort Lauderdale the following week will be shown on KSTC.

It’s been awhile, but these won’t be the first Thunder / Stars / United games on live cable TV. According to United play-by-play announcer Chris Lidholm, the old Thunder had a few games that were broadcast on Midwest Sports Channel around 2000 or 2001, with Wally Shaver doing play-by-play and Lidholm as the sideline reporter.

The various teams have also had many games on North Metro TV (Blaine public access, basically), and online broadcasts have become more and more common as the years have worn on, but still – this will be the widest television availability that Minnesota pro soccer has had for a long, long time.

Thin between the pipes

With Daryl Sattler out for the year with a torn labrum in his hip, and practice keeper Peter McKeown out with a broken ankle, United is a little short for goalkeepers in training right now. Thursday, with Van Oekel limping around, Mitch Hildebrandt was left as as the last man standing.

It almost became a problem in the final drill, when the team worked on finishing chances. Hildebrandt stopped a rocketed close-range shot with his nose, but had to continue – to the cheers and encouragement of the rest of the squad – as the team’s only available keeper.

It brought up an interesting question – who would be Minnesota’s emergency keeper? It could come up if, somehow, both of the two goalies that are usually in the game-day squad are injured – or if the starter is injured following the team using all three subs.

Apparently, defender Brian Kallman is first in line – followed by anybody else who grew up playing basketball, football, baseball, and all of the rest of our hand-skill sports. “It’d be one of the Americans for sure,” said Kevin Friedland.

Following training, with a number of players sticking around to work on long-range shooting, Friedland grabbed an exhausted Hildebrandt’s gloves, and stepped in himself. It’s a job that the defender / assistant coach / jersey maker / front-office executive hasn’t filled before for United – maybe the only one left that he hasn’t done.

Game details

It’s United’s final trip to Atlanta this year; the game begins at 6:30pm Central. You can see it, as always, at NASL.com/live.

The Silverbacks, with 13 points, are in sixth place – but already have their spot in the Soccer Bowl wrapped up, as spring champions. The championship will be played November 9 in Atlanta… Striker Ruben Luna, who left the team over the summer to pursue a few opportunities in France, is back with the Silverbacks. Luna has played for the team five times since the beginning of September, scoring once – and missing two penalties…. David La Vaque’s gameday preview from today’s paper is here.

Weekend Lowdown: The best Minnesota sports settings

Oct 5, 2013

NOTE: This appeared at RandBall.

If you drive by Husky Stadium at the University of Washington, you’ll see a digital board out front, that often displays the newly-remodeled stadium’s claim to fame: “The greatest setting in college football.” Even after spending $250million to renovate the stadium, UW certainly can’t claim to have the best stadium in the sport, but “greatest setting” is hard to dispute; the stadium is jammed between campus and Lake Washington, giving most of the stadium stunning views of the water on one end and campus on a hill on the other.

With this in mind, I present my rankings for the greatest stadium setting in Minneapolis–St. Paul. Note that this is entirely based on location, not on actual stadium quality:

1. Target Center. The stadium may be awful, but it’s right where a basketball arena should be – smack dab in the middle of downtown.

2. Xcel Energy Center. It seems like every road in St. Paul leads to the hockey rink, which – given that it’s St. Paul – they probably do. Plus: the river.

3. Target Field. Pros: Great views of Minneapolis; feels like a part of downtown. Cons: It’s on top of a freeway; it’s on top of a garbage burner.

4. TCF Bank Stadium. Luckily, the architects were smart enough to incorporate views of the other arenas and Minneapolis into the stadium, and close off the views of the nothing that surrounds the stadium’s other sides.

5. Williams Arena. For being on campus, it feels disconnected from campus, somehow.

6. Mariucci Arena. One of the U stadiums had to be ranked the lowest, and Mariucci – hard by the parking lots / train tracks / random wasteland that is just north of the rink – is it.

7. Metrodome. The acres of unpaved parking lots that used to surround the Dome have been replaced by condos, which helps… but not much.

Link of the Week: Over at the TwinsCentric blog here on startribune.com, Parker Hageman has compiled a volume of random stats from this season. It’s perfect for anyone who wonders how Aaron Hicks and Clete Thomas stack up against Ted Uhlaender, or why Anthony Swarzak is comparable to Juan Berenguer, or why Brian Dozier’s numbers looked so good this year.

Bonus Link of the Week: This story may be apocryphal, but I couldn’t care less.

What to watch this weekend

  • 7am Saturday, 11am Sunday – Golf: President’s Cup. Because America. (NBC)
  • 9:30pm Saturday – College Football: #15 Washington at #5 Stanford. The game of the day, as the Huskies try to climb into the nation’s upper echelon. (ESPN)
  • 9:55am Sunday, EPL: Arsenal at West Brom. The game of the week in English soccer, according to Dana Wessel. (NBC Sports Network)
  • 12:00pm Sunday – NFL: Red Zone Channel. If you don’t have it, find a friend who does. With no Vikings this week, this is the best way to watch football by far. (NFLRZ)
  • 3:30pm Sunday – MLB: St. Louis at Pittsburgh. Watch Francisco Liriano and Minnesota’s new favorite team, the Pirates, try to vanquish the enemy Cardinals. (TBS)

The Weekend Lowdown: A new format

Sep 28, 2013

*Changing it up at RandBall this week, with a touch of a new format. *

I first went to Safeco Field in Seattle in 2006. At the time, I had been to very few major-league parks; I’d been to the Metrodome, of course, and the old Kingdome in Seattle (which was, if this is possible, even worse than the Metrodome), and I had been to Miller Park in Milwaukee, which feels like an indoor stadium even if the roof is wide open. It’s no surprise, then, that I was totally blown away by Safeco. You can see the game from the concourse! There are a ton of food options from non-concessionaire sources! The stadium’s entirely built for baseball!

In the seven years since, Target Field has opened, and I’ve been to another few parks, all with that same purpose-built feeling. I suppose it’s natural, then, that when I went back to Safeco for the first time in seven years, it felt — there’s no other word for it — middle-aged.

Safeco is still in possession of perhaps the best retractable roof in the majors; the roof was closed last night, but the game still felt outdoors, the exact opposite of the always-inside feeling in Milwaukee. The park also went through a remodel last offseason, moving the fences in, adding an enormous video board in right field, and opening up a closed-off left-field area. It is still a very, very nice place to watch a baseball game, and as a testament, the long-terrible M’s drew 23,000 people last night – only two of whom were wearing paper bags on their heads.

Still, though, apart from local seafood chain Ivar’s and a local burger place in left field, the food options felt very Metrodome-y (not surprising, as Seattle’s concessions are provided by Centerplate, the same vendor used at the Dome.) Porter’s BBQ, provider of an unbelievable BBQ hot link pulled pork sandwich, has apparently been replaced by a generic Centerplate version, to my vast disappointment. The newness, at least for me, has worn off, and the park has settled down into “nice” — not wonderful, not exceptional, not rave-worthy, just nice.

On the one hand, it was disappointing not to be blown away, like I was in 2006. On the other, Target Field would be lucky to being doing so well 14 years after it first opened. Perhaps I’ll have to wait another decade or so to really judge last night’s trip to Safeco.

Link of the Week: I enjoyed everything about the zany Sabres-Leafs preseason brawl. Sean McIndoe broke the whole thing down at Grantland, and for good measure, imagined what the ensuing NHL disciplinary hearing must have been like.

What to Watch This Weekend

  • Indians at Twins (12:05 today, FOX): Texas and Los Angeles start at 11am, Tampa and Toronto at the same time as the Twins; with two games to go, the Rangers, Rays, and Indians are still fighting it out for the final AL playoff spots.
  • #6 LSU at #9 Georgia (2:30 today, CBS): There’s nothing quite like a struggle for supremacy in SEC country, and this is the conference’s best of the weekend, narrowly edging out #21 Ole Miss at #1 Alabama (5:30, ESPN).
  • Sunderland vs Liverpool (10:00am Sunday, NBC Sports Network): Dana Wessel says it’s the best game of the weekend in the EPL.
  • Eagles at Broncos (3:25 Sunday, FOX): Prove to yourself you’ll watch any NFL game, even one involving Peyton Manning wiping the floor with Philadelphia.
  • **New York at Seattle **(8:00 Sunday, ESPN): If you’re going to watch one MLS game, make it this one, between the two best teams in the league.

SoccerCentric: After September 1, Blaine becomes a fortress

Sep 25, 2013

NOTE: This appeared at SoccerCentric.

One look at the fall NASL standings confirms Minnesota’s trouble at home this season. They’re the only team in the league yet to win a home game in the fall, and in four tries in Blaine, dating back to July, they’ve managed just two draws and two losses.

The calendar, though, says September, and historically, that means that it’s time for Minnesota to start stringing home wins together.

Since the team moved back to the National Sports Center for the 2008 season, they have played 19 home games, winning 11 and losing just two. After September 15, the effect is even more pronouned; in ten games, Minnesota has seven wins, two draws, and just one loss.

Since the Minnesota Thunder lost 2-3 to the Charleston Battery on September 20, 2009 – the last game, in fact, that the team ever played as the Thunder – Minnesota has gone seven post-September 15 games without a loss (five wins, two draws.)

Defender/coach Kevin Friedland, who has been part of every team since 2004, was a little bit surprised when I read him the numbers. “I didn’t realize it was that strong,” he said.

Friedland identified a couple of reasons for Minnesota’s late surges. For one, come fall, summer camp season ends, allowing the players to focus only on their own games rather than spending their days coaching kids. Comfort level also plays a big role. “It’s the kind of thing where you get more comfortable and you kind of learn your element and how you like to approach a home game, and it could take awhile for you to do that,” said the coach.

Perhaps the better explanation, though, is that Minnesota has almost always needed a late run to get into the playoff picture. “I think it was when you’re up against it you really have to get the results, and over the course of the years, we’ve been fortunate to get those results,” said Friedland.

In 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012, the Thunder / Stars made late-season runs to squeak into the playoffs.

Said Friedland, “This season, everything’s so short., A twelve-game season, a fourteen-game season, and it’s hard to get in a rhythm or a groove. You compare that to seasons past, we had those bad grooves when we were seven, eight, nine games without a win, then we hit that groove of winning a few games in a row, and that’s what kind of propelled us into the playoffs those years, and then obviously into the championship the last two years.”

The caveat this year, of course, is that only the fall-season winner will make the “playoffs.” Minnesota won’t have the opportunity to finish sixth and make a playoff run, as they did in 2011 and 2012.

The comfort, though, is that Minnesota has four home games left – more than any other team in the league. And since the calendar’s already on the verge of turning over to October, Minnesota can take heart in another stat: since the Thunder became a professional team in 1995, near as I can tell, Minnesota’s pro soccer teams – whether Thunder, Stars, or now United – have never lost a National Sports Center home game after September 20.