News & Articles

Thousands of soccer players in all age groups, boys and girls, descended on the Twin Ports for an open tournament last weekend. In girls, under 13, Two Harbors and Esko battled at Ordean Field, with Two Harbors winning 1-0 to finish 1-1-1. Photo credit: John Gilbert

Pardon me if I don’t get overly excited about the National Hockey League’s annual entry draft. All the NHL teams line up to take their turn picking 18-year-old prospects that are at best questionable for future duty.
In this case, the draft was held at Chicago, and the United Center was pretty full of teams, prospects, adoring parents, and league executives. The problem is that most of the prospects come from Canadian junior hockey, and we’re consumed watching college and high school games to pay any attention to Canadian junior hockey.

Certainly the comparative disinterest in the draft runs parallel to my complete disinterest in the pro football, baseball and basketball drafts. But the overriding issue this year was that the new Las Vegas franchise started out taking their picks to form a 30-player nucleus, and that our Minnesota Wild didn’t have a choice to make until the 85th selection because of trades already made.

 The Wild selected six players, with the sixth being the only Minnesotan — Nick Swaney of Lakeville who is heading for UMD from Waterloo’s junior team. He was the 209th player picked, in the seventh round.
Other Minnesotans picked were first-rounders Casey Mittelstadt, Mr. Hockey from Eden Prairie and a future Gopher, as the eighth overall choice, by Buffalo; and former Lakeville teammates Ryan Poehling, a center headed for St. Cloud State, and goaltender Jake Oetinger, who left high school early and played a season in the nets for Boston Univeristy. Poehling was taken by Montreal and Oetinger by Dallas.

On the second round, Hermantown’s Dylan Sandberg, a defenseman headed for UMD, was taken by Winnipeg; Grant Mismash, a forward from Edina who went to the National Development 18 team and will go to North Dakota, by Nashville. Pittsburgh took Clayton Phillips, a defenseman from Edina who played for Fargo in the USHL and is going to the Gophers, on the third round.

On the fourth round, San Jose took Scott Reedy of Prior Lake, a center who played with the Under 18 team and is headed for the Gophers. Mikey Anderson, a defenseman who played at Waterloo in the USHL and is coming to UMD went on the fourth round to Los Angeles.
Noah Cates, a forward form Stillwater and another UMD signee, was taken on the fifth round by Philadelphia. A pair of ex Elk River defensemen went on the sixth round, Nick Perbix headed for St. Cloud State and taken by Tampa Bay on the fifth round, and Benton Maass on the sixth round, taken by Washington.

 The final six Minnesotans selected were on the seventh round: Defenseman Nicky Leivermann from Eden Prairie, by Colorado; Sammy Walker, a Gopher from Edina and heading for the Gophers; Swaney, the Wild pick; Robbie Stucker, a defenseman from Ramsey playing at St. Thomas Academy on his way to UMD, by the Wild; Robbie Stucker a defenseman from Ramsey by way of St. Thomas Academy, and going to Colorado College, was taken by Columbus; Matt Hellickson of St Louis Park, a defenseman who went to Sioux City of the USHL, is committed to Notre Dame; and Josh Ess, a defenseman from Burnsville who played at Lakeview South and is going to Wisconsin, by Chicago.

Most of these players will be solid performers for their college teams, and whether any of them makes it to the NHL and cracks a lineup, we’ll have to wait a year or two to find out.

Ricciardo Wins Grand Prix

One of the weirdest Formula 1 races of the season unfolded last Sunday at Azerbaijan when Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel had a duel up front that was ugly and dangerous, and Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo wound up with the victory.
 The incident, in an incident-filled race, was when Hamilton led Vettel 1-2 late in the race when there was a slowdown to clear debris off the track from one of numerous shunts. When you drive a race car and you’re in first place, the field lines up behind you single file, and you get to set the pace, fast, moderate or slow. Sometimes drivers slow down because they are in a lower gear and plan to accelerate away from the pack.

In this case, once the safety car left the track, it was up to Hamilton to set the pace. He was accelerating toward the green flag, with Vettel and the rest of the field accelerating behind him. But as they came around a tight left leading to the flag, Hamilton abruptly slowed down, and Vettel bumped him, lightly, from the rear.

Vettel was enraged and raised his hands as if to ask Hamilton “What are you doing?” Then he pulled out beside Hamilton and swerved into him for a light bump.
The announcers and many others say Hamilton was blameless and Vettel should have been severely punished. I felt Hamilton instigated the hassle with an uncharacteristic slowdown, and Vettle was completely wrong in bumping Hamilton on purpose. It turned out that Vettel was penalized a 10 second in-pit penalty.

He came in, waited for 10 seconds, and headed back to the track. Hamilton had pitted for 12 seconds to secure the cowling behind his head, so he dropped back to about 10th. Vettel, after his pit stop, accelerated back onto the track, just as Hamilton was coming by. The two raced into the first turn, and Vettle narrowling held on.

 Forgotten amid the tension, Ricciardo was leading the race, with Lance Stroll -- an 18-year-old Canadian -- second, just ahead of Valtteri Bottas, with Vettel and Hamilton coming up fast. As the cars came through the last two turns, Ricciardo went on to win, Bottas passed Stroll, and the three were just ahead of Vettel and Hamilton.

There are Hamilton fans who will insist he did nothing wrong and Vettel was completely wrong. Having been in races where slowing down the field was a good tactic, and others when speeding up was the right move, all I know is that it is unsportsmanlike to accelerate as though speeding up to restart, and then abruptly letting off the gas. The car behind probably will hit you, if it’s that important to keep him behind you, and he should have gotten equal penalties with Vettel. A 10-second stop for both drivers would have sufficed.

Now the series heads for Austria, with many watching for more fireworks from the top two drivers.