alexandriacardinals

[OMG, this is from Tuesday, December 3rd!  I’m so far behind I may never catch up!  Yesterday (Thursday, the 12th), I did two blog posts and the annual Christmas letter . . . and I’m still losing ground.  Lest you keep track of such things, last night the girls’ hockey team looked good in beating Willmar, 6 – 2 (another blog to post) . . . and then because it was date night, we went to SAWA where I did a Finestra video (more blog posting).  But, back to the story, this was the first girl/boy doubleheader hockey game against Brainerd/Little Falls for the girls and Brainerd for the boys.  The girls led off the night with a team meeting at their goal.  I was not privy to the minutes of that meeting . . .  Oh, we won both games!  🙂  ]

CARDINAL GIRLS – 6, BRAINERD/LITTLE FALLS – 0

[During team introductions, I led off with a lovely photo of the back of Melissa’s (6) head.  It must have been an omen.  Mel got a natural hat trick on this night!  🙂  ]

[Lauren (21)]

[Little Rev (29) joins in.  The lack of other introductory photos is an indication they didn’t turn out well in my haste to get the camera functioning early in the festivities.]

[Mari (18) sang the National Anthem in civvies . . .]

[She was still on injured reserve for hockey, but recovering nicely, and had a beautiful voice.]

[If you’re not a coach and on the bench, a helmet is mandatory . . .]

[Here Amy (33), also on injured reserve, helps with that task.]

[And we’re off against the Flying Warriors (a compilation of the Little Falls and Brainerd nicknames).  We were surprised to see their team only had about 12 players.  We know from a member of the Fat Boys that the junior class in Brainerd has 600 students!  That would make their high school twice as large as Alex’s . . . and then throw in Little Falls with them?  So, what’s going on there?  Their team was not up to its usual standards . . . but then we learned from another highly-placed hockey source that their U-14 girls’ team is ranked No. 1 in the state!  They’re holding back!  😉  ]

[Taylor (24) and Mel (6) pin a Flying Warrior along the boards.]

[It must be . . .]

[Yup, a Cardinal GOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!  🙂  McKenzie Revering on a shot from the point just 18 seconds into the game.  After three games in a row where we had trouble buying a goal, maybe our luck was changing? ]

[The Cards came flying in again.  It looks like the puck is going between the goalies legs!]

[Taylor fires from the left face-off circle . . .]

[Mel chases it behind the goal while Sam (37) moves in.]

[Sam keeps it in the zone . . .]

[The puck is between the Flying Warrior’s legs (2nd time already 🙂 ).]

[Now Mel chases in.]

[The Wunderkinds secure the red line.]

[Back pedaling on D . . .]

[And eventually Little Rev secures the puck.]

[Hanah’s (11) in deep . . .]

[Confronts the opposition . . .]

[And with Micaela (34), greets the goalie.]

[Mel and Taylor discuss strategy.]

[McKenna (28) and Nicole (23) keep the pressure on.]

[A shot rings out!]

[GOOOOAAAAALLLLLL, by Sam!]

[Blizzards are on me!]

[Back to work, Kaila (7) with a backhander with Karina (31) at the ready.]

[Karina’s got an empty net!]

[I’m still here – where’s the puck?]

[Oooooooo, it’s tumbling my way!]

[Kaitlin (26) wonders, “Where’d it go?]

[Hanah’s looking for an opening.]

[Stupid puck’s s’pose to go toward their goal!]

[Still me.  Just bigger.]

[With all my friends from the Whitefish Chain!]

[It’s a FUUUUMMMMBBBLLLEEE!]

[Nicole to Taylor.]

[They know Mel is dangerous!]

[Whoa, Taylor’s on the doorstep!]

[This time the puck’s between Taylor’s skates.]

[Now where is it?  And how’d it not go in?]

[It’s over here!]

[There it is!]

[End of period 1.  The Cards are pretty much on control.]

[Period 2 and here comes Little Rev.]

[Guessing Sam . . .]

[And the shot!]

[Mel’s in a wrestling match.]

[Micaela and Rachel (4) on the chase.]

[Mels’s down, but Sam comes to her rescue.]

[It’s a 6-body pile-up on I-94!]

[We’re still in attack mode!]

[Mel and Hanah workin’ the boards.]

[Lauren and Mel in the zone.]

[GOOOOAAAAALLLLLL, by Lauren!]

[And, at the end of 2, Cards still in control.]

[3rd period spoiler alert: I’ve already noted Mel got a natural hat trick, and she hadn’t scored yet!  So, now you know she got all three of the goals scored in the last period, and this is the first one.  🙂  ]

[And Mel, we always know that when you get one, there’ll be another. 🙂  ]

[Decided to check to see if Bailey was doing OK down here?]

[So did the ref.]

[Please, hit something at me!]

[Well, maybe next time?]

[Mel gets her 2nd goal.]

[I took this because we then had 5 goals with 5:55 left!  🙂  ]

[A shot . . .]

[And Mel completes her hat trick.]

[An impressive win.]

CARDINAL BOYS – 4, BRAINERD – 3, OT

[Cardinal team captains meet with their Warrior counterparts to discuss the advancement of Zebra mussels in our respective chains-of-lakes.]

[Squirts lead the Cardinals onto the ice.]

[The Cardinal brain trust:  Jon Crouse, Head Coach Ian Resch, and a coach to be named later (?).]

[We have to admit, the Super Fans have long expressed a preferential interest in the distaff side of this sport.  Thus, we have to admit many of our brethren departed the facility upon completion of the girls’ game.  Robo and I, and Ken, who arrived for the final period of the girls’, hung in there for the entire doubleheader and were treated to a terrific game.  🙂  ]

[Senior Sam Goetsch (33) is our goalie.]

[It doesn’t seem to matter how many places they put the numbers on uniforms – you still can’t see ’em!  Guessing senior forward Toby Helgeson (10)?]

[We could tell early on it would be an evenly matched game.  Junior defenseman Parker Revering (3) and senior defenseman Aaron Steidl (38).]

[Cards with pressure from junior forward Alec Wosepka (8) and senior forward Matt Resch (9).]

[Resch on the doorstep.]

[Junior forward Zach Johnson (17)]

[The Cardinals had an unbelievable 9 – 0 shots-on-goal advantage with one minute left in the first period.  But we could tell they were much better than that.  This must not have been a shot as the Warrior was pursued by senior defenseman Andy Rentschler (12).]

[Cards celebrate a goal from Helgeson.]

[Nice spacing on the celebratory fist bumps.  🙂  ]

[After one.  A Warrior fan told us this was their first game, and they’d only had one practice.  They came out much sharper in the 2nd period and took a 2 – 1 lead.  Their passing was much sharper than the Cards, and they harrassed us with the hockey version of a full-court press.  Whoever had the puck for the Cardinals was immediately put upon by a Warrior and it obviously bothered us.  Matt Resch scored to tie it up, but then Brainerd scored again late to take a 3 – 2 lead into the 3rd period.]

[The 3rd period was evenly played – then Brady Bast (5) scored for the Cards to tie it at 3.]

[Yeah, Brady!]

[Celebrate!]

[Battling it out down to the wire.]

[So, what next?]

[Looks like OT!]

[OK, score as soon as you can!  🙂  ]

[Then, about 3 1/2 minutes into OT, Parker Revering scored on a long slapshot for the win!]

[Woo-woo!!!]

[An all around good night for the Cardinals!]

This meet took place in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, December 7.  It was cold!  This is the Heartland Region team – that would be us.  All photos herein were provided by Doug Hasz, who had a family relationship interest in the results.  😉  ]

Tom,  Here are some pictures from Portland.  Bethany is #163 was 13th time of
17:54 and Megan is #162 was 53rd time of 18:29.7.  Jenna Truedson #161 from
Bemidji is on the far right, she was 75th with a time of 18:47.4.  The Wayzata girls team took 1st place.  ~ Doug

[And here come Jenna (161), Bethany (163), and Megan (162) – if you run their jersey number backwards you would get the order of finish 1, 2, 3 in the Minnesota state meet.  Then Bethany and Megan went out and finished 1-2 in the Heartland Region meet (which, as I recall, includes Iowa, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Nebraska).]

[Yea, sometimes I crop ’em for a closer-upper.]

[Looks like Best Buy on Black Friday!]

[Hang with ’em, girls!]

[Good shots, Doug.  You must have done some running yourself to get them?]

[Bethany and Megan usually jump out to the lead and hold it for the rest of the race.  They knew that was going to be tough in this race.]

[Interesting shot.]

[Go, Megan!]

[Hay bales?]

[With their proud coach, Mark Nelsen, who promised them he would be there if they made it!  🙂  Hopefully, Mark will have to come out of retirement for a couple more trips to Portland.  The girls are just sophomores.]

[And the proud family!  🙂  ]

[Ok, let’s see if I get any of this right.  Mark’s daughter and grandson who came down from the state of Washingon for the meet?]

It somehow seems appropriate that the Minneapolis StarTribune today published the following column by Gail Rosenblum about female athletes:

http://www.startribune.com/local/235500291.html

Gail and I are close personal friends and communicate often by e-mail.  (OK, I made that first part up.  😉  )

Tuesday night was a banner night for Cardinal sports.  The girls and boys basketball and hockey teams all won!  The boys are undefeated in both sports and the girls b’ball team is also undefeated.  We have girls’ hockey tonight, I believe still waiting for them to get totally healthy.

Up next:  Let me guess, hockey?  (BTW, I remember I ran once.  Then I promised myself to never do it again!)

This was Tuesday night at the AAAA Theatre.  It was like the cream filling in an oreo cookie, as it was bracketed on both weekends by “A Christmas Story.”  When we entered the seating area, my first thought was – uffda, I would not have enjoyed bringing in all that equipment in 30-below wind chill weather!  But the boys are from the music capital of the world – St. Cloud, Minnesota (think also on this blog Lisa Lynn and Harper’s Chord) – so there was nary a single mention of the weather during the entire performance.

It looked like a truly BIG band was going to be performing.  The stage was full of all manner of equipment and paraphernalia necessary for a such a performance.  And they had to work it in around the exisiting set of “A Christmas Story,” covering it up as best they could.  Ultimately, the band included two brass, two reeds, a drummer, a stand-up bass, and a piano player, with Shaun as the vocalist and emcee.

BBE “What’ll I Do”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbfLRlMuP1U

We couldn’t shoot photos or videos, obviously, so I’ve selected some YouTubers just for you!  This was probably the fourth time we’ve seen Shaun, a couple with his a cappella group, Tonic Sol-fa.  The Boy Tenor first promoted the group to us – as you recall, of course, the Boy Tenor’s version of “What’ll I Do” is the supervisor’s favorite.  So, we begin above with BBE’s (Big Band Experience), in the studio.

BBE’s available videos are all in the studio, so you can’t get a flavor of their live performances, which are incredibly energetic. So, here’s Tonic Sol-fa with a live Christmas video:

Tonic Sol-fa Christmas:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogI9-uhjkh4

And the rest are of BBE in the studio:

BBE “On Top of The World”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6BKPTQKYMk

BBE “One For My Baby”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ0rntyyFJQ

BBE “Stay”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQNkDttxfFU

BBE “The Birth of the Blues”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbZJEhEQU38

BBE “Hallelujah”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HviYnVQN4ZU

When I mentioned the large amount of equipment on stage at the beginning, it included two drum sets?  Well, that should have given us a clue.  The Alex High School Jazz Combo performed as the opening act.  Some of these kids you’ve seen before, including Kirby Karpen on bass, Paul Meland on sax, and Spencer Brand on drums (sorry, I did not know the piano player).  Here are some photos from when Kirby and Paul performed with Adam Astrup at SAWA a little over a month ago and a video of the group from the school last year:

Jazz Combo “Straight No Chaser”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcKExPscy3w

 Up next:  Even more stuff!

[“GOPHERS!’]

This game took place a week ago Sunday.  Talk about not meeting your press deadlines!  Anyway, as you’ll recall, the Gopher women’s hockey team beat Princeton 9 – 1 in that match-up.  And lest you think the Tigers are not a competitive hockey team, the Gophers just beat Ohio State twice this past weekend in Columbus by almost exactly the same scores.

Anyway, walking across campus to Ridder Arena, we had to stop for this photo op with Goldy.  You will note Cooke Hall in the background – one of the few buildings in this part of the campus that I still recognize.  It used to be the swimming arena – I have no idea if it still is.  It was right at the open end of old Memorial Stadium.

[We approach Ridder – our favorite hockey arena.]

[Once inside, buy a program from Santa Claus . . .]

[Cruise the concourse for Gopher displays – Amanda Kessel here . . .]

[Krissy Wendell here.]

[Both teams warm up.]

[The media . . .]

[The skyboxes?]

[Goldy!]

[He/she was a darn good skater.]

[Should have been in a team uniform!  😉  ]

[The band was there – seemed to have the most fun dancing to the “canned” rock music!]

[Let’s take the mystery out of this one early.]

[And they did.  Probably the most incredible thing is that the 9 goals were scored by 9 different players, and 15 players had points.  Amazing depth!]

[A Kelly Terry (10) sequence, because it’s hard to take your eyes off her when she’s on the ice . . .]

[Then Irondale’s Meghan Lorence (20) . . .]

[And Sarah Davis (9) got the first goal . . .]

[About 2 1/2 minutes into the game.  The Tigers’ coach Jeff Kampersal was quoted as saying, “Sometimes, it just seemed like a tidal wave.”]

[Start again . . .]

[Just a couple minutes later, Lorence scored.]

[Minnesota Rouser!]

[Then Terry streaks in again . . .]

[And though she got dumped . . .]

[The end result was a goal by Hannah Brandt (22) about 13 minutes into the period.  10 seconds later, Milica McMillen (13) scored the 4th goal of the period.  She received the face-off draw after the Brandt goal at her own blue line, casually skated to the Tigers’ blue line, and then, I think just to get the puck in deep, fired a bullet slapshot from the blue line that whistled over the goalie’s left shoulder and into the net.  Then she skated casually back to the bench for a shift change.  In the 1st period, the Gophers had an 18 – 1 shots-on-goal advantage.  The game was much more evenly played from then on.]

[Goldy awaits the team’s return for the 2nd period.]

[And here they come.]

[Rachael Bona (7) – had a hat trick in the 2nd Ohio State game.]

[Sarah (9)]

[Was that Kim Kardashian?]

[Nah, she never leaves Alex!]

[Kelly and Rachael – it’s really fun when these two scooters are on the ice at the same time!  🙂  ]

[First Rachael . . .]

[Then Kelly.]

[Kelly takes the face-off . . .]

[Draws it back to Rachael . . .  (At some point in the proceedings I mentioned the Gophers seemed to be winning all the face-offs – another key to success.)]

[Then Kelly whirls for a pass . . .]

[Then barrels for the net . . .]

[Only to be cut off at the pass by a Tiger.]

[And then heads to the corner.]

[Sarah sees Maryanne Menefee (14) at the goal.]

[Maryanne bats at it.]

[Looks like it stayed out.]

[Rachel Riley (5) waits for it to come to the point.]

[And, uffda, can she give it a ride!]

[And here comes Sarah again.]

[And then she circles back around.]

Watching the Gophers play is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.  Oh . . . did somebody already use that line?  Anyway, it’s not only their overall team speed but the continuous motion that makes them special (ask what made Wayne Gretzky so great?).  When they have the puck in the offensive zone, the wings will either criss-cross in front the goal, thus being able to receive a pass from behind the goal or from the points for point-blank shots; or even prettier, if the puck is on the goalie’s left side, all three forwards will circle, counterclockwise at equidistance apart, that face-off circle until the forward coming around the top is open for a pass from a trailer or from the point, again for a point-blank shot on goal.  And with a shot, a teammate will invariable take up position on the goalie’s weak side for a rebound.  Yup, it’s as pretty as a hot fudge sundae, with nuts!  😉

[Can’t let you out, Tigers!]

[Somewhere around here, Baylee Gillanders (27) scored for the Gophers and then the Tigers scored for their only goal.  Although it appears a Tiger entered the goal here, this was not their scoring play!  😉  ]

[And here come our Gophers again – note where Bethany Brausen (16) is positioned.]

[A shot by Kelly?]

[A scrum at the goal.]

[2 points for a take-down!]

[Some how, from the bottom of the pile, Bethany scored with 10 seconds left in the period giving the Gophers a 6 – 1 lead after two.]

[Future Gophers took over during intermission.]

[It could be a . . . GOOOOAAAAALLLLLL?]

[Look, Mom, we’re all on TV!!]

[Goldy signals No. 1!]

[Here we go, Gophers, here we go!]

[Goalie Shyler Sletta (31) came in for the 3rd period.  Amanda Leveille (29) complained of boredom after the first two periods.  😉  To the Tigers credit, they tested Shyler a few times in the third.]

[Looks like Kelly got caught in a Tiger trap.]

[But Hannah came to her rescue.]

[Then Hannah said, “Feed me!”]

[The three Gopher goals in this period were from Menefee, Kelsey Cline (11) (a nice backhander for the freshman defenseman from Bloomington Jefferson), and Terry.  Don’t recall which one this was?  🙂  ]

[Another of the goal celebrations . . .]

[Are we almost done?]

[Hey, we got our picture taken with Goldy?]

The beginning of the end . . .]

[WE WIN!]

Our local alumni chapter is thinking about arranging a bus trip for a game later this year – likely for the last home series of the year against UMD on February 21-22.  Keep an eye on this space.

Up next:  Even more hockey?