I saw a commercial today that showed we’re only a few small steps away from ESPN 8: The Ocho (as seen in the movie Dodgeball). ESPN is changing the name of one of their sister networks, ESPN360, to ESPN 3. While they already have quite the stable of networks with various names , I thought it funny that ESPN would continue the upward count in their name. At the rate they’re going, we’re only a hop, skip and a jump from watching family table tennis tournaments.
Megan and I just got home from our first Minnesota Wild hockey game. It was really fun (especially since they won, 2-1). I can now confirm what I’ve always heard about the X; there are no bad seats in the building. We sat in the top row on the second level and it was great. The nice thing about the last row is you’re sitting on bar chairs at a small bar that runs around the length of the second level.
We saw everything that makes hockey great: goals scored, nice passing, good defense and fighting. We also heard one of my favorite sounds: the horn when the Wild scored.
I’ll get this out of the way at the top to avoid any backlash: the Twins did their best to lose the game on Friday night. They blew a two-run lead and an early base-running mistake cost them a run. However, that is not an excuse for the horrible call Phil Cuzzi made on what should have been a double for Joe Mauer in the 11th inning.
I can live with being mad at Joe Nathan for blowing the save and Carlos Gomez for making a stupid play, but the call Cuzzi made was inexcusable. He was exactly where he needed to be: mere feet from where the ball landed. Yet, he failed to see the ball hit the fielder’s glove and then land in fair territory. He had one job to do and he failed miserably on what should have been an easy call. I say fire Phil Cuzzi and bring on instant replay. This sort of “human element” that replay detractors seem to romanticize is moronic.