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We celebrate the 1983 Wayzata Club Hockey Team and one of its stars, Jonny "The Mouse" Mikkelson, who once told me "Our team was so good the varsity wouldn't play us." When asked why he didn't play varsity Mouse said, "Too little." Cutest ever. So, we salute the greatest Club Hockey Team ever, a squad so vaunted even Jim Craig's Miracle team wanted nothing to do with it. Trottier, Bossy, Gretzky, Messier ... dead! Long live the 1983 Wayzata Club Hockey team!
MOUSE DROPPINGS
BYJONMOUSEMIKKELSON,
THEMOSTDEVOTEDRUBE
INRUBENATION
follow jonny via twitter
@jmouse83
MAY B&B ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D--Ia1V78KE
November 16, 2007… Since that date, the Minnesota Wild cannot, and will not be considered a tough team.
Neither the Red Wings or the Blackhawks are considered thug teams, but just watch their playoff series. They play tough. They play mean. They don’t plan a fight before the game and drop the gloves as the opening puck drops. They crash the net. I haven’t seen any of these remaining playoff teams get the puck into the offensive zone and try to play keepaway along the boards.
Watching hockey on tv, we are spoon-fed the EXACT same quote from some non-descript assistant coach in between-period interviews. “Got to get pucks to the net”, “got to crash the net”, “need greasy goals, need pucks to deflect off a shinpad, need puck-luck…” All these are true…. Wild assistant coach Darryl Sydor…. Don’t tell us! Tell your team that!
The Wild’s style of play is not suited for NHL playoff hockey. They don’t have the players, they don’t have the coaches and they don’t have the right captain to make a playoff run. If you look at the past few Cup winners, they consist of tough-guy players who have some hockey skills. The ’13 Kings had Brown, Doughty, J. Williams, King, Stoll, Richards. The ’12 Bruins had Lucic, Bergeron, Chara, Horton, even the miniscule
Marchand. The ’11 Hawks had Bolland, Byfuglien, Eager, Brouwer, Keith. They left
everything out on the ice. Besides Parise and Suter, try to name a tough player on the Wild who can score….. I believe Coyle will be soon.
OK, back to November 16, 2007. The Wild had an enforcer who had ONE job. Protect our star players. Derek Boogaard was the least talented hockey-skilled player to ever play in the NHL. The most valuable players on that Wild team were Gabby and Mikko Koivu. On that night, Vancouver Canuck defenseman Mattias Ohlund slashed Koivu’s leg and broke it. Yes, one of our most valuable players was slashed and broke his leg…. And, to this day, NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE ABOUT IT! We have played the Canucks dozens of times since then. We have played against Ohlund (now on Tampa Bay) many times. The ONLY revenge Koivu got was scoring a big goal against the Nucks and skated by their bench and screamed….. That’s it. Having an enforcer doesn’t mean squaring off with Yanni-looking George Parros. You have to be a tough team and intimidate the other teams. When one of your top players get slashed and breaks his leg, you do something about it. Hell, a Canuck player even went after a Wild fan at Xcel and we didn’t do a damn thing about it. I am not here to rip on the Boogyman, but having one guy who knows how to fight does not make you a tough team.
The Wild are a good hockey team. They are getting closer to being a very good hockey team. But, watching the NHL playoffs, we need to make some adjustments before we can make a long playoff run.
