OK, just a little bit more

The driveway is almost clear, bicycling will be resuming here sometime fairly soon.  There is still too much snow which means that the streets are still pretty sloppy in lots of places so there won't be a ride today, for instance, but it is becoming increasingly evident that bicycling will be resuming.

Here is a look backward just because it was too much fun to let go of just yet.

Just a bunch of kids having a good time.

Undefeated national champions

Well, no more hockey for a while.

If you want to be undefeated you have to win all of your games.

Here then is the 41-0, undefeated and untied forever, National Champion Minnesota Gophers.

Minnesota 6, Boston University 3.

Close observers will note that we made this picture too.

One of the major reasons why our team won is this person, posed with her trophy as winner of the Patty Kazmaier award, the award given to the outstanding player in women's college hockey.

The alumni association had a reception before the game.  We went by and TOPWLH got a photo opportunity with Goldy.

TOPWLH is wearing her lucky jersey, an official game worn jersey from the 2003 Frozen Four worn by that year's team captain, a person who was also a Roseville resident.

Here's the opening face off for today's game.

Between periods there was some high quality entertainment featuring our beloved rodent.

He has changed into his hockey gear, as you can see.

So here's what I did today.  I have some Gopher paraphernalia, nothing as nice as TOPWLH's two jerseys, but I do have this cap commemorating the 2005 National Champions.  It is the cap that I have been wearing to the games this year.

Today at the alumni association reception they had an autograph session featuring Krissy Wendell and Laura Halldorson.  Wendell was one of the two best players on that 2005 team and won the Patty Kazmaier award that year.  Halldorson was the coach.

I went through the autograph line and instead of having the two of them sign the picture that the organizers had made available I had them sign my hat.  Pretty cool, I thought, the 2005 championship hat signed by coach of the national championship team and the Kazmaier award winner.  We were chatting very briefly with Coach Halldorson and I told her that the next time we saw the other superstar of that team, Natalie Darwitz, that I would ask her to sign the hat too.

I thought I was just making idle chit-chat.  Actually I was pretty happy about having a hat signed by the coach and by the Kazmaier award winner.

But . . .

About two hours later we were at the game.  After the first period I was lazily walking along the concourse and suddenly in front of me was none other than Natalie.  I was stunned but not overwhelmed.  I had taken the trouble of locating a Sharpie before I left the house to go to the reception and I had it with me in my pocket so I asked Natalie to sign my cap.  She most graciously did.  As she did I related to her the story of how Krissy and Coach had just signed the cap earlier in the day.  She didn't seem that impressed by that bit but as I said, she was very gracious and signed.

2005 championship hat signed by Wendell, Darwitz and Halldorson, the two star players and the coach.

That thing is now so valuable that I can no longer wear it, it probably should be stored in a safe deposit box.

40-0

So far.

The season is 41 games long.

Still daylight in the swamp

These first few days of DST are SO disorienting. I just don't know what to do when 6pm is still totally daylight.

I have spent lots of time over the dark season reading detective novels. I found a new guy that I like a bit for a few of his books but then he threw in a massive clunker with one of those the guy who did it isn't even mentioned as a person of interest until it turns out on the last page that he did it endings.

Pathetic.

That's not suspense, that's not mystery, that's a complete absence of imagination, that's B.S.

So of late I have been rereading the guy that I really DO like. Here's a first sentence from a chapter of the one that I am currently reading:

"The dawn came like a sheet of dull steel pushed over the eastern horizon, cold, sullen and stupid."

That sure enough is dawn in the winter in Minnesota.

They had a big snow storm in northern Europe yesterday. Here is a video posted by ParisDailyPhoto, it includes lots of recognizable landmarks blanketed by unrecognizable whiteness, I found it to be lots of fun:

I played outside today, it was almost warm with only a raw wind from the NW ruining the ambiance. The sun is high in the sky (comparatively) and even with temperatures only around freezing the snow and ice on the driveway is gradually giving up. It won't be long now.

Daylight saving time

DST arrives but unlike last year the bicycling season does not.

Instead we still have hockey. This year we are in the picture taken last night as our favorite team improved to 38-0 on the season (46 in a row dating to last year's national championship run) by winning the WCHA conference tournament.

Find Goldy (big head, goofy Gopher grin), count over 3 people and then the gap between that guy and the next guy, we are just above that gap. TOPWLH in her M jersey autographed by all of the members of the last year's championship team.

Next up for this group, NCAA tournament beginning next Saturday.