The hits just keep on coming

Can I get a do-over on last weekend?

It started off with the Sioux giving up 8 goals while getting smoked on Friday night.  They came back to win Saturday, but this creates a disturbing "large chinks in the armor" feeling going into the final 6 weeks of the season.  Guess the only thing to do is chalk it up as a blip and move on, unsettling though. 

Things appeared to be looking up Saturday, with the Gophers winning a Big Ten basketball game against Michigan that they needed to have.  Then comes the news today that starting point guard Al Nolen has a broken foot that will require surgery and force him to miss at least a month, if not the remainder of the season.  Talk about winning the battle but losing the war. 

Now I'm not going to sit here and act like we just lost the second coming of Isaiah Thomas here, but Nolen was an excellent defender, ball handler and the floor leader of this team.  Replacing a point guard is never easy, and it becomes doubly hard when the guy who would have been stepping in to the starting lineup transferred to Oregon two weeks ago.  Just another kick in the nuts for a program that has endured more than it's share in the last year and a half.  If there is one thing that you can say positively here, it's that they should have a good chance of bouncing back.  Lord knows they've had enough practice lately.

And finally, to put the cherry on top of the sh*t sundae, the hated Packers are heading to the Super Bowl.  At least there was one NFC North team having a worse day than our local squad, as the Bears not only lost the conference championship game, but potentially had an irreconcilable rift develop between their franchise QB and fanbase.  I have to admit, while watching the game, I was of the opinion that Jay Cutler was quitting on his team.  After pausing to reflect, I have to admit that's probably not the case, and he was as injured as he claimed to be.  But man, the guy just looked like he was phoning it in.  Standing there with his typical sour look, he looked every bit the part of a ticked off whiner saying "Eff you" to his teammates.  Probably unfair criticism, and I'd turn on a dime if he won the Super Bowl for the Vikings, but I'm pretty happy that's not the guy I'm depending on for the foreseeable future.  He's just a guy who makes it easy to hate him.  Burning the jerseys was over the line though.

So now we wait, two weeks of Packer media fawning that will hopefully end with them getting throttled by the Steelers.  But they'll probably end up winning, and I will once again be forced to ponder whether this new low is actually rock bottom, or if we still have further to sink.  It's times like these that it's important to remember, things could always be worse.