Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING NEWS: 2.17.26
Tuesday-Friday Takeouts this week.
Never fails, sickness comes on your three-day weekend.
Tourney Time, girls state hockey drops the puck Wednesday in Saint Paul. In five weekends, winter sports will be over.
Matt Caldwell, the ECHL Greenville Swamp Rabbits’ social media person is also their emergency backup goalie. The tweeting had to stop when Caldwell was summoned to the bench over the weekend. Close to my heart, as my first pro hockey radio experience happened because the Louisiana IceGators’ play-by-play guy was also the E-BUG.
What’s Happened in Milan/Cortina
For the seventh time in eight Olympics, it will be a U.S./Canada Final in women’s hockey. And never before have the Americans been this big of a favorite. Sure, they beat Canada 5-0 in the preliminary round, but they haven’t even been challenged. They’ve outscored their opponents 31-1, including the last 28 goals, with five consecutive shutouts. The Americans are definitely a younger, less experienced team but it hasn’t mattered. The U.S. has seven college players on its roster - all playing major minutes - while Canada is made up exclusively of PWHL players. There are plenty of Canadian women playing U.S. college hockey. Time to get younger to compete with the likes of Abbey Murphy, who the Canadians have no answer for. The gold medal game is Thursday at 12:10 p.m.
The good news? The U.S. men’s hockey team won’t play Canada - the best team so far in the Olympics - until the gold medal game. Getting there, however, became a lot more challenging with the second-seeded Americans likely drawing Sweden in the quarterfinals. Sweden has to beat Latvia in a qualification game today to make that happen. The Swedes were in a difficult group with Slovakia and Finland; they all finished 2-1, and Sweden lost on goal differential after a wonky goal. They actually pulled their goalie up multiple goals to try to score again. I hope this matchup happens - the U.S. will play either Sweden or Latvia on Wednesday at 2:10 p.m. - as I want to see Joel Eriksson Ek give Matt Boldy the business in front of the net, or see Boldy go at Filip Gustavsson on a breakaway. On the bright side for Wild fans, some of your most important Olympians will head home after the quarterfinals.
Speaking of Canada, the player everyone outside of D.C. likes to hate the most, Tom Wilson, fought in a game against France. I thought you said there’s no fighting at The Olympics, Ryan? Well it’s an automatic game misconduct. But it happened at the end of a blowout, and Tom Wilson is Tom Wilson. Now, the interesting thing was, the French player has been banned by his own country for the rest of these Olympics (one game, really), although that may be as much for his tomfoolery before the fight as the fight itself.
Monobob sleigher Elena Meyers Taylor is a 41-year-old mother of two in her fifth Olympics. She’s now an Olympic champion, the oldest such champion for America at the Winter Games.
Still gutted by Ilia Malinin falling twice and going from first to eighth in the men’s long program Friday. One of the most shocking things I’ve ever seen in sports. Here’s a guy who has not had to face a lot of adversity…his second jump wasn’t good and he never recovered. Glad to hear he still plans on competing in the World Championships in Prague next month.
Top 2 Other Olympics Events to Watch This Week
11:45 a.m. today - ladies figure skating, short program. The premier event of each Olympics gets underway. All three U.S. ladies are in the final group, which will go on closer to 3 p.m. central. It would not be a surprise to see any of the three on the podium, with Amber Glenn and Alyssa Liu serious gold contenders. The long program is Thursday.
Curling - any and all. Both the men’s and women’s teams are in semifinal position, but it’s all a dogfight at this point with three matches left. The men’s semis are Thursday, and the women’s are Friday. And yes, there is a new pro curling league debuting in April. The Frontier Curling Club will feature Minnesota legends John Shuster and Chris Plys, 2026 mixed double gold medalists Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin, the skips of both the men’s and women’s U.S. teams from this Olympics, as well as Italian skip Stefania Constantini - widely considered the best in the world.
ANT is All-Star MVP
Anthony Edwards was named the All-Star Game MVP on Sunday afternoon. The game is still unwatchable. Say what you want, but big scores and no defense with Magic and Bird back in the day is better than whatever format they’ve tried the last decade.
The event during the Olympics didn’t help. “All-Star Saturday”, including the least compelling dunk competition you’ll see outside of middle school, began mid afternoon on NBC.
The Wolves return to action Friday against Dallas.
Pablo Lopez Leaves Twins Workout with Elbow Soreness
In the Twins’ first full day of spring training, Pablo Lopez left his live batting practice throwing with elbow soreness. The Twins are taking every precaution for a guy who pitched just 75 innings last year because of three stints on the injured list.
Lopez is set to compete for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, too.
Gopher Basketball
The Gopher women at last returned to the Top 25, and it took their eighth straight win to get there. They whipped Wisconsin 83-60 on Sunday in Madison. Now their next two games - both at home - are against No. 10 Ohio State on Wednesday and 18th-ranked Michigan State on Sunday..
The Gopher men were never in a 69-57 loss at Washington on Saturday, dropping to 11-14 and 4-10 in the Big 10. They’re at Oregon late tonight.
Gopher Hockey
Maybe this is rock bottom for Bob Motzo’s squad. Notre Dame entered the weekend 1-15 in the Big 10 and got a tie and a win against Minnesota in South Bend. The Gophers have No. 1 Michigan State and No. 2 Michigan the last two Big 10 series. Minnesota is likely to finish sixth in the conference and probably will draw Penn State in round one.
The No. 3 Gopher women are winless in three straight for the first time this season after getting swept at No. 2 Ohio State. And while yes, the Gophers are without Abbey Murphy and Nelli Laitinen, Ohio State is down four Olympians including their best player, freshman Hilda Svensson.
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