Memory Lane: September 24, 2005. MN State of Mind

today i went to my first college football game. i thought i'd take a moment to share my experience. this week was homecoming week, being from canada, i had no idea what that meant. but i learned that today's game of minnesota vs. purdue would be an integral part of homecoming. of course, it took me till today to even find out what homecoming is. i believe homecoming is for the alumni of the school to come back, and basically celebrate their fondness for the university of minnesota. i guess that explains the number of old people in university of minnesota t shirts from the 1970's that were atleast 2 sizes too small for them.

tickets were only $15. in toronto we pay $15 just to park to go watch a game. in toronto you would have to pay $15 to go clubbing some nights, if you don't have links. so this is what i consider a deal.

great game. minnesota defeats the #11 ranked purdue boilermakes in double overtime. the golphers controlled most of the game, and looked like they were going to blow out the boilermakers with a solid running game. purdue's offense was struggling so much, i thought they were going to have to call in mr. big dogg glen robinson himself to get some points on the board. but they came roaring back thanks to a series of poor decisions by qb #3. he did redeem himself in the end, but i have to wonder about a quarterback that showed no ability to throw downfield and find open receivers. it reminded me of playing john madden football 93 on sega genesis, where there were only about 6 plays. and you always go to the sweep right with barry sanders cause it works, and maybe to change it up, you do the screen pass to barry sanders. then everynow and then you try the play action. but that doesn't work too well, so you go back to the sweep right. which brings me too...

university of minnesota running back, laurence maroney, is the truth. he's so much faster then the other guys on the field, it is like he enabled a cheat code for unlimited turbo and the coach is pressing r1 on the controller all the time.

i'm so proud of my golden gophers collectors cup. its my first piece of university of minnesota memorabilia, well second if i count the extra large t shirt the law school sent me. thanks for that.

just before the 4th quarter, we were enlightened to see the 3 time national dance team champions...what honestly??? i found that title in itself amusing. these aren't even the cheerleaders, competing in bring it on. then after watching their "dance routine" my first thought was how terrible were the other schools competing in this "national championship" to not be beating minnesota. some squad must have been disaqualified for an illegel roger rabbit or running man. needless to say, i don't think we will be seeing this dance squad in the latest kanye video.

and can someone answer me this. we from canada, have heard that cheerleaders and band geeks can get full scholarships to attend us universities. okay, maybe i can understand cheerleaders (only female), as there is a level of skill or something like that involved. but band geeks seriously??? how would that even work. does a recruiter come to the high school and say "wow, that guy there, he is clearly way better then everyone else at banging the drum, we need him in our starting lineup."

on another note, i don't know how i feel about the smiling stuffed golden golpher as our mascot. how intimidating can a stuffed alvin the chipmunk lookalike be. i don't even know what a boilermaker is, but atleast he carries around a hammer with him. seminoles, wolverines, trojans, i believe those things are about to do damage. a golden golpher, i kind of expect them to stick their head out in february, see their shadow and let us know if winter is going to be 6 weeks longer before going back in their hole and hibernating for the winter. (i know that's a groundhog, but i hope you get my point)

despite that, going to a game, its impossible to not get in the spirit of the university of minnesota even ifyou are mr. player hater himself, and just came back from the winning at the player haters ball. whats not to love, about high fiving random strangers, a sea of maroon and yellow, heckling the one purdue fan in your row, and instigating the old guy to drink more beer and cheer louder. another favouite moment of mine, how about the guy two rows up, that insists that he's the reason the golphers scored the two point conversion because he was telling us to be quiet otherwise the quarterback wouldn't be able to call the play (mind you we were about 100 yards from the play) but he was sure that he did that. and when the golphers batted down that last pass, that was because of him too telling the db to "stop that guy". yeah bud, you did that, your voice was the only one heard out of the 48,000 plus.

minnesota is cool.

still getting used to central time and being one hour behind

still getting used to farenheit rather then celcius.

shouts out to sarika and kara (as promised)

peace.