that Minnesota hates hockey

and it makes me hurt inside.

Seriously Its the playoffs. NHL playoffs. The quest for the cup. In my book, the only thing better than hockey is playoff hockey.

Its game 1 of the playoff and the Wild (Minnesota home team) managed to land a #1 spot. I turn on the TV to find out where the game will be shown and I get informed, for the second year in a row, that our local FSN has decided to air basketball instead of a game that matters. Admittedly, a basketball game is better than last year's fiasco ( a baseball post game show), but still. Regular season anything should take a back seat to a playoff game.

If a regular season hockey game was taken off the air for the national shuffleboard playoffs, I'd be ok with it. I'd probably mock the tournament (seriously... shuffleboard?) but I'd still be ok with it.

And to make matters worse... this is MINNE-freaking-SOTA. We are "the state of hockey". I know this because it says it on flags all around the Xcel Center. Thats the trade off, right? We get the weird accent, freezing temperatures, and hockey. But its hockey, so we are ok with 1 out of 3.

Want to know the saddest part? I've been to Wild games and I've been to Sharks games (San Jose Sharks from California). It hurts me to admit it, but the Sharks fans (from California) are wa-ay more into hockey than wild fans. (And they are from Cal-i-for-ni-a. Winter in CA means the temps go from 70s to mid 60s and every talks about how cold it gets.)

Lesson Learned: Apparently MN is the state of crappy sports coverage.

EDIT : Come to find out, charter must have gotten an earful the last time they pulled this crap. The game is being rebroadcast on a local public access channel (channel 14).