HometownSource Blogs

Instead of shopping the day after Thanksgiving, I’m taking in my first Wild game of the season. I’m at the Xcel Energy Center to catch up with Apple Valley native and Tampa Bay defenseman Mike Lundin.

Couple things have happened early on… Lundin is on the second defensive pairing for the Wild and the Lightning are already going after Derek Boogaard. Tampa’s first round draft pick Steven Stamkos slammed the Wild enforcer into the boards near the Lighting bench. The result was a two minute penalty for boarding and their bench received a minor for unsportsmanlike conduct. No goal for the Wild.

Wild scored first on Owen Nolan’s beauty of a give-and-go wrister from Annti Miettinen. The goal came 12 minutes into the game.

Stamkos scored the equalizer on a deflection of a shot by Paul Ranger for the Lightning on a powerplay in the final minute of the opening period. Wild out shot Tampa Bay 11-8 in the first period.

Tampa took a 2-1 lead on a bang-bang play in front of the Wild net. Lundin set the play up from the point, sent a diagonal pass to someone who centered the puck to Vinny Lecavalier who dove through the crease, opening up the net for Ryan Malone to burry the puck in a wide-open goal for the 2-1 lead. The goal also tied up the shots, 16-16.

After looking tired in the second period, Minnesota came out firing in the third period with Marc-Andre Bergeron tying things up two minutes into the period period from just inside the blue line.

James Sheppard scored the go-ahead goal for the Wild four minutes later. Mikko Koivu cut around a defensman, sent a backhand on net while Sheppard put in the rebound.

Koivu sent to box with five minutes left in the game after arguing a high-sticking penalty on Nick Schultz. This will test the Wild, 5-on-3 with five minutes left. After a couple minutes in the box, Koivu skates across the rink during a break and heads for the showers after receiving a second 10 minute major.

The Wild get a big non-conference win thanks an explosive third period. Looking for a story about Lundlin’s second year in the NHL in the Dec. 5 edition of Thisweek Newspapers.

Instead of beating down strollers and carts full of good deals, I decided to catch another south-metro native skate against the Minnesota Wild on Friday.

Last season I made my first-ever trip to the Al Shaver press box to follow Los Angeles defenseman and Rosemount native Tom Preissing. I wrote an update about his things were going in So Cal, a year removed from playing in the Stanley Cup finals with Ottawa.

The experience at the ‘X’ was an eye-opening one, especially since my usual beat included high school gyms, ice rinks and football fields/stadiums. Not wearing a jacket to cover a hockey game was more thrilling than usual and being able to grab a copy of the latest NHL hockey rules book was an added bonus (only the true sports nerd would find it an interesting read).

As I’m writing this the scoreboad reads 31:16, 31:15, 31:14 before they do the “Let’s Play Hockey!” call from the rafters (eye-level with the press box).

Today I’m covering Mike Lundin, a 2003 graduate of Apple Valley H.S. and Mr. Hockey award winner from the same year.

Lundin is in his second NHL season, playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning and has two assists while playing in 20 games so far. He played in all 81 games last season for one of the league’s worst teams.

This season there are plenty of storylines surrounding the team from the hire and fire of Barry Melrose (on Nov. 14, 15 games into the season) to the high-octane roster the ‘Bolts’ put together.

The team is 1-3-1 since losing the former face of hockey on ESPN.

I’ll update this blog during the game, but until then thanks for checking this out.

Here are a couple links to check out about Mike and the Lightning.

NHL.com page

Wikipedia page

Lightning Strikes blog

Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, appointed Michael Kilgore of Lino Lakes to the Lessard Outdoor Heritage Council, a body created by the recent passage of the outdoors and arts constitutional amendment.

Kilgore is an associate professor of natural resources economics and policy at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Forest Resources. Kilgore also serves as director of the Center for Environment and Natural Resources Policy at the university.

Read more »

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, today (Nov. 25) appointed members to the Lessard Outdoor Heritage Council — the council will help decide how sales tax dollars from the recently passed constitutional amendment for the outdoors and the arts are spent.

Although none of Pawlenty’s appointments are local people, Kelliher appointed Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, to the council.

Hansen is chairman of the Legislative Audit Commission and vice chair of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

Another local selection is Darby Nelson of Champlin, a former Minnesota House member and a free lance writer and environmental speaker.

Nelson has held a number of positions with environmental groups such as the Minnesota Chapter of the Nature Conservancy.

The House received more than 120 applications for the citizen appointed positions, according to a Minnesota House spokesman.

“Minnesotans sent a clear message that they want to make wise investments in the outdoors,” said Kelliher.

“These members articulated a vision to create an open and transparent process with outcomes that can easily be measured,” she said in a press release.

The 12-member council includes 8 public and 4 legislative members appointed by the Governor and Minnesota Senate as well as the Speaker of the House.

The council is named after former state senator Bob Lessard of International Falls who pushed for dedicated funding for the outdoors for years.

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, has 39 birds in the freezer — the representative and family members are hunters and this fall included an excursion out of state to hunt birds.

“I’m not a deer hunter. It’s all birds,” said Emmer, recently talking about hunting with a reporter.

“All I can tell you that was when I was a little kid my dad went on a deer hunting trip and came home with a whole bunch of deer,” he said.

“I think I was five or six — my mother tells this story,” said Emmer.

“The neighbor lady was so offended that she told all of us kids that Mr. Emmer and his friends had shot Santa’s reindeer,” said Emmer, laughingly retelling the family story.

“Maybe I just told you more about my personality than you’d ever want to know,” he concluded.

Check this video out and feel free to comment.

There have been so many TV shows and documentaries on this topic, especially recently, and now CNN is jumping on the bandwagon.  I certainly want to believe, but I’m still just an interested skeptic.

I will be following this CNN series closely.  What about you?

According to a study released by researchers, including Shin-Yi Chou of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and colleagues, a ban on fast food television advertisements would reduce the obesity rate among children.

Specifically, those between ages 3 and 11 by 18 percent, and those 12 to 18 by 14 percent.

And some researchers are now saying these findings have important implications toward regulating TV advertising. Read more »

Democratic lawmakers, spurred by the Sonja Pitt episode and other examples of the misuse of state funds, are pushing to criminalize intentionally misspending public dollars for purposes not intended.
Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, and Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, want legislation that more clearly defines what constitutes the misuse of public money and makes it a gross misdemeanor for public officials to do so — something punishable by up to a year in the slammer, a $3,000 fine, or both.

At a Capitol press conference today (Nov. 20), the lawmakers explained that under existing law taking people to court for misspending public dollars is difficult.

Read more »

Here’s a question we didn’t ponder when we decided to start ECM Blogs: What becomes of an author’s blog when they are no longer with the company?

Tomorrow is my last day with ECM, and I imagine the UpsiderBlog will either be archived or deleted altogether. Who knows?

The UpsiderBlog started on May 23, 2007 and has been going strong ever since. At the time ECM Blogs had two authors, me and Howie. Now ECM Blogs hosts 19 authors bringing a huge variety of content to the table, from sports, to health, lefties to righties and everything in between. Tim Budig has brought capitol coverage to the sphere, and Don Heinzman embraced this new technology.

Every one of the authors has contributed to making ECM Blogs a vibrant community I have no doubt will continue and improve. It’s a credit to ECM that it has trust enough in its employees to allow this unedited forum for opinion.

All the best to all of my fellow ECM bloggers. Being a part of this experiment is something I will miss a great deal. From now on I will be just another anonymous reader-slash-commenter, which means Matt is finally going to have to be nice to me. Ha ha!

Thanks to you all, writers and readers alike. You make this a fun and challenging place.

Peace. Out.

Looking back on topics that have more engaged readers, and coupling comments with my own personal interest, I’m thinking of making this blog a little more geared toward health and fitness.

This means anything that’s in the news, whether it be controversial or just informative, along with some personal rants of my own. I’m also going to be posting more frequently, so please check back a few times a week. And finally, even though it’s more a healthy lifestyle type blog, I will of course still comment on other topics happening, just not as frequently. Read more »

Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, has been selected by the DFL House Caucus as an assistant majority leader — she is one of nine.

Hortman, freshly reelected for a third term, served as an assistant majority leader last session.

She has figured prominently in the transportation finance debate.

It’s in the bag.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie at a press conference on Tuesday (Nov. 18) sounded apologetic about the use of a bag instead of a fish bowl or some other container for the state canvassing board to draw lots.

“I tried desperately to think of something less campy,” said Ritchie.

He told of a story that when Minnesota Supreme Court Associate Justice Alan Page, a former Viking, tried to draw a lot from a fish bowl he got his hand stuck.

Anyway, the brown bag now could become part of the state political folklore, Ritchie suggested.

Board members were drawing lots as part of a random audit process.

The Coleman campaign issued a press release today (Nov 18) declaring that U.S. Senator Norm Coleman’s reelection had been confirmed by the state canvassing board.

“Today, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board officially recognized the results of the 2008 United States Senate election and prevented the Franken Campaign’s efforts to stop the recount.   And, Senator Coleman has, for the third time, been named the winner of the 2008 election,” said Coleman for Senate Campaign Manager Cullen Sheehan.

Actually, the board did not declare Coleman the winner — nor Democrat Al Franken, for that matter — but set the recount of the U.S. Senate race, and several other races, into affect.

As for the Franken’s campaign issue with rejected absentee ballots, the board temporarily set the matter aside.

It’s expected the canvassing board, which recessed today, will take up the dispute over the ballots early next week.

This election cycle, you didn’t have to go far on your backwoods radio dial to hear the fear cheers from Sean Hannity.

And, one of his memorable moments, that continues to live on with his show, is his attack on Obama’s 2007 speech in which he said this in regards to our War on Terror:

“we’ve got to get the job done there (Afghanistan), and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.”

Also, be sure to watch the short video clip of this speech (somewhat out of context, but how it’s been used by Hannity and others).

Now, I would like to discuss how dead on Obama was with this comment, and how his words are still powerfully important in regards to news reporters over the last few months which have detailed U.S. airstrikes killing innocent civilians. Read more »

Former Minnesota House Speaker Irv Anderson, DFL-International Falls, died today at the age of 85.

One of the last World War II veterans serving in the Minnesota House, Anderson, who had trouble navigating the Capitol corridors during his final years of service, retired following the 2006 legislative session.

He first ran for office in 1964.

Fellow lawmakers were quick to offer tributes.

Read more »