Just before the hammer dropped on sports near and far, the men's đ steam-rolled their way to another berth in the tournament. If you want to relive the enjoyment of that night, go the FB page for photos & videos from the court. Unfortunately, the cancellation wasn't the only hit they took as just today it was announced that assistant âžď¸ coach Jeff Ditch passed away. I would have liked to have brought nothing but good news but that isn't in the cards this week. With the Spring seasons already having gotten the ax, positive developments will be few and far between over the coming months for the Bison and many other portions of the local sports landscape.
The Purple are just about to start filling a portion of the sports void with free agency set to begin tomorrow but before we can get excited about the players who will be joining or staying in Minnesota the team had to free up some money. Xavier Rhodes was an unsurprising cut but in the same release, they announced that Linval Joseph would be let go as well. The pair of moves reinforced what I already was presuming, a need for younger talent at both positions with the draft, whenever that may happen. Now we will get to sit back in our various containments & see who the Vikings come away with from the scrum.
And lastly, the most unfortunate news of all. With a single night between them and the championship games, the North Dakota Class A tournament was "postponed." The activities association included mention of refunds related to the A & B, so yeah the term is a cop-out instead of owning it as a cancellation. Shanley's girls won their way to the championship game before the clock struck midnight, so they can at least move on as co-champs. The boys weren't even that fortunate. I know that health concerns are greater than sports so the class B really didn't stand a chance in the wake of all the other decisions but to get as close as Class A did and then have the rug ripped out from beneath them is a hard pill to swallow. I've imagined a closed-gym game between Davies & Sheyenne but it's just imagination. The Eagles got 2 of the 3 and the Mustangs got the conference championship. That'll be how the record book shows it between two of the best teams to come from our community.
Moving forward, now we all will wait to see whether the Spring sports will happen in even abbreviated fashion. Maybe the virus will have been neutralized enough by May for conference play... I hate to say it but I don't think that will be the way that it works out for those teams.
I called it the death of sports for a reason...
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