Denfeld rises as surprise challenger

August 23, 2002 by · Leave a Comment
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Erik Modeen and the Denfeld hockey team are a perfect match.
Modeen is not Denfeld’s top player, in fact he was a part-time hoping hoping to get more ice time going into the week. And Denfeld is not the best hockey team in the Up North region, in fact, if the Hunters believed in themselves at the start of the season, they were the only believers.
Last Tuesday, Modeen scored two goals and assisted on another as the Hunters thrashed International Falls 5-1 at the DECC. That left the Hunters 3-1-1 as the surprise team in the Up North region, going into Thursday’s game against Superior, and what has surprisingly turned into a major showdown Monday night against Greenway of Coleraine at the DECC.
As for surprises, even the Hunters were surprised when a reporter asked to talk to Erik Modeen after the game.
Modeen, a lanky forward, is only a sophomore, and he has been back and forth between the varsity and junior varsity. In high school, a player can play four periods, maximum, in a day, so he would play three periods on JV and one on varsity, or maybe two periods each.
But last Tuesday, senior first-line defenseman John Rodberg had a conflict for a Solid Gold singing group engagement, and when coach Dean Herold excused him from the game, he had to do some juggling.
“I moved Jayme Utt back from center to defense, and moved Erik up to varsity for the full game, and he got two big goals,” said Herold, who was an assistant last year and took over when Dan Stauber moved from Denfeld’s head coaching job to become an assistant at Wisconsin-Superior.
International Falls, hurting with some key players injured, had battled the surprising Hunters 0-0 through the first period. At 1:31 of the second period, Rashaad Allison shot from the point and Modeen deflected the shot up and in to break the scoreless tie. Thirty-one seconds later, Jayme Utt, normally a center who had been shifted to defense for the game, fired another point shot, and again Modeen tipped it in for a 2-0 lead.
“On the first one, I saw the puck go out to the ‘D’ so I went in front and tipped it up off the blade on my backhand,” said Modeen. “The second one, it went out to the ‘D’ and I went in front and got it with my forehand.”
If it sounds as though they were just another couple of routine goals for Modeen, they were the first and second of his high school career. “But I scored 40-some goals last year for the Denfeld Bantams,” he said.
Those goals ignited the Denfeld offense. Jim Durfee, a junior who played on Modeen’s line, scored before the period ended for a 3-0 lead, and Derric Berger played Modeen’s rebound into a wraparound goal when it was 3-1 in the third period.
Adjacent to their dressing room at the DECC, the Hunters coaches have a Budgeteer News clipping, with a familiar by-line, prominently displayed on the middle of the bulletin board. It was the preseason story, ticking off how many area teams were looking ahead to strong seasons. There is no mention of Denfeld in the story, and, frankly, an assortment of other coaches and observers had specifically said Denfeld wouldn’t be among the better teams.
“I admit, I’ve used that as incentive,” said coach Herold, smiling.
Anything to help, coach.
“There’s no question, nobody gave us much respect at the start,” Herold added. “Our success is because of the kids. They were determined to show what they could do. We’re playing with a lot of confidence right now, so my job has gone from convincing them that they could be better than people expected, to making sure they realize that we can’t be cocky.”
Part of the coaching staff’s effort has been to balance their lines and stick with stressing that balance.
“I don’t know who are top scorer is,” said Herold. “We’ve played our top nine forwards regularly, and we use a lot of JV players to make up a fourth line. Jayme Utt (2 goals-8 assists–10 points) is probably our top scorer overall, and I moved him back to defense for the Falls game.”
Aaron Haupert and Jeremy Carter both have 3-4–7, and Scott Spehar 4-2–6 as the top goal-scorer. But spreading out the offense has made the three top lines all capable of challenging foes.
It didn’t help when Jim Rodberg, a sophomore defenseman who has a promising amount of potential and the younger brother of the musical senior John Rodberg, suffered a broken wrist in the season-opening 6-1 loss to Cloquet. Even then, it was only 1-0 after one period, and a still-competitive 3-0 after two periods.
The Hunters had a wild, 6-6 tie against Marshall, another Up North team looking up after a few bleak years. Otherwise, victories over Duluth Central, Virginia and International Falls have given the Hunters their confidence, particularly the Central game, when Denfeld bounced back from the Cloquet loss for a stunning 9-2 victory.
Modeen, whose personal success has paralleled the team’s surge to Up North prominence, observed the team’s determination before he had a chance to lend a hand — or at least a stick blade — to the cause.
“Our captain kept telling us in practice that nobody thought we’d be any good,” said Modeen. “Everybody else thought we wouldn’t do anything; everybody else but us.”
Herold, meanwhile, knows there is a long season to go and there might be some rocky times. One of them could be Monday, when Greenway brings in a team that currently ranks No. 2 in the Up North region and No. 5 statewide in combined ratings.
“We’ve shown what we can do already,” Herold said. “But if we don’t all work hard, we won’t win. On the other hand, if we work, we can run with anyone.”

Grand Prix road-race set at Indy in 2000

August 23, 2002 by · Leave a Comment
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[Gilbert Up North Viewpoint…12-18-98.]
Indy Grand Prix
brings excitement,
thrills, hypocrisy
There is no bigger news in motorsports than the announcement that the Formula 1 Grand Prix will be coming back to the United States in the year 2000, which will make it the first time since 1991 that there has been a United States Grand Prix. It has been incomprehensible that right during the era when auto racing skyrocketed to major league status on all different fronts, there was no U.S. Grand Prix.
There is no questions that Formula 1 racing is the absolute elite level of motorsports. Incredibly expensive cars, with incredibly well-paid drivers, competing for incredibly large crowds, who pay incredibly high ticket prices. They race all over the world, and don’t have the provincial nature of sports we in the U.S. think are so worldly. Baseball, football and basketball are positively local to the U.S., by comparison.
The most remarkable thing about the return of the U.S. Grand Prix is that it will run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The 2.5-mile oval will be revised, with an infield road course cutting to the inside off the north end of the main straightaway, where it will zig and zag until it rejoins the oval on the back straightaway, which will allow the cars to then run clockwise — backwards — through Turn 2, the south chute, Turn 1, and back up the main straightaway, before veering off onto the infield portion. The full distance will, reportedly, be 2.3 miles.
Motorsports fans, and even casual sports fans, should be impressed with Tony George and the Indy folks for putting this all together for the summer after next. The Formula 1 circus will come to the States and bring all the exotic cars with their mre-exotic engines to Indy, along with all the top drivers, such as Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Jacques Villeneuve, Alex Zanardi…Wait a minute! Alex Zanardi? Yes, that’s right. Our man Zanardi, who dominated CART Champ Car racing for three years, is going to Formula 1 next season, where he’ll get a full season under his belt before getting his first opportunity to race at Indy.
Zanardi didn’t get to race at Indy yet, because of the war between CART and the Indy Racing League. The IRL, you’ll recall, was a rebellious splinter operation formed by Tony George, three full seasons ago.
Tony George has often said and reiterated that the reason for the IRL is because of middle-America values that want the Indianapolis 500 to be given back to American race drivers, in less-expensive American cars, with less-expensive American engines, who like to race on simple American-based oval tracks, instead of road-racing. Those snooty foreign drivers with their foreign names and foreign cars can take their money and go elsewhere to road-race.
The suspicion, of course, was that Tony George thought that CART’s powerful influence in all its venues was somehow cutting into the Indy 500’s supreme command of U.S. racing, and he wanted to regain control.
For three years, the IRL has languished as clearly a minor-league version of CART’s highly sophisticated racing. The IRL cars, it turned out, were built by foreign companies who do it better, but that was overlooked. The IRL has the Indy 500, however, which, while elevating the IRL to some degree of credibility, has served more to diminish the Indy 500 to a point where it is now secondary to the NASCAR Brickyard 400.
Cynics, as well as those among us who are somewhat impartial and extremely dismayed about the CART-IRL hassle, had to chuckle at the irony when Kenny Brack won the IRL series championship this past season. Kenny Brack, who drives for A.J. Foyt — good-ol’ Super Tex – is from Sweden! One of them ‘durn furriners,’ and a road-racer to boot!
Meanwhile, while the IRL struggles to find some name drivers, the hottest new star of the IRL, Tony Stewart, is leaving the IRL to go stock car racing. And the best-known veteran IRL name, Arie Luyendyk, recently announced he is retiring from the IRL except to race at the Indy 500 next season.
So now that he has banished CART for having too many foreign road-racers, and cars that are too costly, he is bringing in a Formula 1 race, which has all foreign drivers, all of them road-racers, all driving foreign-built racers, all powered by exotic, foreign-built engines, and all at a degree of costliness far beyond CART. And he’s even building a road-course, just for them.
So celebrate the fact that there will be a U.S. Grand Prix again, and that it will be on an intriguing new road-course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But excuse us if we pause in our celebration of Tony George’s wonderfulness to also point out his blatant hypocrisy.
Still, maybe there’s hope. As soon as Tony George also invites CART to show up and run a race on that road course, all will be forgiven.

Dardis draws pro, college scouts to Proctor

August 23, 2002 by · Leave a Comment
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Dardis draws focus to 0-2 Proctor
By John Gilbert
Up North Newspaper Network
CLOQUET, MN.—Things don’t always work out the way you’d like. The new and almost perfectly efficient Cloquet hockey arena is nestled down behind the Super One store, adjacent to the old arena, and it drew quite a crowd Tuesday night — among them UMD coaches Mike Sertich and Glenn Kulyk, St. Cloud State coach Craig Dahl, and about a dozen NHL scouts.
The occasion was a neighborhood rumble between the Class A Proctor Rails and the Class AA Cloquet Lumberjacks. The primary object of their attention was Jay Dardis, a tall, lanky centerman on Proctor’s impressive first line. Dardis is definitely big enough, although his 6-foot-2 height almost makes his 190 pounds look skinny. Not that it matters. Scouts imagine what 20 pounds in an advanced weight-training scheme would do for him.
Being stronger won’t be a problem, and would help him battle through the congestion opponents are sure to create, as long as it doesn’t do anything to interfere with those soft hands. There are a lot of players who can skate and play the game, but the discerning scouts look for those special players who can handle the heavy traffic and still make clever, creative plays. Dardis has that deft touch that almost seems radar conrolled.
Dardis put his hands to work after 13:24 of a scoreless first period at Cloquet, when he reached to retrieve the puck deep on the left side and made a quick and perfect pass to the slot. Aaron Slattengren shot it as quickly as it arrived, depositing his one-timer into the lower right corner for a 1-0 Proctor lead.
Slattengren, a quick, darting junior, didn’t play here as a sophomore because his mother and stepfather moved to Pittsburgh. But he moved back home for his junior season and his goal and quickness are big assets for Proctor. Especially when his skills get better coordinated with Dardis’s hands.
As it turned out, a strong and impressive Cloquet club ultimately whipped Proctor 5-1 with a 4-goal third period. In the closing minutes, having played to near exhaustion, Dardis faced a 1-on-3 in the slot but twice poked the puck through traffic to get a good shot away, then he fed Slattengren, whose shot was blocked by Joel Pykkonen.
“We played pretty bad,” said Dardis. “I didn’t think I played well at all, but Cloquet is tough. They’re not real big, but they’re quick and move the puck well.”
Proctor coach Bill McGann said: “A lot of colleges are watching Dardis. Whoever gets him will get a good one.”
Dardis chose to pass up a chance to play junior hockey.
“I went to Waterloo’s training camp, and I made the team,” said Dardis. “But I wanted to play football and enjoy my senior year at Proctor.”
A wide receiver and tight end in football, Dardis and the Rails beat Hermantown 14-7 to reach the state football tournament. His strong showing at Waterloo’s camp attracted some pro scouts, his play when Proctor tied Silver Bay 3-3 in the Jamboree attracted more attention, and scoring two goals and an assist in the opening loss at Forest Lake helped lure the scout turnout at Tuesday’s game at Cloquet.
Cloquet’s superior depth, and its future, prevailed, as all five goals were scored by juniors. But it wasn’t easy. Steve Abrahamson got the tying goal by playing a rebound off the end boards and beating junior goaltender Cory Lonke to the far post late in the second period, and it stayed 1-1 until Cory Lennartson scored on a breakaway at 2:02 of the third, just after the ‘Jacks killed a penalty. They killed one even better at 8:22, when Eric Laine scored on a shorthanded breakaway. Ryan Langenbrunner broke in for another at 9:34, and Lennartson got his second into an empty net.
The ‘Jacks have only four seniors — forwards Dennis Lennartson and Miah Snesrud and goaltenders Adam Laaksonen and Pykkonen — but coach Tom MacFarlane’s Lumberjacks are going to have a voice in whatever happens in Section 7AA this season.
“We’re just trying to find our identity,” MacFarlane said. “In this game, we knew their first line was a problem and we thought if we could hold that line to two goals or less we’d be OK.”
McGann was disappointed at his club’s 0-2 start, but he knows losses to Forest Lake and Cloquet both were against AA schools, and he looks for better things, possibly as soon as this weekend, when the Rails face Ely on Saturday. With the first line of Dardis, Slattengren and hard-shooting senior Richie Upton, plus Lonke’s solid goaltending and a rugged defense, the Rails will be a threat every game.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I’ve heard from St. Cloud, Alaska-Anchorage, UMD and North Dakota,” Dardis said. “I’m just thinking about this year. I think we have just as much potential as my sophomore year, when we made it to the state hockey tournament.”

Lefty Curran overwhelmed by Hall pickBy John GilbertUp North Newspaper NetworkMike (Lefty) Curran never has been one to avoid letting his views be heard in any discussion. He also is an extremely proud person, and one of his toughest chores over the ye

August 23, 2002 by · Leave a Comment
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Curran overwhelmed to join Hall
By John Gilbert
Up North Newspaper Network
Mike (Lefty) Curran never has been one to avoid letting his views be heard in any discussion. He also is an extremely proud person, and one of his toughest chores over the years might have been to keep that pride bottled up inside.
Now it can bubble over, because Lefty Curran has been inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.
Curran is the lone Minnesota native among four new entries in the hall, where he is joined by former Gopher and North Stars player, coach and general manager Lou Nanne, just-retired 502-goal NHL scoring star Joe Mullen, and the late Bruce Mather, a Massachusetts amateur and Olympic star of the 1940s. The foursome swells the total to an even 100 for the hall’s 25th anniversary year.
Curran was a star goaltender wherever he played, from International Falls’ dominant high school teams in the early 1960s, to the University of North Dakota, to the 1972 silver-medal U.S. Olympic hockey team in Sapporo, Japan, and the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the old World Hockey Association, which was a godsend to American-born players who routinely were overlooked by the Canadian-dominated pro NHL.
“I won’t give you a lot of false humility,” said Curran. “I think I accomplished some things in hockey. The goals I accomplished were pretty much the goals I set out for, and right now, I’m very happy. Just a very proud American boy. ”
The official induction ceremonies were set for Thursday night at Planet Hollywood, a glitzy night spot at the Mall of America in Bloomington. It seems astonishing that the actual U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, just reopened after nearly a half-million-dollar renovation, would be bypassed on the occasion that is certain to draw its largest crowd. Lefty understands. He would much prefer to be inducted at the actual hall in Eveleth, because he has never forgotten his roots.
While he lives in the Twin Cities now, Curran still makes frequent trips Up North to “the Falls,” his beloved International Falls. On one such trip last summer, he realized that in all those treks through the Iron Range, he had never, ever met Frank Brimsek, Eveleth’s legendary “Mr. Zero,” whose NHL achievements into the kind of legends young goaltenders could strive for.
“I looked at goaltenders like Frankie Brimsek, Sam LoPresti, Mike Karakas and Willard Ikola, and I thought, ‘That’s what it’s all about,’ ” said Curran. “Frankie Brimsek was my hero, so I put in a call to Dave Hendrickson, and he set me up with the chance to stop by and meet Franie last summer. We talked for a long time. I made him tell me about what it was like to play for the Boston Bruins in those days. What it was like to face ‘The Rocket’ [Maurice Richard] coming down the ice at you.”
Curran still vividly remembers highlights from all phases of his career.
“I remember playing for Larry Ross at International Falls,” he said. “Duluth East took us out in the Region 7 final in 1961, but we came back and won the state title in 1962 by beating Roseau 4-0 in the final.”
The Broncos came back the next year but had an undefeated season ruined when St. Paul Johnson beat them in a spectacular 4-3 overtime final. The legacy remained, as Falls won the next three titles in succession after Curran moved on to North Dakota where he was coached by Bob Peters and then Bill Selman. Twice he took the Fighting Sioux to the NCAA final four, and both times they came up short by the slimmest of margins.
“We went to the NCAA final four in Syracuse and lost 1-0 to Ken Dryden’s Cornell team. The next year, we made it to the final four in Duluth, and we beat Dryden and Cornell 3-1. But that was in the semifinals, but we lost 4-0 to a great Denver team in the final.”
Curran played on the U.S. National team in the 1971 World Tournament, but was forced out by a knee injury that required him to use crutches off the ice, and pain-killers to go on it. When the team lost to Sweden and Finland, Curran told the team doctor he couldn’t perform at his best and would rather not play. Coach Murray Williamson didn’t understand.
“Murray said, ‘OK, then you don’t need to be on the Olympic team,’ ” Curran recalled. “And I said, ‘Well then, whoever you have in goal will be second best.’ ”
The two stayed at odds throughout the next season, with Curran playing for Green Bay in the old semipro U. S. Hockey League, while the U.S. team toured, and struggled. Players like Keith (Huffer) Christiansen and Tim Sheehy from International Falls, plus Henry Boucha of Warroad, Craig Sarner of North St. Paul, Ron Naslund of Minneapolis, Mark Howe — Gordie’s son — and Robbie Ftorek were on that team. Some of them, most notably Christiansen and Sheehy, pestered Williamson to add Curran. At the last moment, he did.
“Murray was just like me – we’re talking about a couple of stubborn guys,” said Curran, still feisty after all these years. “I joined the team just a couple of weeks before the games began in Sapporo.”
The rest, as they say, is history. The key game on the way to the silver medal was a 5-1 upset victory over Czechoslovakia, when Curran made 51 saves.
“But the team played well,” Curran insisted. “I’ve got to admit, I had a great time showing ’em I deserved to be there.”
Curran’s appreciation for drama and the historical perspective goes beyond stopping in Eveleth to meet Frankie Brimsek. There are people who think he and Murray Williamson might be enemies for life because of their feisty personalities, but that isn’t true. “I have a great deal of admiration for Murray,” said Curran.
He proved it, when, after being named to the Hall of Fame, Curran had to pick somebody to present him. His first call was to Murray Williamson.
And while the glitter of Planet Hollywood might be like taking the baseball hall of fame from Cooperstown to Manhattan, the actual enshrinement will put Curran in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, right there in Eveleth, where he joins Brimsek among the 100 best Americans forever in hockey lore.

Mayasich finally recognized by U of M

August 23, 2002 by · Leave a Comment
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John Mayasich — hero for the ages
By John Gilbert
Up North Newspaper Network
John Mayasich remains the greatest hockey player to ever come from the state of Minnesota. Period. End of discussion. Everyone who ever saw Mayasich play at Eveleth High School, where his teams won four straight state titles, or at the University of Minnesota, where he was a three-time All-American, or on the gold-medal 1960 U.S. Olympic team, will attest to that claim.
Mayasich said he was honored, and it was obvious he was moved, and maybe a little bit embarrassed at all the ceremony surrounding the official retiring of his hockey jersey this weekend by the University of Minnesota. If John had his way, there would have been a subdued, tasteful ceremony, with an old Gopher jersey with the No. 8 on the back raised to the rafters at Mariucci Arena. Then he could enjoyed a hockey game while cherishing the renewal of acquaintances with teammates from high school, college and the 1956 and ’60 U.S. Olympic teams.
“It’s great to get the chance to have a reunion with old teammates,” said Mayasich, who, at 65, could still take a few twirls on the rink and show these young pups some tricks. “And to figure this is the first hockey jersey ever retired at Minnesota, with all those who preceded and followed me…I can accept and share all of this with all of them.”
Instead of a simple ceremony, the procedure has been stretched over the past month or so, leading up to this weekend’s gala affair at Mariucci Arena, where the scene had glitz better suited to a rock ‘n’ roll show, and the “world’s largest jersey” added a show-biz flair.
“Merchandising and marketing is everything, but that stuff doesn’t bother me,” sighed Mayasich, always showing his class.
He exudes so much class that it even supercedes the commercialism and hype. The University of Minnesota has chosen to inflate an enormous, yellow, 30-by-30-foot Michelin-man-like balloon that is supposed to resemble a jersey, with a large No. 8 on it, and “Mayasich” emblazoned across the top. Hopefully, most people will overlook the 3-foot-square green patch on the lower right — about at eye level for youngsters — that is a logo that says “Surge,” which is a new soft drink from Coca Cola.
This is not a Mayasich jersey, it’s a Mayasich dirigible, but at least the market-crazy U of M did not wait 40 years too long to recognize Mayasich while waiting for a corporate sponsor. In truth, it wasn’t even the university’s idea. Bruce Telander, a long-time booster who used to be extremely close to the program, came up with the suggestion and pursued it behind the scenes.
“The first I heard about this was about two months ago, when Bruce Telander, Wendy Anderson and Stanley Hubbard met with me,” said Mayasich. “I think they were afraid I might turn it down or something.”
Mayasich’s scoring tallies from the 1951-52 season through the 1954-55 season speak for themselves. His 32 goals as a freshman, his 144 career total goals and his 298 career points all have remained Gopher records for 44 years, even though his closest challengers play almost twice as many games each season, allowing his other single-season marks to fall in the last two decades.
To best appreciate Mayasich’s impact on the game requires going back to Eveleth, where Mayasich was thrilled to find family and close friends turn out to greet him at a quiet gathering last Monday at the U.S. Hall of Fame.
“I’m happy for tonight,” Mayasich said, while standing in the hall at Monday’s gathering. “Because this is where it all started. I lived about six blocks north of here.”
John had six brothers and five sisters, from oldest to youngest: Mary, Annie, Frank, Lucy, Rosie, Katherine, Joe, Edward, Bernard, and twins John and Jim. All but Rosie are still living, and several of them gathered Monday in Eveleth, where the Mayasich family lived nearby, in the 700 block of Summit St. If you combined the 600, 700 and 800 blocks of that street, you could count 13 boys from those three blocks who went on to play major college hockey.
“I saw where Don Lucia, the Colorado College coach, said he recruited ‘rink-rats,’ but I don’t know if we have rink-rats any more,” Mayasich said. “That’s something for you people to answer. We used to play hockey in the streets, where we’d cut goals into the banks on both sides of the street, then pour water on ’em so they wouldn’t fall apart. On Saturdays we’d play 10-12 hours on the outdoor rink at Lincoln School. We’d put our skates on at home and skate six or seven blocks to the rink.”
Unlike the vast majority of players from kids to pros who wrapped black tape around their stickblades, Mayasich always used white tape. He claimed it felt lighter, but that night in Eveleth he disclosed the real reason for his preference.
“We’d play floor hockey, using rolled up socks, Mason jar lids, anything we could find,” Mayasich said. “At night, after my mother and father went to bed, I’d put Jim in the doorway between the kitchen and living room and I’d shoot at him.
“We were about 6 or 7 years old, and it was easier then, because he was skinny,” added Mayasich, glancing to make sure his twin brother was catching the heckle. “When my folks would come down in the morning, and see the black tape marks on the tile floor, we’d have to scrub and scrub to remove them. That’s why I started using white tape. It wouldn’t leave a mark.”
Mayasich learned to love the game by walking to the indoor Hippodrome and sneaking in to watch the games of the city team hired to entertain the iron-ore mining families. He thanked all the heralded players of his era who made his high school team’s toughest games the intrasquad practices in daily scrimmages. Most of them went to Michigan, and John thanked his wife, Carol, for making all this ceremony possible.
“If Carol and I weren’t real steady at the time,” Mayasich confessed. “I’d have gone to Michigan instead of Minnesota.”
John Mayasich’s University of Minnesota career totals:
Year Games G-A–Pts
1951-52 26 32-30–62
1952-53 27 42-36–78
1953-54 31 29-49–78
1954-55 30 41-39–80
Totals 114 144-154–298

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  • About the Author

    John GilbertJohn Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.

    For those who want to keep up with John Gilbert's view of sports, mainly hockey with a Minnesota slant, click on the following:

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  • Exhaust Notes:

    PADDLING
    More and more cars are offering steering-wheel paddles to allow drivers manual control over automatic or CVT transmissions. A good idea might be to standardize them. Most allow upshifting by pulling on the right-side paddle and downshifting with the left. But a recent road-test of the new Porsche Panamera, the paddles for the slick PDK direct-sequential gearbox were counter-intuitive -- both the right or left thumb paddles could upshift or downshift, but pushing on either one would upshift, and pulling back on either paddle downshifted. I enjoy using paddles, but I spent the full week trying not to downshift when I wanted to upshift. A little simple standardization would alleviate the problem.

    SPEAKING OF PADDLES
    The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution has the best paddle system, and Infiniti has made the best mainstream copy of that system for the new Q50, and other sporty models. And why not? It's simply the best. In both, the paddles are long, slender magnesium strips, affixed to the steering column rather than the steering wheel. Pull on the right paddle and upshift, pull on the left and downshift. The beauty is that while needing to upshift in a tight curve might cause a driver to lose the steering wheel paddle for an instant, but having the paddles long, and fixed, means no matter how hard the steering wheel is cranked, reaching anywhere on the right puts the upshift paddle on your fingertips.

    TIRES MAKE CONTACT
    Even in snow-country, a few stubborn old-school drivers want to stick with rear-wheel drive, but the vast majority realize the clear superiority of front-wheel drive. Going to all-wheel drive, naturally, is the all-out best. But the majority of drivers facing icy roadways complain about traction for going, stopping and steering with all configurations. They overlook the simple but total influence of having the right tires can make. There are several companies that make good all-season or snow tires, but there are precious few that are exceptional. The Bridgestone Blizzak continues to be the best=known and most popular, but in places like Duluth, MN., where scaling 10-12 blocks of 20-30 degree hills is a daily challenge, my favorite is the Nokian WR. Made without compromising tread compound, the Nokians maintain their flexibility no matter how cold it gets, so they stick, even on icy streets, and can turn a skittish car into a winter-beater.