Roseville whips Eden Prairie 4-1, faces Anoka in AA final

SAINT PAUL, MN. — Roseville was ready, willing and able to take part in the anticipated semifinal shootout in the state Class AA hockey tournament semifinals Friday night, while Eden Prairie was ready, willing but unable to hold of its end.

The result was a 4-1 victory for Roseville (24-3-2), which will make its second straight trip to the championship game, to face Anoka (24-4-1) – which won a stunning 2-1 semifinal victory to eliminate defending champion Holy Angels – and one of the two will be winning its first-ever state championship in Saturday’s 7 p.m. finale at Xcel Energy Center.

The Raiders led 1-0 in the first, 3-0 after two and 4-0 before Eden Prairie got its lone goal, with only 1:11 remaining. As impressive as Roseville was, throughout the game, part of the difference might have come down to the Hockey Expo, a display of new equipment, that is conducted annually at Wilkins Auditorium, next door to the Xcel Energy Center.

That factor came through after the game, when it was suggested to Eden Prairie coach Lee Smith that the game might have gone differently if Eden Prairie had been able to get one past Jerad Kaufmann earlier in the game.

“I feel like it could have been different if we could have hit the net earlier,” said Smith. “I’ve never seen our kids miss the net as much as we did tonight. We were not just missing the net, but missing by a good three or four feet. A lot of our kids went to the Expo, and got new sticks. I told them all not to use something they’re unfamiliar with, but a lot of them used different sticks.”

A check with the Eden Prairie equipment manager confirmed that possibly more than half the Eagles prepared and used new sticks, a fact that defies the hockey tradition of using a “lucky stick” that worked for a goal or a victory, and staying with it until it breaks or the player’s luck changes. The Eagles managed only 16 shots, to Roseville’s 20, but, as Smith said, many of the Eden Prairie shots sailed wide by large margins.

SmithÂ’s frustration only got worse when he learned of RosevilleÂ’s fourth goal.

“Kellen Chamblee, who got our fourth goal,” said Roseville coach Steve Sertich, “scored it with a new stick.”

He bought it at Strauss Skates, however, and not at the Expo.
The two high-powered offenses paid closer attention to defensive coverage in the first period, as the teams dueled through a scoreless first 14 minutes. Not that there werenÂ’t chances. Brandon Svendsen, who has 30 goals for the Raiders, got loose for not one but two breakaways, about 10 seconds apart, 12 minutes into the opening period, but Eden Prairie goalie Maurcus Paulson came up with spectacular saves on both of them.

With 24 seconds left in the period, however, the Raiders broke through, as Pat Eagles rushed up the left side and dropped a perfect pass to Svendsen, who passed hard from the left circle across the goal-mouth, where Andy Carroll deflected it in for a 1-0 lead.

Blake Twardowski scored with a backhander at the left edge of the crease at 4:42 of the second period for a 2-0 Roseville lead. Then Mike Sertich made the Eagles pay with a power-play goal at 14:19 of the middle period, when Collin Cody passed from the left circle and Sertich converted from the right edge of the net.

Midway through the third period, Chamblee scored for the 4-0 cushion.
Eden Prairie got one puck into the Roseville net at 9:53, but Ryan Hawkins, who had been knocked down in the crease, clearly knocked it in with his hand and it was disallowed. Jordan Iverson finally scored for the Eagles, but not until 13:49, leaving too little time for Eden Prairie to close the gap further.

“We knew coming in they’d be aggressive offensively,” said Smith. “There wasn’t anything they did that really surprised us. We weren’t able to capitalize on some chances, but their goalie played big tonight, and they did a good job of chipping the puck to the end boards or to the side and then throwing it long.”

Sertich said he was especially proud of his team reaching the final because it has been pretty much overlooked amid the media attention all season.

“Last year’s team had more skills, but this team battles,” said Sertich. “We’ve been with these kids since they were peewees, and it’s great to see them have some success. Our goalie, Jerad Kaufmann, hasn’t gotten any notice, and he’s 21-1 for the season.”

With a chance, he failed to add, to be 22-1 if the Raiders can win one more game.

Bemidji coach Olson watches UMD women celebrate title

It was pretty much the perfect ending to a perfect regular season for the University of Minnesota-Duluth womenÂ’s hockey team. After romping to a 10-0 victory at Bemidji State, the Bulldogs returned home to almost duplicate the feat with an 11-3 Sunday matinee triumph over Bemidji at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center on Sunday afternoon.
The victories clinched the WomenÂ’s WCHA title at 21-2-1 for UMD, which finished regular-season play ranked No. 2 in the country at 27-3-2. While it is normal to conduct some sort of senior day before the final home game of the regular season, UMD coach Shannon Miller chose to hold this one after the final game, knowing the pregame ceremony might bother the visitors from Bemidji State, and the possible emotion might bother the UMD players.
So, after the game, a carpet was unrolled on the DECC ice, and while the 1,443 fans stayed in place, the eight seniors were called to center ice one by one. Joanne Eustace, Jenny Hempel, Erika Holst, Navada Russell, Patricia Sautter, Hanne Sikio, Michelle McAteer, and Maria Rooth. They walked out with parents or adopted Duluth family members, and there were a lot of tears and emotion spilling after an incredible four-year run. Rooth and Holst are from Sweden, Sikio from Finland, Sautter from Switzerland, Eustace, McAteer and Russell from Canada, and Hempel from Minnesota.
As the ceremony continued, a tall figure stood over behind the glass in the corner, where the visiting team enters and leaves the rink. It was Bemidji State coach Bruce Olson.
“That’s a great team,” said Olson, whose team still has a weekend to go at 5-12-5 and 9-15-6. “What can you do? They’ve got some awesome players. All we can hope to do is land one or two kids with that kind of skill, and then maybe some others will follow.
“We know it might be difficult to get up to that level at Bemidji, be that’s what we hope to do.”
Olson knows that thereÂ’s a gap between the top of the WomenÂ’s WCHA, and teams such as UMD and Minnesota. But Wisconsin has closed the gap on them, and Bemidji State hopes to challenge Ohio State and keep moving up, while also bringing some stability to the Beavers program.
“I’m the third coach the program has had in four years,” said Olson.
“But look at where we are. We got to Ohio State for the final weekend and we’ve got a chance to finish fourth. Ohio State is tough, but if we happen to win, we’d finish fourth, and that would be the best Bemidji State has ever done.”
Regardless, the Beavers and Buckeyes are on a collision course to play this weekend in the season-ending series, and then to meet again at Englestad Arena in Grand Forks, N.D., in the WomenÂ’s WCHA Final Five playoff March 6-8. The fourth and fifth teams play a one-game knockout, for the right to face UMD in the semifinals, while Minnesota finishes the regular season against Wisconsin, and then comes right back to take on the Badgers again in the WCHA semifinals.
It is likely that two teams will advance to the NCAA Frozen Four in Duluth, with UMD and Minnesota both being ranked among the nationÂ’s top three teams all season, and Wisconsin among the top seven.
Olson, who was a star player at Roseau High School and then at UMD, coached in North Dakota and returned to coach the boys high school team at Roseau before going back to North Dakota to further his degree, and while there, he coached the North Dakota club team that this year started varsity hockey. His team reflects his steady and classy approach to the game.
Olson has eight seniors on the Bemidji State team, led by Amber Fryklund of Hibbing, who leads with 12 goals and 18 assists for 30 points. Lill Raynard, another senior, plays on FryklundÂ’s wing. Betsy Hegland, Alicia Kinsman and Kerri McEwen form an all-senior third line, and Amy Shepler in on the fourth line, while Lisa Peters leads the defense and Bre Dedrickson is one of three rotating goaltenders.
The challenge for Bemidji State was immense against UMD. The Bulldogs have so much scoring power they had overrun the Beavers 9-0 and 10-0 earlier in the season. Adding SaturdayÂ’s 10-0 victory meant that UMD had outscored Bemidji State 29-0 in three victories. But the Beavers played hard in the Sunday match at the DECC.
After Caroline Ouellette staked UMD to a 1-0 lead, Raynard scored her ninth goal of the season to not only give Bemidji its first goal against UMD in four games, but to tie the game 1-1. Nora Tallus and Sikio came right back with goals 48 seconds apart for a 3-1 UMD lead, but Kinsman scored with a diving deflection of a long pass to bring Bemidji up to 3-2.
UMD was not to be denied, with Sikio and Rooth scoring 41 seconds apart in the final minute of the opening period to make it 5-2, and the Bulldogs never looked back. They outshot Bemidji State 45-16, and Jenny Potter scored three goals and four assists, Sikio added two goals and four assists, and Rooth, the captain, was named No. 1 star with three goals and one assist.
That means Potter continues to lead the nation in scoring with 32-51—83. Ouellette has 26-37—63, Holst 29-28—57, Sikio 22-26—48, and Rooth 19-29—48. Rooth now has 226 points to become UMD’s all-time leading hockey scorer, breaking Dan Lempe’s 24-year-old mark of 222 career points for the Bulldog men.
Olson, whose Bemidji State team tied the Gophers 2-2 early in the season, and has a victory and a tie in an early series with Ohio State, knows this yearÂ’s Beavers have improved as the season has gone along. And they have more to go. But watching him watch the on-ice celebration by UMD at the DECC made you realize he has an idea for where he wants to take the Bemidji State program.

Minivan far from forgotten as Toyota launches new Sienna

DETROIT, MI. — When it comes to sport-utility vehicles, Toyota is loaded with weapons – with no less than five SUVs already out under the Toyota name and three more with the upscale Lexus nameplate. But when it comes to minivans, which are the anti-SUVs of the auto business, Toyota has only one. For the 2004 model year, Toyota has totally redesigned its Sienna, however, and intends for it to be a serious challenger against the best minivans.

The 2004 Sienna was introduced to the media this past week, with a brief explanation and test-drive in Detroit on Monday, followed by a trip to Princeton, Ind., where Toyota will build the new Sienna on a new assembly line, in the same facility that builds the Tundra pickup truck and Sequoia full-size SUV, based on the Tundra.

Toyota started with the Van Wagon in the U.S. back in 1984, and switched to the Previa, which had all-wheel-drive, from 1991-97, before introducing the first Sienna as a replacement in 1998. The reasons for the dropoff of the Sienna, which is a quite-competent vehicle, is that Chrysler redesigned the segment-dominating Caravan/Town & Country, while Honda had come out with a highly acclaimed Odyssey since then, and Mazda and General Motors made major improvements in the last year. Furthermore, Nissan has already displayed its soon-to-be-realeased sleeker Quest.

So Toyota made a move to upgrade the Sienna from every possible angle for its reintroduction, and, from a preliminary look at least, and a brief road-test, the Sienna hit the mark on almost all counts. The LE model with all-wheel-drive shows good stability, precise steering, well-designed bucket seats, and a lot of room.

With SUVs dominating the industry in general and Toyota in particular, the Sienna proves that Toyota has no plan to abandon the minivan segment, although it was obvious a major overhaul was needed for the Sienna, which drooped to only 81,000 sales for 2002.

“SUVs have taken a chunk out of the minivan market, but it is still strong for fulfilling family needs,” said Don Esmond, vice president and general manager of Toyota Sales in the U.S. “We think minivans will increase in volume at the expense of other vehicles, and our plan calls for annual sales of 130,000 to 150,000 Siennas.

“Our market research shows that two groups dominate. One is emerging families, where the parents are between 30-49 and their kids are in grade school. The other is empty-nesters, who are age 50 and over, and mostly retired. In both cases, these people want minivans because of kids – of being a good parent, or good grandparents. There were 1.2 million minivans sold last year, despite a decline of 4 percent, but we expect it to stabilize and possibly rise in the next year.”
Esmond said that chief engineer Yuji Yokoya had spent five different trips driving through every state in the U.S., from Alaska to Florida and from Maine to California, totaling 53,000 miles, allegedly to learn what features would be important to have on the new Sienna.

Among those are: 6 inches longer in overall length, 5 inches longer wheelbase, 1.6 inches taller, 4 inches wider track, translating into more head, leg and shoulder room, an increase of over 15 square feet of cargo volume to 148.9, and yet a turning radius that dropped by more than 3 feet to 36.8 feet.

Those are just numbers, of course, without converting that extra size to usefulness, and not many companies are any better than Toyota at making the most of space, with seating for seven or eight with the three rows of seats. The second row can be two buckets or three. With three, there is room for eight occupants and the center seat can slide forward to more easily reach a child-seat, for example. With two buckets, the seats can move sideways to form a short bench, or stay separated by open space or a console, which can be interchanged to fit between the front or second-row seats. Without the console in front, a fold-up tray is fixed in place. The third-row bench seat is a 60-40 split, and it tumbles and disappears flat into the floor. The gearshift lever comes out of the dash. And the tailgate rises with a power mechanism.

Those are all great ideas, although while Toyota was wise enough to include them all, it must be pointed out that they are “acquired” tastes: Honda put a fold-up tray in its CR-V five years ago, and the tumbling and disappearing third seat has been in the Honda Odyssey since its inception, while the Mazda MPV minivan has side-sliding middle-row buckets. Several manufacturers have the shifter coming out of the dash, which enhances room if you want to make a trip between the seats and through the fold-down tray to the second row. Chrysler put a power tailgate in its last minivan upgrade.

Including the best ideas from a variety of competitors is nothing new, of course, and Toyota has incorporated most of the best ones in the Sienna. Only a few competitors offer all-wheel drive, which Toyota aims to capitalize on, offering it in the LE, XLE and XLE Limited models – all but the base CE. A center differential separates power 50-50 front and rear, then power is automatically transferred to front or rear if any slippage is detected at the other end. Vehicle stability control and traction control, plus electronic brake distribution and brake-assist all contribute to the feeling of security, whether going, going straight, or stopping quickly is the objective.

For power, Toyota increased the 3.0-liter V6 to 3.3, and the engine is a dual-overhead-camshaft gem, with variable valve-timing that adjusts valve operation for optimum power and efficiency, turning out a healthy 230 horsepower at 5,600 RPMs and 242 foot-pounds of torque at 3,600 RPMs. A 5-speed automatic transmission harnesses that energy, and Toyota claims 0-60 times of 8.3 seconds for the new Sienna, with potential for up to 27 miles per gallon for the front-wheel-drive and 24 for the all-wheel-drive version and an upward move from low-emission vehicle status (LEV) to ultra-low-emission vehicle (ULEV).

Power rack and pinion steering not only circles in a much shorter span, it is smooth, without that binding feeling, meaning the Sienna will have some of the best assets of SUVs, without some of the drawbacks.

Pricing is impressive. Toyota actually lowered base price on the CE, dropping it by $1,000 to $22,955, and decreasing it $4,480 to $24,260 on the LE. It drops $3,077 to $28,260 on the XLE, while the new XLE Limited will start at $34,480. Most impressive is that the base model gets the same potent engine and transmission as the upgrade models, while other features and interior amenities such as woodgrain trim and navigation system account for the higher prices.

Toyota officials anticipate an altered mix of models. The outgoing Sienna had 25 percent of its sales as the CE, which is expected to drop to 5 percent; the LE had 49 percent and may account for 68 percent on the new one; the XLE had 26 percent and should have 22 percent. The XLE Limited should account for 5 percent, in its first year of existence.

Following the “kids rule” philosophy for selling minivans to families and grandparents, Toyota added some other neat touches. There are all sorts of cupholders and bottle holders, and numerous storage bins up front and in the doors. The rear doors slide open on both sides, with power assist and a sensitivity to stop closing if one-finger pressure intercedes. Those sliding rear doors also have roll-down windows, a huge factor to relieve the claustrophobic feeling of some vans with the doors shut. Another feature is a 30-percent larger sunroof that opens above.

EPA fuel estimates for the front-wheel drive Sienna are 19 city and 27 highway; 18 city and 24 highway for the all-wheel drive models. It also has all the latest safety devices, including front and side airbags and full-length side air curtains.

Knowing that minivans have kids in mind, the Sienna has a “conversation” mirror, a convex thing that folds down from the front roof so the driver can keep an eye on what’s going on in the back. There also is the obligatory DVD player in the ceiling for rear occupants, and wireless headphones for individual use of the optional 300-watt, 10-speaker surround-sound audio, which has cassette and CD players located in the dash. Heat and air controls can be dual or triple zone, depending on whether both fronts and the rear get separate controls, or just the front and rear.

Dynamic laser cruise control can be set to hold your speed, or to maintain the interval with the car ahead. And sonar parking assists are positioned front and rear, so you can keep your distance when parking, whether youÂ’re coming or going.

The Sienna is improved enough that even Toyota executives admit it might capture a lot of customers from other manufacturers, and might even steal a few from its own vast SUV contingent, if they realize that the once-scorned minivans still are the best possible answer for a lot of family-hauling requirements.

(John Gilbert writes a weekly automotive column. He can be reached by e-mail at: jgilbert@duluth.com.)

Freshman Vanek steps in, steps up to pace Gopher offense

When the chips are on the line in WCHA hockey, tradition says depending on a freshman to do the scoring is risky. For the Univesrsity of Minnesota, however, putting the pressure on freshman Thomas Vanek has led to amazing rewards and results, and with only two weekends to go in the regular season, this topsy-turvy season is far from over.
The Gophers, in fact, seem to be masters of connecting seeming opposites. Their motto, in fact, could be both: “What a difference a year makes” and, “How similar can two years be?”
A year ago, the Gophers were starting a phenomenal 11-1 closing surge to win the NCAA championship, behind the glorious leadership of seniors Johnny Pohl (27 goals and a national best 79 points) and Jordan Leopold (20 goals, 58 points and the Hobey Baker Award), plus the 34-goal scoring of junior Jeff Taffe. All three of those fellows are gone, as is goaltender Adam Hauser, who set a WCHA record with 83 career victories. The goal-happy Gophers of a year ago showed eight players in double figures for goals, with Taffe (34), Pohl (27), and Leopold (20) followed by Troy Riddle with 16, Grant Potulny 15, Barry Tallackson 13, and 10 each from Matt Koalska and Keith Ballard.
Obviously, it’s impossible to replace such impressive leadership as Pohl, Leopold, Taffe, Hauser and the other seniors provided. The Gophers have struggled to score some times this season, with only Riddle rising to show improvement over last season’s stats. Riddle has 22-23—45. But here’s the astonishing part: No other Gopher has hit double figures in goals – except for Vanek.
But the second part of this season’s motto is not to be trifled with. Despite hurting for balance and consistency in goal-scoring, the Gophers stand 13-6-5 in the WCHA, good for 31 points and third place behind Colorado College and Minnesota State-Mankato. Now look back to last year’s fantastic season – at the exact same point in the season the Gophers stood 14-7-3, for 31 points. Exactly the same!
From here on the parallel requires close scrutiny, because the Gophers finished 11-1 a year ago, and they take that knowledge into this weekendÂ’s series against preseason WCHA favorite Denver, while being fully aware that Mankato is at Colorado College, a series that ends MankatoÂ’s season, while the Gophers still have two games with St. Cloud State and a chance to move higher than third.
Points and victories matter far more than individual goals, but the emergence of Vanek, who is dueling North Dakota freshman Zach Parise for the nationÂ’s rookie scoring lead, is providing the ignition for the Gophers.
A rookie from Graz, Austria, by way of Sioux Falls from the USHL junior ranks, Vanek may have no knowledge of last yearÂ’s individual achievements, but he certainly doesnÂ’t shrink from the challenge. A lanky, 6-foot-2, 210-pound winger, Vanek cruises to his own beat when heÂ’s on the ice. Instead of the hustling, whirling-dervish two-way workers that populate teams throughout college and pro hockey, Vanek seems to coast and avoid congestion, almost disappearing until the puck touches his stick, at which time his game turns positively electrifying.
That style has led to some whispered criticism about how he doesnÂ’t get involved, doesnÂ’t hustle, doesnÂ’t like contact, although even the whisperers know that a lot of players can make it into the National Hockey League if they possess the puck-skills Vanek displays everytime he gets the puck on his stick.
“He plays under control,” said Gopher coach Don Lucia. “Vanek is not going to be first up on the forecheck, or using his body. But he’s very strong on the puck, and very dangerous. He’s got a chance to score 30 goals as a freshman. He’s far and away the best natural goal-scorer we have.”
An interesting note is that when the game gets serious, VanekÂ’s determination seems to rise as well. Of his 24 goals, 13 of them have been scored in the third period. A perfect example came last Friday night at the DECC in Duluth. It had been a strange game, scoreless for one period, then 2-0 for Minnesota, on goals by Ballard and Riddle, before UMDÂ’s Jon Francisco and T.J. Caig countered for a 2-2 tie before the second period ended.
Marco PelusoÂ’s goal at 0:16 of the third put UMD ahead 3-2, and Luke Stauffacher boosted UMD to a 4-2 lead at 7:00.
“We weren’t playing well, we had turnovers,” said Vanek. “Down two goals, we had to get going. Play hard. We have to have some players step up, and I’m one of the guys to step up and get a goal.”
At 7:42, Vanek went to work. “I was behind the net,” he said. “I saw the goalie cheating one way, and I yelled to Matt DeMarchi, who passed it to me and I got a wraparound.”
Sounded simple. But the Gophers still trailed 4-3. Riddle got his second goal of the game by coaxing the puck to trickle across the line on a power play at 11:45. And with 3:31 remaining, Vanek turned it up, considerably. Koalska knocked the puck ahead after a center-ice turnover, and the Gophers charged. It was a ragged rush, and nobody was really open, but Vanek had the puck.
He simply charged for the net, irrepressibly, and didnÂ’t stop until he had jammed the puck past goaltender Isaac Reichmuth.
“It is loud in this arena,” Vanek said. “The fans are right on top of you. But I like it. I don’t know what it is about the third period, but I wanted it.”
And, he got it.
Strangely, however, the Saturday rematch had an even more spectacular finish, but was a reversal. Again the game was scoreless through one period. Again Minnesota struck first, but this time it was for a 3-0 lead in the second period, as Garrett Smaagaard and freshmen Gino Guyer and Tyler Hirsch scored consecutive goals. Evan Schwabe got one back for UMD, but the Gophers seemed in solid command at 3-1 with a period to go.
Nick Anderson got an early goal for the Bulldogs, but Paul Martin countered for Minnesota, and it was 4-2. At that point, however, UMD rallied. Tim Stapleton, yet another freshman, scored on a one-timer to make it 4-3, and the Bulldogs pulled goalie Rob Anderson, which led to one of the weirdest final minutes anywhere. With the goalie pulled, the Bulldogs couldnÂ’t get out of their own end. Vanek shot one just over the crossbar, and two or three other good Gopher chances either missed or were blocked by defensemen.
The ‘Dogs couldn’t escape their end until 20 seconds remained, just time for one frantic rush. They charged, with Stapleton getting the puck on net. Justin Johnson caught it, but juggled it, and it dropped into the crease next to him, just as UMD captain Francisco arrived and knocked it in, tying the game 4-4 with 11 seconds to go.
Overtime started, Hammond got the puck back to Steve Czech at the right point, and Czech’s blast found the back of the net, courtesy of the slightest deflection by Francisco. “The ref asked me if I got it,” said Francisco, who earlier turned down a similar goal that would have meant a hat trick. “I said I touched it, but give the goal to Czech.”
Instead, the official properly awarded it to Francisco, for a hat trick, and a sweet 5-4 shocker for UMD.
“We have to learn how to close out games like this,” said Lucia. “We could have clinched home ice for the playoffs tonight. We were playing well when we got up 3-0, and I thought we could have done better after that, but Duluth did some good things too.”
The loss snapped an amazing streak in which the Gophers had gone 17-0-4 in the second games of WCHA series, over two seasons. The Gophers were only 13-11-2 in first games. But they also haven’t lost two games in a row in 77 games – the longest streak ever for any WCHA team.
Meanwhile, stopping Vanek proved decisive for UMD, just as being unable to stop him had been pivotal for the Gophers the night before. Along with his two-goal third-period outburst at UMD, Vanek scored the game-winner to end a 5-4 victory at Michigan Tech, he scored twice in the third to lift the Gophers to a 5-5 tie with Michigan State, and his third-period goal tied Colorado College and sprung the Gophers to a 3-2 victory.
And while the rookie may not know it, only one year ago the Gophers had to fight to gain a split at Duluth, and many of those older Gophers recall that as the springboard to Minnesota’s closing rush to the championship. “It was a very disappointing loss,” said Potulny, the captain, who was sidelined with a broken ankle for the first half of the season. “But it could be exactly what we need to make us realize what we have to do the rest of the way.”

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• About the Author

  John 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.