Time to back off from athletes’ and fans’ overdone celebrations
As a sports reporter, I almost always watch an event with the underlying thought of what prominent stories might arise from various events on both sides. Invariably, everybody would prefer to see one side win, but I’m at the point where a good game, featuring a high level of competition and drama, is more important than who wins.
Objectivity, however, seems to be losing in importance among a lot of sports followers, and, not coincidentally, for many athletes winning, losing, and even performing with class seem to be more the exception than the rule these days. Watch any major college or NBA basketball game, for example, and you’ll see fans organizing to sit behind the basket and wave, scream or otherwise try to intimidate an opposing free-throw shooter.
In the last couple of weeks, however, the best examples of where we’re at in sports and sports-following have been provided by the Olympics, the National Football League, the UMD football team, and the Minnesota Wild.
We saw tremendous performances in the Olympics, and some ridiculous actions by athletes, in order to celebrate winning a gold medal, or to show their scorn at having fallen short of the gold. The gross displays so outweighed the impressive ones that the U.S. athletes unfortunately came off as poor sports to the rest of the world.
The posing, strutting, and otherwise distasteful and obnoxious gestures of some of the athletes were conclusively summed up by the U.S. 4×100 relay team of Maurice Greene, Jon Drummond, Bernard Williams and Brian Lewis, when, after winning the gold, they tried to outdo each other making faces at the crowd and the cameras, pulling off their jerseys, and twisting American flags into scarves or turbans. This might not even have been the worst of the U.S. displays of boorishness, just the concluding one.
In the National Football League, teams like the Vikings actually amplify crowd noise in an attempt to intimidate visitors to the Metrodome with sheer decibels. So maybe it’s understandable that every touchdown is followed by some outrageous display of duck-walking, strutting and absurd posturing.
However, in most of the distasteful ball-spiking, strutting routines, the perpetrator must think it shows creative imagination, rather than in-your-face bragging while simultaneously showing up the other team.
The best, most mellow of such displays is poor sportsmanship, but we’re way beyond spontaneous jumps for joy and over the top into stupid, obviously practiced routines. Two weeks ago it happened in a game in Dallas, when a visiting player ran out onto the big star logo at the center of the Dallas football field to celebrate being the game’s star. He did it not once but a second time, after which I thought it was entirely fitting and proper that a burly Cowboy player ran over the jerk. The Cowboy got fined, meaning the NFL got the wrong guy.
This does not, by the way, include the wonderful post-touchdown thing that Randy Moss did in Detroit, by the way, where he ran directly to the first row of end zone seats and handed the football to his mom. The televised image of her, dancing and beaming with outright glee while she cradled the ball like a baby, was fantastic.
Look at college football to compare it with the NFL. UMD’s undefeated football team has scored some sensational touchdowns on long, quick-striking plays this season, and Erik Hanson scored one on a long touchdown pass from Ricky Fritz, a couple weeks ago. As he started toward the bench, he did a little dance step in spontaneous glee, and was nailed by the refs for unsportsmanlike conduct. It was harsh, in that particular case, but also proves that rules can lead to good sportsmanship.
College players don’t strut like the NFL guys, so wouldn’t it be a relief if the NFL decided to pass a similar rule? You could combine out-of-word Olympic judges, who could hold up cards rating the post-touchdown struts, and anything over a “2” would earn a 15-yard penalty.
The Minnesota Wild was free of that sort of thing during sellouts in their two home debuts at the new Xcel Center in St. Paul over the weekend. Before their opening game, they simply introduced the starters, without the now-tired lights-out, turn on the dry-ice smoke, and let the announcer scream. When that first game ended, the fans stood in an ovation as the Wild players trooped up the walkway to the dressing room. Simple. The players played, and the crowd cheered.
The next day, on one of those call-in sports talk shows in the Twin Cities, I heard some guy call in and say how perturbed he was at the Wild, because after the game, when the fans were standing and cheering, the players just went off the ice — they didn’t stay out to salute, strut, wave, jump up on the glass, tear off their jerseys, or otherwise show a lack of class.
Apparently, we’ve gotten to the point where obnoxious, over-zealous celebrations by athletes have become so commonplace that now some fans are insulted if the players don’t applaud the fans for applauding the players!
John Gilbert is a sports writer for the Up North Newspaper Network, of which the Daily Telegram is a member.
The Wild breaks ice with fans
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The owners of the Minnesota Wild had done their thing, coming up with the money to buy the rights to an expansion franchise in the National Hockey League, then they and the City of St. Paul got together and built a spectacular, state-of-the-art arena right on the site of the old Civic Center. But Friday night was the first test. It was only an exhibition game, but it was the home opener of the Wild and the grand opening of the Xcel Center.
It was love at first sight, as a sellout crowd of 18,516 bought up every ticket, ranging from $10 to $60, with suite and club seats going for $75. And they were there with an opening roar to greet their new heroes — forget that it was supposedly a group from expansion land. They responded raucously when the Wild got an early start on the opening of duck-hunting season — whipping the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 3-1.
“You could feel the fans’ presence, even in warmups,” said Darby Hendrickson, a former Gopher who is now a Duluthian, living on Island Lake. “Every guy had commented on it when we came back to the locker room. I didn’t know I was starting until just before the game, and when they announced my name, I got a tingling feeling — it’s hard to explain.”
Teammate Jeff Nielsen, a winger from Grand Rapids, suggested the tingling might have been because of a crowd reaction that was so impressive he had to heckle Darby about it. “It was unbelievable, the ovation Darby got when they announced he was starting at center,” Nielsen said. “That’s got to be the loudest ovation for a mucker in league history. To get an ovation like that, you’ve got to be a marquee player.”
Hendrickson was a marquee player on the opening faceoff, snatching the puck back to his defense away from former North Dakota star and Hobey Baker winner Tony Hrkac. But it was clear Hendrickson was moved by the emotion of the night.
“Every guy from Minnesota who plays hockey professionally has dreamed about playing here,” said Hendrickson. “You have to sit back and realize how neat it is. I was sitting on the bench, thinking that I might be in the same exact space as when I played in the Civic Center in the high school tournament. How many memories were in that rink — a million. Now there’s a $170-million building on this spot, and the NHL is in St. Paul.
“St. Paul is special, when it comes to hockey. The first time I was ever in the Civic Center was in 1976. I was 4 years old, and my dad was coaching Richfield. Now it’s 24 years later, I’m 28, I’m back here playing, and the NHL is back in Minnesota. Hockey’s never changed here — the Minnesota people are the constant — but the NHL is back now.”
The fans know it, too. Folks wearing Wild jerseys were wandering around town and hitting nearby restaurants as early at 3:30 in the afternoon. They poured into the Xcel Energy Center plenty early, and wandered the wide, spacious corridors and checked it out before hitting their seats. The Wild players admitted they were wondering what kind of impact they’d make on the area and on the fans.
The answer came early, when the Wild was so charged up by the crowd that they appeared capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Or, at least, getting an early jump ahead of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks with a goal by Kai Nurminen at 2:49, a goal by Brad Bombardir at 6:05, and a 3-0 lead when Aaron Gavey scored at 10:46, all in the first period.
While it was only an exhibition game, the 3-1 victory came over an established scoring-machine. Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne were out there on regular duty and on a power-play unit the Wild somehow held scoreless on seven tries. Jamie McLellan stopped 21 of Anaheim’s 22 shots, using quickness, skill, and a whole bunch of luck to keep the Mighty Ducks scoreless until 5:46 remained in the third period, when Selanne scored with a quick shot from deep in the left circle.
The first goal was on a neat exchange, as Stacy Roest went behind the net to get the puck and came out on the right side as Nurminen circled out front from behind the net on the left. Roest passed and Nurminen put it away.
“The early goal loosened up the guys,” said coach Jacques Lemaire. “I could tell they were nervous. I could see right away when the guys went on the ice, and the guys in the seats were standing; they appreciated having a team back here.”
The Wild went 0-for-9 on power plays, although Bombardir swept in from the point and deflected Maxim Sushinsky’s right point shot past goalie J.S. Giguere at 6:05, the precise moment a power play expired.
The third goal came on a sequence of deft moves by Gavey, after Nielsen’s stickblade broke when he tried to pass from the right corner. The puck hit the base of the goal and bounced up in the air behind the net. Gavey batted it toward himself out of the air, then he batted it a second time as he moved out front on the left side, and when the puck finally settled, he snapped a backhander in on the short side against Giguere.
Then the fans got a look at the style Wild coach Lemaire hopes to deploy. After getting seven shots in the first period — mostly in the first 10 minutes — the Wild got only two in the second, and wound up with only 14 for the game.
“Myself, I wanted to show the fans we have a decent team,” said Lemaire. “We’re starting, and we’re going to make mistakes, but we’re learning. We have to be careful when we play better teams. We were lucky tonight we didn’t get burned. They have Selanne and Kariya, who are always dangerous, and we had some luck, especially penalty killing, when they had some great chances. Jamie came up big on some difficult shots.
“It was a good game for us, great to be out there the first time. You could tell the fans were waiting for a good game, and there was a lot of excitement because we worked hard from start to end.”
It meant most to the fans, and to the homestate players. “You couldn’t ask for a better script than this,” said Nielsen. “At 11 this morning, when I was here, there were saws, chairs, dust, 50 guys taping, scraping and sanding, and I thought, ‘How are they ever going to get this ready for tonight?’ But they did it. Then we come out and jump ahead 3-0, and the fans had to be asking, ‘What team is this?’ They had to be expecting an expansion team that couldn’t win.”
WILD WHISPERS: The Wild remained undefeated at home with a 1-1 tie with the Chicago Blackhawks Sunday evening. … In attendance Sunday were about a dozen youth hockey players from the Superior Amateur Hockey Association, who were given the treat of participating in a clinic at the Xcel Center prior to the game. They then watched the game from the Club Level of the arena, courtesy of Coca Cola.
New NHL team, XCel Center, and 18,516 start Wild love affair
SAINT PAUL, MINN. — The owners of the Minnesota Wild had done their thing, coming up with the money to buy the rights to an expansion franchise in the National Hockey League, then they and the City of Saint Paul got together and built a spectacular, state-of-the-art arena right on the site of the old Civic Center. But Friday night was the first test. It was only an exhibition game, but it was the home opener of the Wild and the grand opening of the Xcel Center.
It was love at first sight, as a sellout crowd of 18,516 bought up every ticket, ranging from $10 to $60, with suite seats going for $75. And they were there with an opening roar to greet their new heroes — forget that it was supposedly a group from expansion land. They responded raucously when the Wild got an early start on the opening of duck-hunting season — whipping the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 3-1.
“You could feel the fans’ presence, even in warmups,” said Darby Hendrickson, a former Gopher who is now a Duluthian, living on Island Lake. “Every guy had commented on it when we came back to the locker room. I didn’t know I was starting until just before the game, and when they announced my name, I got a tingling feeling — it’s hard to explain.”
Teammate Jeff Nielsen, a winger from Grand Rapids, suggested the tingling might have been because of a crowd reaction that was so impressive he had to heckle Darby about it. “It was unbelievable, the ovation Darby got when they announced he was starting at center,” Nielsen said. “That’s got to be the loudest ovation for a mucker in league history. To get an ovation like that, you’ve got to be a marquee player.”
Hendrickson was a marquee player on the opening faceoff, snatching the puck back to his defense away from former North Dakota star and Hobey Baker winner Tony Hrkac. But it was clear Hendrickson was moved by the emotion of the night.
“Every guy from Minnesota who plays hockey professionally has dreamed about playing here,” said Hendrickson. “You have to sit back and realize how neat it is. I was sitting on the bench, thinking that I might be in the same exact space as when I played in the Civic Center in the high school tournament. How many memories were in that rink — a million. Now there’s a $170-million building on this spot, and the NHL is in Saint Paul.
“Saint Paul is special, when it comes to hockey. The first time I was ever in the Civic Center was in 1976. I was 4 years old, and my dad was coaching Richfield. Now it’s 24 years later, I’m 28, I’m back here playing, and the NHL is back in Minnesota. Hockey’s never changed here — the Minnesota people are the constant — but the NHL is back now.”
The fans know it, too. Folks wearing Wild jerseys were wandering around town and hitting nearby restaurants as early at 3:30 in the afternoon. The poured into the Xcel Center plenty early, and wandered the wide, spacious corridors and checked it out before hitting their seats. The Wild players admitted they were wondering what kind of impact they’d make on the area and on the fans.
The answer came early, when the Wild was so charged up by the crowd that they appeared capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Or, at least, getting an early jump ahead of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks with a goal by Kai Nurminen at 2:49, a goal by Brad Bombardir at 6:05, and a 3-0 lead when Aaron Gavey scored at 10:46, all in the first period.
While it was only an exhibition game, the 3-1 victory came over an established scoring-machine. Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne were out there on regular duty and on a power-play unit the Wild somehow held scoreless on seven tries. Jamie McLellan stopped 21 of Anaheim’s 22 shots, using quickness, skill, and a whole bunch of luck to keep the Mighty Ducks scoreless until 5:46 remained in the third period, when Selanne scored with a quick shot from deep in the left circle.
The first goal was on a neat exchange, as Stacy Roest went behind the net to get the puck and came out on the right side as Nurminen circled out front from behind the net on the left. Roest passed and Nurminen put it away.
“The early goal loosened up the guys,” said coach Jacques Lemaire. “I could tell they were nervous. I could see right away when the guys went on the ice, and the guys in the seats were standing; they appreciated having a team back here.”
The Wild went 0-for-9 on power plays, although Bombardir swept in from the point and deflected Maxim Sushinsky’s right point shot past goalie J.S. Giguere at 6:05, the precise moment a power play expired.
The third goal came on a sequence of deft moves by Gavey, after Nielsen’s stickblade broke when he tried to pass from the right corner. The puck hit the base of the goal and bounced up in the air behind the net. Gavey batted it toward himself out of the air, then he batted it a second time as he moved out front on the left side, and when the puck finally settled, he snapped a backhander in on the short side against Giguere.
Then the fans got a look at the style Wild coach Lemaire hopes to deploy. After getting seven shots in the first period — mostly in the first 10 minutes — the Wild got only two in the second, and wound up with only 14 for the game.
“Myself, I wanted to show the fans we have a decent team,” said Lemaire. “We’re starting, and we’re going to make mistakes, but we’re learning. We have to be careful when we play better teams. We were lucky tonight we didn’t get burned. They have Selanne and Kariya, who are always dangerous, and we had some luck, especially penalty killing, when they had some great chances. Jamie came up big on some difficult shots.
“It was a good game for us, great to be out there the first time. You could tell the fans were waiting for a good game, and there was a lot of excitement because we worked hard from start to end.”
It meant most to the fans, and to the homestate players. “You couldn’t ask for a better script than this,” said Nielsen. “At 11 this morning, when I was here, there were saws, chairs, dust, 50 guys taping, scraping and sanding, and I thought, ‘How are they ever going to get this ready for tonight?’ But they did it. Then we come out and jump ahead 3-0, and the fans had to be asking, ‘What team is this?’ They had to be expecting an expansion team that couldn’t win.”
Impatient UMD women open hockey practice eager for games
In just two weeks, the UMD women’s hockey team will open its second season, when St. Lawrence comes to Duluth to face the Bulldogs. If that means the season is coming up in a hurry, some of the players disagree.
“Last year, we had three days of practice and then we were off to Salt Lake City to start playing,” said defenseman Navada Russell. “This year, two weeks seems like such a long time until we play.”
Impatience was one of the trademarks of the Bulldogs in their first season. Here was a first-year team, with players ranging from world-class international stars to area players who had never played beyond club-team level, that tore undefeated through its first 23 games (21-0-2), won the first-ever Women’s-WCHA championship with a 21-1-2 record, and also won the W-WCHA playoff title to gain a trip to the final four. Finishing fourth at nationals might have been a distasteful finish, but it also left some extra incentive for following up that stunning 25-5-3 debut.
Four players from that team will not be with UMD this season — actually, three players and an asterisk. Winger Erin Nagurski from International Falls graduated, defenseman Breana Berry from Minnetonka transferred to St. Benedict’s, and goaltender Amanda Tapp from Calgary — who had a 16-0-1 record, a .928 save-percentage and a 1.33 goals-against mark — was scholastically ineligible and didn’t return to school. The fourth player that won’t be starting the season with the Bulldogs is Jenny Schmidgall, the All-American and national scoring leader with 41 goals-52 assists–93 points.
Schmidgall has skated briefly with the team but will not play because she is expecting a baby Jan. 1. She will miss the first semester and could take the full year off as a redshirt, or she could decide to play the second semester. But for now, filling the vacancy left by Schmidgall is the biggest challenge facing coach Shannon Miller, who has recruited five new players and anticipates all five will step in and contribute.
“We were new last year, and nobody knew what to expect,” said captain Brittny Ralph, the team’s lone senior. “Getting back to start practice this year felt really good, like we hadn’t missed a beat. Obviously, we are going to miss Shmiggy, but she’s still here and still part of the team. She’s always in great shape, so she probably could come back pretty quickly, and even if she comes back before she’s in perfect condition, her game is seeing the ice and making her teammates better.
“But we have five new players who seem to fit right in. There’s a little pressure on us this year to do as well as we did last year, but if we come out and play our best, everything will work out.”
The freshmen are forwards Sheena Podovinnikoff from Kamsack, Saskatchewan, and Sanna Peura from Jyvaskyla, Finland, defensemen Tricia Guest of Estevan, Saskatchewan, and Satu Kiipeli from Oulu, Finland, and goalie Patricia Sautter from Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
One thing unchanged from last year is the team’s high-spirited attitude. When practice opened this week, and the players gathered in game jerseys for the annual team picture, freshman Podovinnikoff was standing in one group, while another group noticed that to be spelled out on her jersey, the 13 letters of her last name started on her left sleeve, moved across her back, and ended as it started down the right sleeve.
Michelle McAteer, the team’s primary sparkplug, said: “She’s either going to have to get wider, or we’re going to have to put ‘To be continued’ on her jersey.”
Blending into the team’s free-spirited attitude will be equally important to blending in on the ice, although Bulldog returnees don’t see any problem for the rookies.
The team has 15 forwards and seven defensemen, with 12 forwards and five of the defensemen returning. The goaltending should be unexcelled in college hockey, with freshman Sautter coming from Switzerland’s national team to join Tuula Puputti, who came from Finland’s national team to attend UMD second semester, and backup Riana Burke. Puputti’s record (6-5-2) last season wasn’t as flashy as Tapp’s 16-0-1, but Puputti took over in all the tougher playoff games, and she still had a .925 save percentage with a stingy 1.98 goals-against mark.
The schedule is one of the biggest differences this year. Most established teams were reluctant to play a first-year unknown, and the Bulldogs could only play tough nonconference foes in six games, all during three trips out east. Their phenomenal first season changed all that, and St. Lawrence, New Hampshire, Harvard and Northeastern all are coming to Duluth for two-game sets, starting with St. Lawrence on Oct. 13-14.
That’s either two short weeks away, or a long time, depending on the Bulldogs’ impatience.
Schumacher wins U.S. Grand Prix, takes over Formula 1 lead
INDIANAPOLIS — Michael Schumacher overcame David Coulthard’s strong start with a wheel-banging pass, then took such command of Sunday’s United States Grand Prix that even his own late spinout couldn’t prevent him from a decisive victory that was also worth the overall Formula 1 points lead.
“Some people asked me to make a bit of a show this weekend,” said Schumacher. “I hope that was good enough.”
It was, enthralling a huge crowd estimated at 200,000 to watch the return of Formula 1 racing to the United States after a nine-year absence, and to watch the first race conducted at the 13-turn, 2.606-mile road course that has been constructed along two turns of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and twists through the infield of the legendary oval.
Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, Schumacher’s teammate, finished second to give Ferrari its third 1-2 finish of the season. Germany’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen was third in a Jordan/Mugen-Honda, with Canada’s Jacques Villeneuve fourth in a BAR/Honda, Coulthard fifth in a West McLaren/Mercedes, and Ricardo Zonta sixth in the second BAR/Honda.
But the show belonged to Schumacher, who is much thinner and more diminutive than he might appear on television. He said he was overwhelmed by the support shown by the fans, many of whom waved gigantic Ferrari flags or German flags — both of which were in support of Schumacher. He came into the race two points behind twice-defending champion Mika Hakkinen, and left Indianapolis eight points ahead, 88-80, with two races remaining in the globe-hopping series.
Asked if he could feel that this race, at this place, was historic, Schumacher, always gracious, said: “I don’t think it’s up to me to judge that.”
He can, however, judge what the victory means to himself and Ferrari in the individual and manufacturers’ competition for world championships, but he wasn’t about to celebrate anything prematurely. “It’s very important, because now I can finish twice second and still win the championship. But I still have to finish twice second. I’ll start to think about the championship once it’s over, not before. You can see what can happen.”
What can happen, did, to Hakkinen, who was a strong second and gaining on Schumacher after 25 of the race’s 73 laps, cutting into the lead with several of the race’s fastest trips around the circuit. But his Mercedes engine blew on the 26th lap, and he coasted to a stop with flames trailing from his engine compartment.
“What caused the failure, I do not know,” said Hakkinen, who now must rally from behind to bring the third straight title back home to Finland. “I think I could have won it. I was gaining every segment. We have two races to go now. It’s very, very difficult indeed and getting tougher.”
At the start, Schumacher’s concerns were with Coulthard, Hakkinen’s teammate. Rain that lasted until nearly the 1 p.m. race time had left much of the track wet and the teams all mounted rain tires. On the standing start, Schumacher, having won the pole, had a slight advantage on the staggered-start grid. When the starting lights were about to go out, Schumacher seemed to inch forward ever so slightly, then stopped again. Coulthard, also anticipating the start, lurched forward similarly, and just kept on going — zooming past Schumacher on the inside to take the lead as the field hit the brakes and cut sharply right into turn 1.
He led Schumacher for the first six laps, while race officials determined that Coulthard must make a stop-and-go pit stop for 10 seconds as a penalty for jumping the start. “I knew I jumped the start. It’s unfortunate. I planned to get the better start and be leading out of the first corner, but not with a jump-start. I moved, then tried to stop, but then the lights changed so I went.”
Before Coulthard went in for his penalty stop, however, Schumacher wrenched the lead away on lap 7. He came up hard on the outside as the two streaked down the main straightaway — running clockwise on the normally clockwise portion of the Indy oval — and circled on the outside as he cut into turn 1. The two were side-by-side, with Schumacher inching ahead, when they bumped going into the sharp left turn 2. Coulthard’s left front struck Schumacher’s right rear. Both cars continued, but Schumacher’s red Ferrari was in front to stay.
“David did hold me up in the infield, to let Mika catch up,” said Schumacher. “Obviously, the two are teammates, and that’s perfectly legal. On the overtaking side, I think he really tried a little bit too much. I passed him on the outside of turn 1, and I went really, really wide to leave him as much room as possible. But when we were going into turn 2, I don’t think he took a line to avoid contact.”
On the start of that seventh lap, Hakkinen had ducked into the McLaren pits to change from wet tires to dry, as the course was drying sufficiently. After Coulthard made his stop-and-go pit stop on lap 8, he came right back in on lap 9 to also put on dry tires. That left Schumacher in the lead by 14.4 seconds over Frentzen, and he stretched out that lead as the other cars stopped for tires. By the 16th lap, Schumacher had a 43.5-second lead over Hakkinen, and he made a pit stop for fuel and dry tires — all in 7 seconds flat — and he got back out still leading by 16 seconds.
Hakkinen then clicked off some very impressive laps, cutting the lead all the way down to 5 seconds by the 24th lap, while turning several consecutive quickest laps, including a 1:15.773 on the 25th trip. But the long straightaway means the F1 engines are run flat-out for over 20 seconds — the longest of any F1 circuit — and the strain showed when Hakkinen’s engine blew one lap later.
While various other interesting duels came about back in the field, particularly between Villeneuve and Barrichello, and then Villeneuve and Frentzen, Schumacher’s only challenge thereafter came from himself. On lap 69, with only four laps remaining, Schumacher rounded a curve too casually, hooked the right front tire over the edge of the asphalt, and spun around a time and a half. He caught it, straightened out, and kept going, while the only damage was to his pride, and to cut his lead in half, to 16 seconds, over Barrichello.
“I wasn’t concentrating any more because I was just cruising,” Schumacher confessed. “I caught the tire on a bit of grass, which was still slippery, and it spun. The team mentioned that I should keep my concentration, and I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m awake now.’
“All I was thinking about was to bring the car home. These cars are built to take being driven hard, but you want to make sure you don’t stress it. You take it easy, and you start to talk to your car.”
Someone asked Schumacher what he said to his car. “Luckily, it didn’t talk back to me,” he said.
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.
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