Day 6 - GOOOOOO GOPHERS!

11:00
I’m up and out by 08:00, having slept pretty well, and woken by 06:00. If my body clock doesn’t adjust any more than this, I’m ok with it.

It’s a frosty morning. Conscious that I’m going to be sitting outside for much of the afternoon on an elevated bleacher, I wear my thermal underwear, and also don my warmest of tops. They do the job. The only part of me that is remotely cold is the part my face between the bottom of my hat, and the top of my neck warmer. I can live with that. This is good practice for Winnipeg, where the temperature on Tuesday will be -20, with a wind chill factor of -8.

I head out on a walking tour of downtown Minneapolis, walking mainly via old hangouts of mine, I’m delighted to find many of them still open, but there have been changes as well. The Grand Kimpton where I invariably stayed when i was in town has become the Hyatt Centric. Dan Kelly’s, which was the closest bar to the office, is still going - but appears to have become a pizzeria. The Local, an Irish pub in which I’ve watched many a Premier League game over the years is still in business. First Avenue, a grungey (décor, if not necessarily sounding) gig venue where I saw Future Islands. Manny’s, a proper old-school steakhouse. My long walk takes me down to Loring Park, and back up Nicollet Mall, where I stop in at Brit’s Pub (their apostrophe, not mine). They show all of the 3pm Premier League fixtures live, so I settle down to watch the second half of Bournemouth vs Brighton. Brighton play well, until Baleba gets sent off in the 59th minute. Brighton concede late on to make it 2-1, and just about hold out for a draw, despite Bournemouth hitting the crossbar in the final seconds of the game. Quite the dramatic end to the game… My pint of Guinness helps me through it.

I’m meeting Jolene at 12:30. We worked together for 10+ years at SHL, and I’ve always really enjoyed her company. We have a similar sense of humour, and a similar way of doing things (i.e. the right way, obvs). Very much colleagues-in-arms, in the trenches. She’s still at SHL, and I suspect will be for the foreseeable - much as I could have comfortably stayed there for many years, had it not driven me to actual insanity. She’s still there, fighting the good fight. I head back to my hotel to freshen up, and make some decisions about how cold I’ma actually going to feel.

21:00
What an afternoon! Gutted as I was to miss out on watching a home Vikings game at their new stadium tomorrow, I’m excited to be going to my first College football game today. The Minnesota Golden Gophers play just over the river in Minneapolis, and Jolene has grabbed us a couple of tickets. Kick-off is 14:30, but we head to the area around the stadium ahead of the game to hit up a couple of bars. The first, Sally’s, is rammed. There’s a long line to get in, which we briefly join, before deciding to cut our losses when it barely moves. Next up is Stubb and Herb’s, also rammed. Inside, we decide to crack open the beers that Jolene has packed for our day out. Something called a Spotted Cow for me, which is a fairly generic lager made over in Wisconsin. Inside the bar, it’s cooking - figuratively and literally. I’m wearing most of my warmest clothes, and rapidly boiling. There’s not really enough room to disrobe to any extent, so we grin and bear. Sadly, we get busted drinking our non bar drinks. We don’t actually get turfed out though. I suspect the bar staff are pretty overwhelmed with the number of people in the bar, so they don’t really care THAT much. There’s an open-air bar area nearer the stadium so we head over there, and have much more success.

Kick-offs at 14:30, and we’re in our seats by 14:15. The warm-up show is staggering in its size and scale. There’s a marching band that must number 120 people, all students of Minnesota University. They’re really good! And somehow capable of playing their instruments at the same time as marching into various shapes and words - an ‘M’ for Minnesota, the word ‘Gophers’ across the pitch.

I think what surprises me the most is the comparison to my own experience playing 1st team sport at UCL. I think the most people we ever had at one of my hockey games was 7, 2 of whom were my parents. That was for the pinnacle of the season, the final of the London Cup, so for us a HUGE deal. Today’s Gophers’ game is less critical. It’s late in the season, and the Gophers JUST have a winning record. Not a disaster of a season, but not one for the record books. Penn State (Pennsylvania) are a top ranked team, but there’s no particular rivalry between the two teams. Despite that, there are around 40,000 fans in the stadium. The split is perhaps 3 to 1 in favour of NON students. There’s huge community support for these student teams. The very biggest capacity stadium in the US, for ANY team is for the Michigan Wolverines college football team, at a simply mind-blowing 107,600 - and yeah, they’re looking to expand it.

The game is great fun to watch. College football is a little more… thrilling than the NFL. Less risk averse, more trick plays, and typically higher scoring. Minnesota race out to a 10 point lead, but Penn claw them back. At half-time, it’s 19-16 to Minnesota. The second half continues to be a tight affair. Minnesota’s running game is working well, but they’re struggling a little through the air. Their defence is doing great things though. Penn’s quality ultimately wins through. It’s 26-25 to Penn as the clock runs down, and they manage the clock brilliantly to grind out a tough, tough win.

My tradition with teams overseas is that I support the first home team who’s game I go to. I don’t have a strong affiliation with a particular city, As a result, my team support is a little all over the place. Baseball = Boston Red Sox, after a great fun double header against the Yankees that I watched at Fenway Park. Basketball = the Chicago Bulls. NFL = the Minnesota Vikings, and now college Football = Minnesota Gophers. Jolene tells me I’m letting myself in for a lifetime of disappointment. I’ll add it to the list.

Hanging out with Jolene is great fun. We catch up, we reminisce. She’s one of very few friends that I’ve actually kept from the 15 years I spent at SHL. She’s very easy to spend time with, and I’m sad when we say goodbye. Given I’m now a lifelong fan of TWO Minneapolis based sports teams, I’ll obviously be back more quickly this time.

I head back to my hotel. I’ve got some room picnic stuff in the fridge, and struggle to motivate myself to head out again. I settle down with a movie, and by 21:00, am feeling snoozy…Lue lisää