Vikings and Wolves and Todd. Oh My.

 

Vikings and Wolves and Todd.  Oh My.

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for October 30, 2022

Our weekend was spent following the Minnesota sports scene starting Friday night at Target Center. 

I was excited to have Miss Sheri join me for a game.  She loves to cheer on the Wolves and jeer on the Lakers.

We were excited to have Lebron and the gang in the town.  Ever since he took his talents to Miami and left Cleveland high and dry, he's been our favorite player to root against.

He did bring one of our favorite players from last year with him, though.  We lost Patrick Beverly in the big Rudy Gobert trade and the team has missed him.  He was a great motivator and kept things exciting for all of us.  The team did a nice tribute video for him at the beginning of the game which I felt was a pretty classy thing to do.

Another player that's fun to Boo is Russell Westbrook.  He used to be a triple double machine for teams when he was the leading player, but has struggled the past couple of years with the Lakers.  I almost feel bad for the guy the way he's struggled, but he has the type of personality that feeling bad for him doesn't last very long.  Then you just like to see him miss again. 

The Timberwolves have had a bit of a rocky start to the season.  They were three and two coming in tonight, but expectations are very high for them this season since they traded away much of their future to land Rudy Gobert.  Anything less than a deep run in the playoffs will be a disappointment.

Anthony Edwards led the team with 29 points and Taurean Prince came up big in the end of the game scoring 13 points and getting 3 steals.  Minnesota won the game by a score of 111 to 102 and actually sent the Lakers home with a record of 0 and 5.  Something's going to have to change soon for that team because what they're doing currently doesn't seem to be working.

One of the highlights of the evening was seeing Vikings Superstar, Justin Jefferson, and his fellow wide receiver, KJ Osborn, sitting courtside at the game.  They were snacking on some popcorn which was kind of fun to watch.  As a matter of fact, we were going to get to watch them play their game only a couple of days later.

Miss Sheri joined me again on Sunday to go to US Bank Stadium and help cheer on the Minnesota Vikings to victory!

We like to arrive at the games early and take pictures of the players doing warm-ups.  We waved at Adam Thielen when he started waving at us.  It's possible he was waving at someone else also.

Tight End Irv Smith Jr apparently likes to walk around and show off his belly.  I guess if I had abs like that I'd probably do the same thing.

Za'Darius Smith is a new player for us that seems to bring a lot of energy to all that he does.  We like people like that.  They're fun to be around.

I don't know for sure that this is Patrick Peterson's family, but we enjoyed watching their interactions before the game.  It seemed pretty sweet.

Justin Jefferson seemed like he recovered from all that popcorn he was eating at the Wolves game and was ready to go.  We were excited to see him have a big game against the Cardinals.

Before we knew it, the game was set to begin!

Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals were in town and the Vikings had a bit of a score to settle with them after losing a close game in Arizona last year.  The game went down to the final seconds and the Vikings were behind by a score of 33-32 when their kicker missed a 37 yard field goal that would have sealed the victory.

The Cardinal's superstar wide receiver, Deandre Hopkins, hasn't played most of this year, but made his season debut last weekend.  He was pretty dominant throughout the day gaining 159 yards on 12 receptions and a touchdown.  The guy's pretty good.

The highlight of halftime was getting to celebrate Jared Allen being inducted into the Minnesota Vikings Ring of Fame.  He was one of the best defensive ends the Vikings ever had and also brought a ton of fun energy to every game he played.  He was always a unique dude and punctuated that by riding a horse into the stadium to accept his honor.  It was fun to get to celebrate the achievement with him.

The game itself was another nail biter with the Vikings scoring touchdowns and the Cardinals responding with their own.  It wasn't quite as close as their last game, but Arizona did have a chance to tie it in the end but they didn't and the Vikings ended up winning by a score of 34-26 extending their winning streak to 5 and bringing their overall record to 6-1.  Could this be the Vikings year?  We'll see.