GETTING THE OPPONENT MOTIVATED.

It's been a bad weekend for football teams located in Minnesota playing teams based in Wisconsin.  But when members of the Wisconsin football team brought the Axe into the Kohl Center, it got the visiting Minnesota hockey team into a most un-Lake Wobegon state of mind.

"We got a little riled up, we wanted to defend our honor," Gophers coach Don Lucia said on Monday during his weekly radio show on 1500ESPN. "Guenz [Mike Guentzel] was really riled up on the bench about it, which was good, and made a few choice comments."

Probably not printable.

"From there end of it, I don't blame them at all," Lucia said. "It was perfectly all right for them to do that. It is a good rivalry and they won the axe. [Beating the Gophers 42-13 in football at TCF Bank Stadium.] They probably just got off their charter [bus] not too long before [their entrance at Kohl] and probably came right by the rink and brought out the axe.

"Hopefully next year when the Gophers are playing Wisconsin in Wisconsin and we are playing at home, we can bring the axe out at Mariucci Arena. That would be great."

In a pig's eye.

The proofreaders at the Star-Tribune are about as alert as the Vikings secondary, aren't they?