The Sportive

Guess what? We had audio issues. Our recording app failed to record around 30 minutes of this podcast, leading to two large gaps in what were some spectacular #AskSportive answers from our good friend, national champion tweeter Zach Floyd (go follow him at @floyding).

We talked about the Wild and Wolves a little bit, but most of this episode was given over to your random questions. Which we, you know, lost some of.

Sigh.

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Welcome to Ain't Shit Goin' On Week here at The Sportive. After decades of pure misery from Minnesota sports, our spirits have finally broken to the point that we can't even muster the energy to complain anymore.

Instead we discuss advanced football stats, best practices on bribing children, crow-hopping cell phones and then we just start listing vacation spots we'd like to visit. 

Look at what you've done to us, Minnesota. We are broken men.

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Our friend and pigskin expert Josh joins us to give a detailed review of the Vikings season and outlook for next year. Along the way we toss out our standard tangents, which include:

• Laughing at the Packers loss
• Bill Belicheck is a cheater and future murderer
• Brandon's pathetic ploy to stay young
• Yet another battle on the righteousness of curly fries
• #FarmTalk
• A classic softball story

As meandering and inaccessible as you've come to expect, but a lot of fun. 

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Brandon wasn't in town, but Michael Rand of the Star Tribune joined us instead. Among the topics:

• New Wild goaltender Darryl Dawkins
• Assigning 250% of the blame for the Wild being terrible
• Gopher hoops finding new and ridiculous ways to lose
• The utter happiness brought to us by Mo Williams
• Bobby Bell on desk maintenance
• Rick Spielman role-playing
• Fixing Metro Transit: Lower cost, higher big-city feels!
• Who are the best quotes in town?

It should also be known that Mike recorded this episode from his basement, while wearing a hoodie and holding a pug. #behindthesportive

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After an enjoyable non-podcasting Christmas, the podcast is back, as Brandon, Stu, and Jon met up at Stout's Pub to record the first episode of 2015. Among the topics:

• Let's not get too excited about Gopher football after a five-loss year
• After a mediocre year, the jury's still out on Mike "Mustache-less Jeff Fisher" Zimmer, too
• What can we possibly get excited about with the Wolves? (Answer: Ricky Rubio and Jeff Adrien, who Brandon might have made up.)
• The Wild are god-awful
• Jim Souhan is stealing from us
• Gopher hoops is headed for a repeat
• Gopher hockey are losers and the Big Ten is terrible at hockey
• Some New Year's resolutions

In other words, a really upbeat episode! It's good to be back.

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Clarence couldn't make it this week, due to a combination of a "lower-body injury" and audio problems (actually, it was the flu), but the other three regulars were in attendance for our usual pile of complaints. Among the discussions:

• Some Footbaw Advanced Stats, which Brandon tried to use to make Clarence apologize, even though he wasn't there
• Jon tries to get calmed down about the Twins, which ends in a long-winded drug analogy that makes at least as much sense as Jon's weird Twins attitude
• We try to write Stu's Twinkie Town column for him
• Are we #PayrollWhiners? A serious discussion - just kidding, we make fun of the entire concept yet again
• The utter ongoing disappointment of the Wild
• We talk MMA, for probably the first and last time on the podcast
• "In defense of the NFL..." --Brandon

And of course, there are plenty of the usual asides, terrible analogies, and time-wasting that you've come to expect from Hutch Blowtorch and the Sports Inferno.

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• Would the Vikings be a playoff team with AP?
• The number of people who want Clarence dead 
• Ervin Santana rumors. Exciting and also likely irrelevant by the time this is published
• People doubted us but we found a way to bitch about the Twins again
• Wolves 25% of the way through the season review (aka intermission)
• Stu's top songs of 2014
• Jon's delightful Adam Weber story

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Hockey stathead extraordinaire Hans Van Slooten joins us to discuss:

• Torii Hunter signing & press conference
• Whether or not Mike Berardino is a prick
• This week in media homers
• Flip Saunders is the devil 
• The latest & greatest hockey stats
• Brandon outdoes himself with the worst hockey idea of all time

We should also note we had a short baby shower at the beginning. Feel free to skip ahead 8 minutes or so to get to the ball talk.

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First off, congratulations to Brandon, who had his second child on Monday. We hoped he would call in from the hospital, but as it turns out, he couldn't QUITE make it. Jon, Stu, and Clarence (who dropped out and re-joined about forty times) were left to discuss:

• Gopher football: everything we ever wanted
• Thanks for listening, Mike Russo. Welcome to the party!
• Stu is a cuckold
• Matt Kalil is terrible and Mike Priefer's dad is a crusty old fart
• The Wolves are a train wreck...
• ... but not as big of a train wreck as Big Ten hockey
• Eaves is jail, but Hakstol is prison

And so on and so forth. We're still the hardest-working podcast in show biz.

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Clarence joined late, but otherwise we had the usual four-man contingent for this one. Among the topics discussed:

• Vikings predictions
• Thank you for noting that you are against child abuse, columnists of America
• Mark Dayton Broxey
• Our few-and-far-between sources of hope
• A surprising amount of Philadelphia 76ers talk
• Jon and Brandon’s five-year bet
• Why isn’t Mikko Koivu getting more heat?
• How can Stu miss us when we won’t leave?
• Open Mic Night
• We're pro-umlaut!

It's good to be back, and not yelling at each other for once.

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