Opinion: One Award Minnesota Sports Has Locked Up

Back in March of this year, the people at Forbes Magazine published an article about the Most Miserable Sports City in America. The winner of the contest?

Seattle, Washington.

Well, I'm not sure if this is an annual thing with Forbes or if it was just a one-time thing. However, if it is an annual award, there's only one city in this great nation of ours that could possibly have the award wrapped up this early. If you're at this site reading this article, I'm sure that you already know the answer.

Yes, folks, I speak of the place that has had it so awful in sports over the past year, that it couldn't be contained by one city. . .it stretches to two. That would be the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Sadly enough, we wouldn't even have to count the collapse of the Metrodome roof if we didn't want to. . .after all, that happened in 2010, and presumably would have been taken into account for the previous year. No, I'm simply talking about the performance of every team in this area since the calendar flipped over to 2011. How bad has it been? Well, here's a look at the record for every team in the greater Twin Cities area since we started the 2011 calendar year.

Minnesota Timberwolves - 9 wins, 40 losses. . .including ending the season with a 15-game losing streak. . .the team didn't win a game after March 11
Minnesota Wild - 22 wins, 23 losses. . .but this included losing 11 of their final 15 games to drop them totally out of the post-season
Minnesota Twins - 63 wins, 99 losses. . .the second-worst season the franchise has had since moving to Minnesota from Washington
Minnesota Golden Gophers football - 1 win, 4 losses. . .including getting dumped in their most recent "trophy game" by the University of Michigan to the tune of 58-0
Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball - 6-11. . .including a finish that saw them go 1-10 in the process of dropping from the top 20 in the national rankings to a point where they refused an invitation to the NIT
Minnesota Vikings - 0 wins, 4 losses. . .tying them for the second-worst start in team history

To borrow an old slogan from one of the United States Army. . .we're more depressing before 6 AM than Seattle is all day.

Strangely, on the last list that Forbes did, Minneapolis/St. Paul didn't even make the Top Ten, despite years of frustration brought on by the Vikings, the Twins constantly getting beaten by the New York Yankees in the post-season, the Timberwolves having been awful for most of the last five years, and the Wild making just one run to the NHL's Conference Finals, to say nothing of Gopher football. In fact, here was their top ten in this past year's list.

1) Seattle
2) Atlanta
3) Phoenix
4) Buffalo
5) San Diego
6) Houston
7) Kansas City
8) Cleveland
9) Denver
10) Cincinnati

Of those ten cities, four of them. . .Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, and Denver. . .have won championships in one of the "Big Four" professional sports since the last time Minnesota brought home the hardware, when the Twins won the 1991 World Series.

It's hard to think of a sports city in this great land of ours that is more depressing at this point in time than our favorite one, ladies and gentlemen. Sadly, at this point, all we can do is hope that this whole thing is only temporary and that things will eventually turn around. . .and, more importantly, to support all of these teams, whether they're winning or losing.

It will get better, folks. . .I can't tell you when, and I can't tell you how, but it will. But until then, rather than being the center of the sports universe, it's kind of a black hole out here.