The Steelers’ gift to Vikings: humility

The Pittsburgh Steelers did the Minnesota Vikings quite a favor last Sunday when they handed the previously unbeaten Vikes their first loss.

Minny’s great start has had Viking fans talking Super Bowl but this Sunday’s game at Green Bay, never an easy place to win, will really give the team a change to show their character. It is often how well a team wins after a loss that you know what kind of outfit they really are.

People who know sports will tell you the insight team’s gain by losing a regular season game will often serve them well in the playoffs. If you make your team so strong they do not lose a regular season game, when the playoffs arrive and they suddenly find themselves trailing for the first time it is a huge psychological disadvantage for them. All of a sudden they are in undiscovered country.

It seemed like the Vikings really lost the game last Sunday when Pittsburgh forced the Vikings to settle for a field goal in the third quarter after a penalty gave the Vikes a first down on Pittsburgh’s one. Minnesota was down 13-7 at the time. A touchdown and a Ryan Longwell point after kick would have made it 14-13 Vikes and would have put the pressure back on Pittsburgh. Instead of going for it on fourth down, head coach Brad Childress had Longwell chip one in from the 18. You rarely beat defending Super Bowl champs by playing it safe.

Squandering opportunities with a season-high 11 penalties is something that has no doubt made this past week of practice a very uncomfortable one for the Vikes. Let’s face it, the Steelers had plenty of help in beating the Vikings.

Maybe football teams are a lot like people — they are never as good or as bad as we think they are.

Berg at Southwest State

Brigetta Berg has seen action on the volleyball court for Southwest State this season and helped the Mustangs gain a No. 16 national ranking in the Division II college ranks.

The former Wadena-Deer Creek star, who helped the Wolverines reach the Class AA state tournament last fall for the first time in 16 years, is playing an outside hitter position for the Mustangs. Through Oct. 24 she had seen playing time in nine games. Her best game was Oct. 17 when she had seven kills against Concordia.

The Mustangs are 19-7 overall with Berg aboard and 9-5 in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference

Deer hunters can expect challenges this fall

Park Rapids Department of Natural Resources wildlife manager Rob Naplin believes crop cover will make the 2009 firearms deer season a challenging one for hunters in Hubbard and Wadena Counties.

The nine-day rifle season begins Nov. 7 and while deer counts are good, harvest and weather conditions have been bad.

DNR figures show that 15,767 deer were taken last year in the five kill blocks that most Wadena hunters frequent. Kill blocks 241 and 243 will be open to intensive harvest (up to five deer) this year while 214 and 240 will be open to management harvest (up to two deer). Section 246, which runs down the eastern edge of Wadena County, is a lottery area. The Wadena and Park Rapids areas consistently ranks in the top five in the state in whitetail harvest.

Naplin sees standing crops as an advantage for deer and a danger for hunters. The state sold 628,000 deer tags last year.

Northern Flight spread out

They said it is an ill wind that does not blow someone some good.

Minnesota’s farmers have had a rough October but many duck hunters have been doing all right. Now we are at the peak of the diving duck migration.

Steve Cordts, a waterfowl specialist with the Minnesota DNR, believes the peak of the ringbill, canvasback and redhead migrations have passed, that bluebills will peak around Nov. 1 and that bufflehead, goldeneyes and big mergansers are still on the way. Minnesota’s No. 1 duck, the mallard, have also not peaked but since the progress of the harvest dictates their migration, this is not surprising. The Lac qui Parle refuge has very few migrating Canada geese. Cordts suspects that there are still a lot of geese and mallards in southern Canada.

The Thief Lake refuge, a stopping point for western Minnesota’s portion of the northern flight, has seen a decline in hunting success and buffleheads were the No. 1 bird in the bag this past week.