Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Cooler, where I can only assume you are reading this on your phone while boarding a plane to somewhere far away from here. Let's get to it:
*It is April 11, and Minnesotans woke up to some very cold realities. The first is the weather, of course, which is just dumb. Sure, all this snow will be gone soon. But that doesn't improve anyone's mood now. I ran outside in shorts and a T-shirt Monday, by the way. Today it's winter boots and the heavy coat.
But the other cold reality is a metaphor that has nothing to do with the stuff falling from the sky — even if it gets treated at times like the sky is falling.
After six consecutive seasons of mostly frustrating but also exciting entries for the Wild in the playoffs, and after the Wolves broke through finally last year to make the postseason, here it is April 11 and both their seasons are done.
We've known for a while that the Wolves were going to come up short, but their season finale Wednesday in Denver (fittingly another loss and another blown lead) drove the point home; the Wild's slide made it seem likely until it was official not that long ago.
It punctuates a dramatic negative turnaround. In seasons that started in 2017 (some of which finished in that year, some that didn't), the Lynx, Twins, Vikings, Wild and Wolves all made the playoffs.
In seasons that started in 2018, all but the Lynx missed the postseason — and even their trip there was just one game and fell short of the standard they had previously set. Throw Minnesota United's two playoff misses in 2017 and 2018 into the mix — worthy, though sometimes tossed aside because their infancy in Major League Soccer negates any historical comparisons to the other five — and it's been a rough year.
Historical proof: On this date one year ago, I tweeted:
