"The Chicago Blackhawks have gotten in the heads of the Minnesota Wild in a manner that is very remindful of the manner in which the New York Yankees were in the heads of Ron Gardenhire's Twins in the previous decade.''
If I have seen this once from the Minnesota media, on Twitter or in comments on blogs and articles, I have seen it 80 times since the Blackhawks defeated the Skating Ws last Friday night in the series opener.
I don't know about the Blackhawks being inside the helmets of the Wild. My instinct is that Chicago is about the eliminate the Yeozies for the third straight spring due more to Corey Crawford's goaltending and Patrick Kane's playmaking than a mental block afflicting our heroes.
Then again, my hockey instincts are suspect, having been so impressed with the Wild's decisive ousting of the St. Louis Blues that a week ago – in all sincerity – I was announcing that this was the year when Minnesota finally would receive its Stanley Cup.
That's not my issue here. My issue is what seems to be the ongoing myth that the Yankees beating the Twins four times in a division series from 2003 to 2010 was based on some kind of a hex, rather than the most-basic tenet of team sports:
Best team usually wins.
The operative word is "usually," since without the possibility of upsets, sports would not be worth watching.
As it turned out, there were no upsets in the outcome of the division series between the Twins and the Yankees in 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2010. Let's review: