If you're willing to look beyond the Vikings, Twins, Wild, Timberwolves and Gophers football, it's been a pretty successful past 12 months for Minnesota teams. Consider: The Lynx won the WNBA title; the Minnesota Stars won the NASL title; the Saints almost won the American Association title; the Gophers women's basketball team won the WBI postseason title; and the Gophers women's hockey team won the NCAA title. Forgive us, we're probably forgetting something. It's just too much winning to keep straight.
And it might not be done yet.
Enter the Minnesota Swarm, which with a league-high 12 rookies has been what some would consider a surprising success story in the National Lacrosse League this season. Two of those rookies -- Evan Kirk and Tyler Carlson -- are the team's primary goalies and have split duty this season.
It's been quite a run already for Minnesota. The NLL announced Minnesota's John Arlotta as the General Manager of the Year and Joe Sullivan as the Head Coach of the Year. And the Swarm won its first-ever playoff game a week ago and is set to play host Saturday (8:30 p.m. at Xcel Energy Center) to Edmonton in the one-game league semifinals.
Can they break through into this marketplace of champions? That remains to be seen.
