Team USA women’s hockey continues to dominate at Olympics

NINA MOINI: The US women's hockey team just faced off against Sweden at the Winter Olympics. Team USA is stacked with Minnesotans while Sweden has multiple University of Minnesota Duluth alumni on its roster. Going into the game, both teams were undefeated.

Joining me now to talk about what happened and other sports news are sports contributors Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. Hey, guys.

ERIC NELSON: Happy President's Day.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Happy Monday, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Happy President's Day and Monday. I don't what happened, Wally. So what happened in this semifinal game between the US and Sweden?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, hopefully you didn't worry too much. You didn't have your fingers crossed to make them bleed or something like that. No, it just-- today was just the same as it's been throughout this tournament for the US women, another lopsided win. They crushed Sweden today in the semifinals, so they move on to the gold medal. They win 5-0.

So get this. They have now outscored their opponents 31 to 1.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: It's just amazing. They have recorded five straight shutouts in the tournament, just blasting their way through this. They can finish out-- this would be one of the most dominant runs in Olympic history. If and when they win the gold medal on Thursday, they will play either Switzerland or Canada, most likely the Canadians. That would set up another US-Canada final. They have become just terrific rivals.

And a lot of these players as you mentioned, some of it from the University of Minnesota, some from Minnesota Frost. A lot of these players on the roster, half of them are playing for Team USA. The other half are playing for Team Canada. So I think Thursday's game will be terrific. There's no question about that.

Flip side, the men, they played yesterday, they won 3-0 in Group C play. I should say they won 5-0 in Group C play. They beat Germany. So they're now 3 and 0 in group play. Next up for them, the quarterfinals on Wednesday. They will play either Sweden or Latvia.

A couple other Minnesotans at the Olympics to mention. The all Minnesota men's and women's curling teams, they went 3 and 0 in Round Robin play Sunday, and Prior Lake's Paula Moltzan, who I had a chance to meet and get to a little bit, she unfortunately did not have a great day yesterday. She finished 15th in the women's giant slalom, which really has been one of her best events but not a great day for Paula yesterday. She still has one more event to go.

So there's your Olympic wrapped up-- wrap up, but the big news, of course, today is the US women's hockey team moving on to the gold medal game.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, it's so fun to see so much Minnesota talent at the Olympics. It's amazing,

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Tons of it. Tons of it.

NINA MOINI: So I can't even believe this because it's the Winter Olympics. It's been a while since we've talked about the Minnesota Twins, but spring training, Eric, has already begun. How is that going?

ERIC NELSON: Yeah, how about that, Nina Get ready for the Grapefruit League. Minnesota players are now in the southern tip of what they call Twins territory. That would be Fort Myers, Florida, their longtime spring training home base.

Pitchers and catchers reported last Thursday, and today the Twins participate in their first full squad workouts as the position players are in camp. But, hey, with this weather today in the Twin Cities, they could have saved some money and played out the course at Target Field. But nonetheless the Twins are getting ready for a game against the U of M baseball team. That will be an exhibition on Friday at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, and their first actual Major League Baseball preseason game is on Saturday against Boston. The Red Sox also train in Fort Myers, so they have a lot of games in February and March against Boston.

Now we'll cut to the chase here. There's lots of fan apathy surrounding the Twins, who if you remember got rid of 10 players last July in a historic fire sale that was like a liquidation for a company going out of business. But, hey, Minnesota is still in business. The Twins have a new general manager, Jeremy Zoll. They have a new field manager in Derek Shelton, and the new guy running the team, the latest Pohlad, is Tom Pohlad.

So the hardcore fans who still follow the Twins are going in with I would say cautious optimism entering this 2026 season. They still have building block players like Byron Buxton, Royce Lewis, Luke Keaschall, Joe Ryan, and Pablo López. They were not dealt away in the offseason, thankfully. Now Minnesota finished fourth in the AL Central in 2025, but if the stars align, the Twins could rebound in 2026 because there's not a dominant team in their division.

Also we're going to have the World Baseball Classic coming up in March. Seven Twins are competing. They are Buxton, Ryan, López, Taj Bradley, Luis Quiñones, Dan Altavilla, and Matt Bowman. So get ready for more global sports when that World Baseball Classic starts.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, that's really cool too about the exhibition game that you were talking about with the Twins and the Gophers. That would be a fun one to catch [INAUDIBLE].

ERIC NELSON: Yeah. No doubt.

NINA MOINI: Well, let's talk about the NBA All-Star Game, too, that was this weekend. Anthony Edwards, Ant, was the only Timberwolves player on the court, but it sounds like he stole the show, Wally. What happened there?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: He did. I think that's a fair assessment. He got the MVP, so he becomes only the second Minnesota Timberwolf to ever win All-Star MVP honors, of course, the other being Kevin Garnett, who, oh, by the way, is being welcomed back into the Timberwolves fold now that Glen Taylor no longer owns the team. The new ownership group, led by Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, have welcomed Kevin Garnett back into the Timberwolves.

But as for the All-Star game, it was-- for a change, it was competitive. It was intriguing. It was interesting, things that it has not been for a while because really and truly the players just for some reason just could not find reason to play defense or to play hard. But they did.

They had a format change. By the way, this is the fourth format they've had in four years, but they may have found the formula, at least for now where there were two US teams made up of American players, and then there was a team made up of players from around the world so anywhere but the US.

And they played mini-games. They were each 12 minutes long. So they had a little Round Robin, three mini-games, which were all very good. Players played hard. A couple of them went down to the buzzer. Actually, three of the four games were really good, but Anthony Edwards did, as you say, in a sense, stole the show. He scored 32 points.

He was asked afterwards to identify his most satisfying moment on Sunday, and he said, probably beating the World team. And they asked him why, and he said, because they're the best players in-- they say they're the best players in the world, so beating them is the best feeling in the world. So great quote from Ant.

Oh by the way, the World team, while they did have Luka Dončić, three-time MVP Nikola Jokić, and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Giannis didn't play at all, and Luka and Nikola Jokić both sat out the second game for the World team. So put a little asterisk by it because those two have been banged up, and Giannis is still hurt.

So they had some injured stars, and arguably three of, if not the three, best players in the NBA this side of SGA, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is also from outside of the US, he's from Canada. So there is a little asterisk there. But the US team led by Anthony Edwards wins the All-Star game.

NINA MOINI: Cool. Eric, what else are you watching in basketball?

ERIC NELSON: Well, a couple of other nuggets from that All-Star game in Los Angeles. Chet Holmgren, he played at Minnehaha Academy here in the Twin Cities, now with--

NINA MOINI: That's right.

ERIC NELSON: The NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. He had 8 points for the Stars in their championship game win, and how about this? POTUS 44 Barack Obama and wife Michelle were sitting courtside, and the president even caught a basketball that bounced into his lap.

He got a loud ovation from the fans at the sold out Intuit Dome, where they played the game after he saved the ball from bouncing further into the stands. I'm guessing they're going to get that ball, have the POTUS autograph it, and goodness knows what that'll go for at an auction.

On the college scene, the Minnesota Gopher women, they are scorching hot. Gophers win over the Badgers in a border battle yesterday 83 to 60. How about eight straight wins now for the U of M?

NINA MOINI: Nice.

ERIC NELSON: And the Gophers 20 and 6 overall. They're 11 and 4 in the Big Ten. The Stars yesterday, Mara Braun led Minnesota with 20 points. Amaya Battle chipped in with 17. Sophie Hart had 13 points and 6 rebounds, and Tori McKinney had 12 points and 5 steals.

And it gets even better, Nina. The rankings came out today. Minnesota number 23 in the AP top 25 women's basketball poll. There's six other Big Ten teams in the AP top 25. So the Gophers are in a competitive conference.

And I don't what any of our listeners are doing Wednesday night, but how about going to the Barn, packing the barn.

NINA MOINI: Sure.

ERIC NELSON: You've got Ohio State ranked 10.

NINA MOINI: Sounds good.

ERIC NELSON: Against Minnesota, now 23rd in the nation, a showdown as two ranked teams will play in Minneapolis. So the Gopher women, it looks like they're going to be part of March Madness, and that'll be a lot of fun if that happens.

NINA MOINI: Thanks so much, Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. And thank all of you for listening. Join us back here tomorrow at noon.