Last night was what I sometimes call a “three-TV night.” With the Wild, the Wolves, and — assuming you had the right cable channels — the Gopher hockey team playing on TV simultaneously, you’d need three televisions to watch every important game at the same time. As it happened, though, it turned out to be a vaunted “three-shoe night,” thus referring to the number of units of footwear that would have sailed through various screens, had the three-TV dream been accomplished.

I guess things can only get better from here … starting with (or maybe right after) a few weekend links:

*We start today with some laughter — with Sports on a Stick, a locally-run but nationally-focused site that aims to beat The Onion on the Onion Sports department’s turf — and, at the very least, puts up one heck of a fight. I encourage you to give the site a read, unless you hate any of the following: chuckles, guffaws, giggles, or LOLZ.

*If you’re looking forward to spring as much as I am, I suggest reading about baseball as much as possible. A few suggestions: Nick Nelson thinks that Joe Crede is a bad option for the Twins, Joe Posnanski has put together what practically qualifies as baseball poetry, and — somehow — John Bonnes, the Twins Geek, is comparing the Twins’ lack of off-season moves to “Night at the Roxbury.”

*If you’re not looking forward to spring at all, some NHL links: the Globe and Mail notes that the Sundin saga isn’t going so well in Vancouver, to which we all must say: HA ha! On the ratings front, the NHL is feeling so good about the league that they might actually try to get somebody to pay for the TV rights. And one update from last week: while ratings in 15 of 22 American markets are up for local NHL broadcasts, it’s only fair to note that in 12 of 15 markets with both the NBA and NHL, basketball is killing hockey in the ratings. The only market where the NHL is beating the NBA by a factor of 2-to-1 — you guessed it, Minneapolis-St. Paul. (Philadelphia and Washington are the other two where puck wins.)

*And finally: the Western College Hockey blog broke a story last week about an NHL grant that could end up being Chapter 1 in the future book, “How Minnesota High School Hockey Died a Painful Death.” Basically, USA Hockey — which sees things very differently than Minnesota Hockey, the in-state organizers — wants to create a system with six groups of six elite teams, spread around the country, that would function as a year-round elite program. One of those six groups would no doubt be based in Minnesota. There’s already plenty of pressure on players to leave the high school game in the name of development — a number of players ditch every year for the USHL or the national team development program in Ann Arbor — and another elite league, theoretically for the top 80-90 players in the state, might finally be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

On that happy note, and after one of the largest piles of links we’ve ever had, I’d better sign off. Enjoy your Saturday; we’re going to get above freezing today for the first time in 2009, at least here in the Cities. I plan to wear shorts and spend the day outside.

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