Column: Thanks for Listening, by Scott Schmeltzer

Saturday. Jan. 26, 2013, will not get any better for wrestling in the Midwest. Albert Lea will host Owatonna at 7 p.m. at Albert Lea High School.

This premier match-up has been the most attended regular season collision of two powerhouses for as long as I can remember. Get to the gym early if you want a seat. The Tribune will be live tweeting this match all night, and I cannot wait to attend. If you have never attended a wrestling match, please go to this one because it is a clash of the titans. Good luck, Albert Lea wrestlers.

Drop the puck, eh?

The Albert Lea Youth Hockey Association is hosting a U10 and U12 “All Girls Hockey Weekend” starting tomorrow at City Arena.

The association will host an eight-team invitational tournament with four teams in each age group. The U10 teams participating are from Faribault, Rochester and Robbinsdale-Armstrong and Golden Valley.

The U12 teams are from Le Sueur, Hudson, Robbinsdale-Armstrong and Golden Valley.

Saturday night will also feature an Albert Lea High School girls’ varsity hockey game against Rochester Mayo at 7:30 p.m.

The Albert Lea U10 team is having a successful season with a second place tournament finish early in the season at Waseca. The Albert Lea U12 team is currently in first place in league play and has a 15-4 overall record. They have participated in two tournaments, finishing first at Waseca and third at Faribault. Stop out and cheer on the girls this weekend.

Super Bowl prediction

In the big Harbaugh bowl, I will go with the 49ers over the Ravens. I do think that it will be a close game, and I will say 31-27.

I will name Vernon Davis as MVP of the big game as he will have two touchdowns. The Minnesota Vikings have quite a few ex-players suiting up for the game as well — Bryant McKinney, Matt Birk and Randy Moss. They all will see significant playing time in this Super Bowl.

Strange week

Last week was a very bizarre week in sports as we had Lying Lance Armstrong going on to talk about how he bullied his way to seven cycling titles. I personally think that Lance looked arrogant and is only sorry because he was caught.

Oprah took him to the woodshed though and asked some tough questions. As the sun sets on his career, he only has himself to blame for losing millions of dollars that were ill-gained anyhow.

The second outlandish story was that of Manti Te’o, the linebacker for Notre Dame who had a so-called girlfriend who died earlier this year of leukemia. This girlfriend ended up being a fabrication as he admitted he had never personally met her. Apparently they only met online and he used the relationship as a way to propel his story into the national Heisman Trophy race. This story will be unfolding for weeks, but I do not buy it that he did not know about this imaginary girlfriend. To use leukemia as a pawn is disgusting. My heart goes out to anyone battling this terrible disease and to see a person use it to gain recognition just really makes me ill.
The NHL is back

It was great to finally watch the Minnesota Wild take the ice. To watch the homegrown free agent boys Zach Parise (Minneapolis) and Ryan Suter (Madison, Wis.) play was fun. I am quite excited as Matt Cullen, Devon Setoguchi and my personal favorite, Dany Heatley, should make the shortened season one to remember.

Growing up a Red Wings fan has made it an easy transition to liking the home state Wild as they play hard-nosed hockey all day. Following these two teams will be fun this year.

Tribune Publisher Scott Schmeltzer’s column appears every Thursday.