It was today in 1970 that my high school, Minneapolis Southwest, celebrated its only State Hockey Championship with a huge rally in the gym. The Indians had defeated their hated rival, the Edina Hornets, 1-0 in overtime two nights before. The young man at the microphone was Southwest’s phenomenal goalie, Brad Shelstad, who went on to be an All-American for the Minnesota Gophers. The Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament is the best high school sports event in the country and it’s going on now at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul…. moving along…

The Fight of the Century was tonight in 1971 at Madison Square Garden. It was the only time two undefeated heavyweight champions met each other and Joe Frazier won a unanimous decision of Muhammad Ali. Ali had led in the first half of the fight, but Frazier wore him down as it went on, knocking him down in the 15th round. Ali would win both of the rematches.

“Beavis and Butthead” made its debut on MTV tonight in 1993. If it didn’t make you laugh, you were dumber than they were.

I waxed on the brilliance of the Coen brothers earlier this week, so I’ll simply say that their best movie was “Fargo,” which hit screens today in 1996. The Coen brothers knocked on my parents door while scouting locations for the movie (they grew up 10 minutes from my parents home) and my mom was more than giddy. Our house proved to be much too big for the Coen’s to use (I think they just wanted to look at it). “Fargo” itself was a small movie that was so, so, SO big.

REM released “Out of Time” today in 1991. It won three Grammys and sold over 18 million copies. Huge REM fan, but I never liked “Losing My Religion.”

“Mask” opened today in 1985. Eric Stoltz played Rocky Dennis, a young man born with a skull deformity and Cher won raves as his strong-willed, biker mom. The movie ended with this poem written by Dennis:

These things are good:

Ice cream and cake,

A ride on a Harley,

Seeing monkeys in the trees,

The rain on my tongue,

And the sun shining on my face.

These things are a drag:

Dust in my hair,

Holes in my shoes,

No money in my pocket,

And the sun shining on my face