Minnesota
Conner Roff shuts the door in Thief River Falls’ Hockey Day Minnesota win over Waseca
WARROAD, Minn. — Under the lights, senior Conner Roff shined the brightest on Thursday night as Thief River Falls earned a 6-2 win over Waseca in a boys matchup at Hockey Day Minnesota.
Roff stopped 24 shots as the Prowlers improved to 11-7-1. Junior Joe Kelly scored twice, notching first- and third-period goals.
“It’s really good,” Roff said of the win. “It’s not something you get to experience every day and I’m very happy to be able to be a part of it, and have these guys be a part of it with me too.”
Waseca couldn’t capitalize with a two-man advantage in the first period after Kelly’s opening goal. Sophomore Bennett Borgen made it 2-0 with a backdoor feed.
Rob Beer / The Rink Live
“I thought we made some good scoring chances, quality scoring chances,” Thief River Falls head coach Tim Bergland said. “I thought you know, we had some nice ones, good looks. I liked how we played, like in these types of games there’s a lot of distractions out there. And obviously getting the lead was nice and Conner shut the door when he had to.”
Senior Cooper Anderson put the Prowlers up 3-0 with an in-tight goal at 6:19 of the second period. Senior Brayden Spears extended the lead to 4-0 before Kelly and junior Paul Anderson scored in the final period.
Roff said he tracked the puck well, except for one of the corners.
“Sometimes when it got up into the stands or like when they flipped the puck in,” said Roff, who had two full-game shutouts coming into the game. “Like it blends right into the sky so you can’t really see the puck. But no, I felt like I could track the puck pretty well and actually more than I thought I was going to be able to.”
Junior Noah Gonzales relieved Roff and immediately gave up a goal to Waseca freshman Griffin Storey.
“It was just crazy, like the whole thing,” Storey said. “It was open, it was fast and it was bright.”
It was the second time Bergland coached in a Hockey Day Minnesota game and was happy for his team’s win.
“It’s very exciting for the for the guys to be part of Hockey Day,” Bergland said. “I mean I’ve been able to do it as a coach about six, seven years ago. But these guys, you know, it doesn’t happen all that often. So it was a great opportunity to play at night and such a nice setup, nice weather and I really couldn’t ask for anything more and to get the win too of course.”
Minnesota
Minnesota investigators say child care centers captured in viral video were operating as expected
Minnesota
Game Recap: Kings 5, Wild 4 (S/O) | Minnesota Wild
Matt Boldy scored late in the third to tie it and ultimately send the game to overtime, helping the Wild (25-10-8) extend their point streak to six games (3-0-3). Brock Faber had a goal and an assist, Jake Middleton and Joel Eriksson Ek also scored, and Jesper Wallstedt made 34 saves.
It was the second game of a back-to-back for Minnesota, which is coming off a 5-2 win at the Anaheim Ducks on Friday. The Wild and Kings will play again in Los Angeles on Monday.
“It was far from perfect of a game from us,” Faber said. “I thought we could have played better. With that quick turnaround, we’ll take the point. Now we need two in the next.”
Kempe put the Kings up 1-0 at 6:08 of the first period, scoring on a wrist shot from close range off Anze Kopitar’s cross-slot pass from below the goal line.
Middleton tied it up 1-1 at 8:28, getting his first goal of the season in 36 games on a snap shot from the left circle set up by Mats Zuccarello.
“I think he thought I was Kirill (Kaprizov) in the slot there, so it was nice to get one,” Middleton joked. “I normally have a few goals before I take 35 games off from scoring, so this one was getting a little stressful but we got it out of the way.”
Perry gave Los Angeles a 2-1 lead at 16:57 of the second period when Byfield’s shot struck him in the wrist and redirected in for the power-play goal.
Eriksson Ek tied it 2-2 at 18:23 on the power play, taking Quinn Hughes’ stretch pass at the offensive blue line for a short breakaway, fending off defenseman Joel Edmundson and scoring on a wrist shot from the left circle.
Byfield put Los Angeles back in front 3-2 at 4:54 of the third period. He shot the puck caroming off the boards back into the crease, where Wallstedt lost it in his skates and it was eventually knocked in by a Wild stick during the ensuing scramble in front.
“Shouldn’t be, that was terrible,” Byfield joked when asked if he knew it was his goal. “No, it’s good. I think it’s two now that were liked that, so I’ll take them how they come.”
Minnesota
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on the defensive as fraud allegations mount after viral video uncovered Somali aid scheme
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pushed back against the ever-growing fraud allegations levied against him in the disastrous aftermath of a viral video where an independent journalist cracked open a crucial part of the alleged Somali aid scheme.
A spokesperson for Walz, a Democrat who frequently provokes President Trump’s ire, addressed a bombshell video posted by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley.
“The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action. He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed,” the spokesperson told Fox News.
The spokesperson added that Walz has “hired an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, shut down the Housing Stabilization Services program entirely, announced a new statewide program integrity director, and supported criminal prosecutions.”
In the 43-minute video published on Friday, Shirley and a Minnesotan named David travel around Minneapolis and visit multiple childcare and learning centers allegedly owned by Somali immigrants.
Many were either shuttered entirely, despite signage indicating they were open, or helmed by staff who refused to participate in the video.
One of the buildings they visited displayed a misspelled sign reading “Quality Learing Center.” The ‘learning’ center is supposed to account for at least 99 children and funneled roughly $4 million in state funds, according to the video.
Shirley appeared on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show” on Sunday evening and boasted about his findings. He joked that the alleged scheme was “so obvious” that a “kindergartener could figure out there is fraud going on.”
“Fraud is fraud, and we work too hard simply just to be paying taxes and enabling fraud to be happening,” Shirley said.
“There better be change. People are demanding it. The investigation have been launched just from that video alone. So there better be change, like I said we work way too hard to be paying taxes and not knowing where our money’s going,” he added.
Many officials have echoed Shirley’s calls for change, with FBI Director Kash Patel even announcing that the agency surged extra personnel to investigate the resources doled out to Minnesota. He said this is one of the first steps in a wide-reaching effort to “dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.”
Federal investigators say half of the $18 billion granted to Minnesota since 2018 could have been stolen by fraudulent schemes — amounting to up to $9 billion in theft.
As of Saturday evening, 86 people have been charged in relation to these fraud scams, with 59 convicted so far.
Most of those accused of fraud come from Minnesota’s Somali community.
Shirley’s mega-viral video cracked 100 million views Sunday night.
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