Football fans who look forward to a “Border Battle” between teams from Minnesota and Wisconsin will have a double dosage over the next three days.
Today’s game at 2:30 p.m. on the University of Minnesota campus involves the Golden Gophers playing the Badgers for “Paul Bunyan’s Axe,” which replaced the “Slab of Bacon” trophy that mysteriously disappeared in the 1940s before it reappeared around a half century later in Madison, Wis., after a Camp Randall Stadium storage room was cleaned out.
While both states share the legend of Paul Bunyan as well as the joke that there are two seasons — winter and road construction season — Wisconsin has had the axe in its possession since 2004 after having won the past seven games.
The rivalry being played out today at TCF Bank Stadium dates back to 1890, when the Gophers won the first game, 63-0.
Though the 7-2 Badgers are the favorite to win the 2011 matchup, their hopes for a national championship fizzled in recent weeks with two losses on long passes late in the games at Michigan State and Ohio State.
Minnesota, which has only two wins this season and is already destined to finish below .500 overall with three games left to play, could finish with a winning record in its “traveling trophy” games with a win over Wisconsin.
The Gophers defeated Iowa at home two weeks ago in the contest for a pig known as “Floyd of Rosedale,” but were trounced earlier in the season at Michigan in the battle for the “Little Brown Jug.”
The professional football version of the “Border Battle” is slightly more than a half century old and will take place for the second time this season on Monday night when the Green Bay Packers host the Minnesota Vikings at Lambeau Field.
After having won 33-27 at the Metrodome on Oct. 23, a season sweep by the Packers would improve Green Bay’s record to a perfect 9-0, already ensuring the Vikings end up winning no more than nine games with seven left to play and finishing behind the Packers in the NFC North with the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The circumstances surrounding the 2011 matchup on Monday Night Football are in sharp contrast to when the two teams faced each other on national television at Lambeau Field in November 2005.
Though Green Bay won only four games six years ago and both teams ended up firing their head coaches, the Monday Night Football game stayed competitive until the end when Minnesota kicked the winning field goal as time expired.
It won’t matter over the next three days what the records are going into the two “Border Battle” games. They will be rivalries for the respective football fans to enjoy.
