The Vikings could not afford Dalvin Cook because the league regards running backs as interchangeable and short-term employees. Plus the indefensible salary paid to immobile Kirk Cousins does not help. They have to figure out how to pay Justin Jefferson and Danielle Hunter will be never report at an annual salary 10 million dollars less than he can get at numerous other places. I am not convinced they are committed to winning, just making money.
For Hermantown, the impact is already unmistakable. A high school program in northern Minnesota placed three of its own among the nation’s best college hockey players — simultaneously, on the sport’s biggest individual stage — reinforcing a legacy that now stretches far beyond state lines.
The Bellville and Baumgarten hires reflect a newsroom making deliberate bets: on audience intelligence, on subject-matter authority, and on leadership that understands journalism doesn’t succeed just because it’s good — it succeeds because it reaches people where they actually live now.
“The Northland is home to me, from my hometown of International Falls to the Iron Range and rural areas of northwestern Wisconsin." -- Maria Vollom
I’m not handing Hermantown a boys hockey state trophy in January. I’ve been around too long for that. But when the Section 7A tournament begins and the pressure turns real, I know who I’m riding with. I’ve seen this movie before. It usually ends with everyone else wondering how they missed it.
