Toronto Sceptres coach Troy Ryan used the word “chaotic.”

Frost coach Ken Klee said it was a fan’s dream and a coach’s nightmare.

In other words, anything but a typical, low-scoring playoff hockey game. In the end, it was the Frost who were able to smile through the pain, coming out on top, 7-5, on Sunday at Xcel Energy Center to take a 2 games to 1 lead in the best-of-five series.

The Frost know they have a lot to clean up heading into Game 4 on Wednesday at Xcel, but just as importantly, they know they are one win away from advancing to the PWHA finals. A loss would send the teams back to Toronto for a deciding Game 5.

“It was just one of those crazy games,” Klee said. “There were bounces hitting our players and going in, bounces hitting their players and going in. It was just one of the nights where … I don’t really know how to describe it. I’ve never been a part of a game like that before.”

The Frost had three three-goal leads — 3-0, 5-2 and 7-4 — but couldn’t shake the Sceptres. The last eight minutes of the game were nail-biting time for the Frost after the Sceptres made it a 7-5 game.

“We knew we had to keep scoring because apparently they were going to keep scoring, as well,” Klee said. “I never thought it would be a race to six to get the win, but we know there’s no quit in them.”

The Frost got offensive contributions from throughout their lineup. Brooke McQuigge and Michela Cava each had a pair of goals. Taylor Heise had three assists. Twelve Frost players registered at least one point.

“We know our depth is one of our strengths,” Klee said. “We try to rely on it when we need to.”

The Frost got off to a blistering start, taking a 3-0 lead in the first eight minutes on goals by Liz Schepers, McQuigge and Lee Stecklein. It was all part of a concerted effort to jump on the Sceptres early.

“We came off a long trip so we wanted to make sure we came out and started the right way and got the crowd into it early,” Schepers said. “Little did we know that it was going to start off all these goals.”

McQuigge scored her first goal when she redirected a centering pass from Grace Zumwinkle. Her second came on a second rebound as she crashed the paint on a Frost power play to give the Frost a 4-2 lead.

“She’s been a beast in front of the net for us all year,” Klee said. “Her second-effort goals — she’s had a tremendous year for us. When we drafted her we thought she was going to be a player who could add some sandpaper to our group. And she also has a good scoring touch and shoots the puck well.”

Both of Cava’s goals came in the third period, building the Frost’s lead from 5-4 to 7-4.

“She’s a highly skilled player and she loves the big moments,” Klee said. “She loves to play in the playoffs. She made a couple of great plays.”

As much as the Frost have enjoyed their offensive outburst the past two games (they won 5-3 in Game 2), they know they have to make sure they are meeting their standards in the other phases of the game, too.

Closing out the series on Wednesday likely will call for a better performance than they produced in Game 3.

“We knew going into Toronto that it would be tough to take two games there,” Schepers said. “So, I think we just need to stick with playing our game and not worry about playing an elimination game. Just stick with the plan and try to get the win on Wednesday and not have to travel again.”

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A man was fatally shot Sunday in Burnsville, according to Burnsville Police.

Officers reported at 1:28 a.m. in an X post, that the shooting occurred at a residence in the Chancellor Manor complex off of Irving Ave South. The victim was identified by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office as 22-year-old Ahmed Abdinaasir Noor.

Noor was taken to the hospital with apparent gunshot wounds, according to the X post. The medical examiner’s report states the case is a homicide and that a gunshot wound to the chest resulted in the fatality.

The investigation is ongoing. Officials ask that people avoid the area until additional information is provided.

The Eagan Police Department is leading the investigation because Burnsville officers and detectives are in Washington, D.C., for memorial events, according to a Burnsville police spokesman. Surrounding police departments are covering for Burnsville officers while they are gone.

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Local public media outlets are bracing for federal funding cuts that could lead to layoffs and a reduction in services.

On May 1, President Donald Trump issued an executive order instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease funding National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service. The CPB is a private nonprofit that distributes federal funding — $535 million in fiscal year 2025 — to more than 1,400 locally owned public radio and television stations.

The White House said NPR and PBS “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”

“We’re all waiting to see what actually happens,” said Minnesota Public Radio president Duchesne Drew Friday. “(CPB is) challenging (Trump’s) authority to tell them what to do, because they’re not part of the executive branch. They’re created by and funded by Congress.”

A spokesperson for Twin Cities PBS (TPT) declined an interview request, but released a statement saying the station is “closely monitoring current threats to federal funding. We remain committed to our mission to deliver trusted public affairs information, enriching children’s programming, lifesaving emergency alerts and local storytelling that reflects and connects our communities.”

Drew said that in addition to attempting to block the CPB, the Trump administration is asking Congress to cut already approved public media spending for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

“This is not about balancing the federal budget,” said NPR president and CEO Katherine Maher in a news release. “The appropriation for public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, represents less than 0.0001% of the federal budget.” Paula Kerger, the head of PBS, said the executive order was blatantly unlawful.

MPR would lose $5 million, or about 6% of its budget, Drew said.

“That would be a direct impact on us,” he said. “Fiscal year 2026 begins Oct. 1. So it’s not tomorrow, but it’s not that far away, especially when you think about planning for the year ahead.”

MPR membership drive

Drew set a new goal of $1 million for MPR’s upcoming membership drive this week. The only time MPR has hit that figure in the past was during an extended, 14-day member drive during COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020.

“We’re going to have, we hope, our best week ever,” Drew said. “We’re going to try to raise more money than we’ve ever raised in a week. But the $500,000 which we’re hoping to get, or more, pales in comparison to $5 million we’re about to lose if this pushes through.”

Smaller public radio stations will be hit harder than MPR, Drew said, while adding that MPR does a lot of things.

“We run three separate stations. The news station is the second-largest newsroom in the state and has people beyond the Twin Cities,” he said. “We’re in six other communities outside the Twin Cities. So we have a lot of money, (but) we cover a lot of territory.”

“People say ‘oh, you’ll be fine, right?’ or that it’s no big deal. I think if I start closing bureaus in greater Minnesota, because the money’s not there, people will notice that and will regret that, right? So I don’t want to suggest that just because we’re bigger, that somebody else doesn’t matter or make a difference. We’re the only free statewide news organization in Minnesota, and so trying to preserve what we’ve built is really important to us.”

“As it relates to smaller stations, it’s a higher percentage of their revenue, and they have smaller footprints as well, right? So it cuts both ways,” Drew said.

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American Public Media, MPR’s parent company, also distributes content like “Marketplace,” the New York Times’ “The Daily” and BBC World Service nationally, Drew said: “So if you’re in Miami or Dallas or Albany and you hear the BBC on the radio, it’s because they have a contract with APM.”

TPT cuts

While Drew and other public media leaders wait to see what happens next, TPT has already started making cuts.

Earlier this month, TPT’s president Sylvia Strobel announced furloughs for employees who worked on the animated show “Skillsville,” which is designed to improve children’s executive functioning skills and teach them about possible careers.

A U.S. Department of Education grant funding the show wasn’t renewed, but Strobel said the station is exploring a possible appeal.

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens “The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York” on July 17, it will mark the first solo exhibition of Morrison’s work at the Met — seen by many as a milestone for both the artist and the state’s art history.

This will be the first time many will learn Morrison’s New York story.

“Everyone’s looking at it as a big Minnesota moment in New York,” says Brenda Child, the Northrop Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Child, who helped found the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts, wrote a piece for the exhibition about Morrison that will appear in The Met Bulletin, a journal for the museum.

George Morrison at the exhibition “Standing in the Northern Lights: George Morrison, a Retrospective,” at the Minnesota Museum of Art in St. Paul in 1990. (Photo by Tom Attridge)

The Minnesota Museum of American Art (also known as The M) in St. Paul is a major partner on the exhibition, sending two of Morrison’s sketchbooks and 11 works on paper to New York.

The Met curator is Patricia Marroquin Norby, who has a doctorate from the University of Minnesota and is on the board of The M. The St. Paul museum holds one of the largest collections of Morrison’s work in the world.

“The M is super excited to be partnering with The Met on this exciting exhibition really highlighting one of Minnesota’s most notable artists, George Morrison,” said Kate Beane, director of The M.

Beane explained that Morrison is “an amazing Ojibwe Modernist whose work is seen all over the world and whose work is also quite often visible throughout the Twin Cities.”

Morrison, a Grand Portage Anishinaabe artist, is considered one of the great Abstract Expressionists and Modernists.

He is perhaps most famous for his brightly abstracted works that meditated on the idea of the horizon, directly inspired by his time living on the shores of the “big lake,” or Gichigami/Lake Superior.

Many of these works will appear in the exhibition.

But the main thrust of the show will be Morrison’s time living in New York, how it shaped him and how he shaped the art world.

Morrison moved from Minnesota to New York City in the 1940s to study on a scholarship at the Art Students League. There, he made friends with fellow Modernist all-stars Willem de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline.

He moved back to Minnesota with artist and former wife Hazel Belvo in 1970.

The Met says the exhibition “explores how Morrison’s aesthetic inspiration and future trajectory drew from his love of New York, which he called a ‘Magical City.’ ”

Child says in Minnesota, we tend to underestimate Morrison’s impact outside the state.

“It’s really essential that we acknowledge that George Morrison was at the center of the American Abstract Expressionist movement at mid-century and that he did spend this important part of his career in New York City,” she said.

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Beane agreed.

“It’s really, really important for people to understand not just the impact that other places have on Minnesota artists, but the impact that Minnesota artists have outward towards the rest of the country and the rest of the world,” she said. “He was a game changer. He was ahead of his time, and I think what he represents is incredibly important for the public at large to know and see in terms of thinking about Minnesota artists.”

The exhibition will run through May 31, 2026.