Ducking and holding his bleeding head, conservative influencer Jake Lang left the “March Against Minnesota Fraud” protest he organized Saturday afternoon at Minneapolis City Hall with hundreds of counter-protesters following him.

Lang, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida, said on X that thousands of people were coming to Minnesota to march as “Christian Crusaders” supporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and calling for the arrest of Gov. Tim Walz. Lang was convicted of assaulting a police officer with a baseball bat in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, and spent four years in a federal jail before he was pardoned by President Donald Trump.

When Lang first tried to make his way through the crowds to get to City Hall on Saturday, two to three men repeatedly punched him and his supporters. Once he was at City Hall, counter-protesters shouted and drowned out his words, threw snowballs at him and sprayed him with water.

Media at the scene reported that less than a dozen supporters for Lang were at the demonstration, while an estimated 2,000 counter-protesters showed up.

Less than an hour after the 1 p.m. protest, Lang, supported by two men holding his arms as he held his head, made his way through the crowd of counter protestors. At least one man punched him in the back of the head as he was escorted into a hotel a few blocks away, according to a video posted to X.

After he ran inside an open door of the hotel, people held up a Quran, the Muslim holy book, that Lang had threatened to burn on the steps of City Hall and the tactical vest he had been wearing.

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For a team that is logging three games in four days, on the road, playing more than 60 minutes in the road trip opener was probably not what the Minnesota Wild had in mind.

But when Mats Zuccarello scored a power play goal in overtime to produce a 5-4 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon, it at least made the extra work worthwhile.

The Sabres, who had won 16 of their previous 18, rallied from two goals down to take a second period lead, only to see Minnesota refuse to fold. When Buffalo took a hooking penalty in the final seconds of regulation, it gave the Wild a 4-on-3 power play in sudden death, and Zuccarello ended it.

Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, Vladimir Tarasenko and Quinn Hughes scored in regulation for the Wild, as they snapped a three-game winless streak. Minnesota goalie Filip Gustavsson had 20 saves in the victory.

“I think none of us liked how the homestand went and I think to be able to get on the road with this group – this is the group that we’re going to have for the road trip – was get to the identity and play the game that gives us the best chance to win,” Wild coach John Hynes said, as his team is missing four veterans currently injured. “And the guys bought into it, they did it, they executed and we found a way to win, which is great.”

Born in Buffalo, Foligno’s father played for the Sabres and Marcus began his NHL career in western New York, so trips to town feel like a homecoming for the family. The Wild winger definitely looked right at home on Saturday, scoring Minnesota’s first goal – his second in as many games – and dropping his gloves, twice, with Sabres defender Michael Kesselring.

Foligno, who has a sister working in the Sabres marketing department and family at the game, said scoring in front of his father, Mike, never gets old.

“I think it’s extra special, especially (since) we both played for this organization,” Foligno said. “So, yeah, I think he’ll have a lot of good things to say tonight.”

The fights came after Kesselring tackled Hughes in the first period, with the Wild leading 1-0. Buffalo tied the game on the same shift, then got a minute of two-man advantage later in the first.

But the Wild’s penalty killers, who are statistically some of the best in the NHL when playing on the road, kept the game tied, and then Hartman scored in the final 10 seconds of the period to give the visitors the lead again. For Hartman, it was his fourth goal in the past six games, and came after Hughes twice eluded Buffalo challengers with spin moves, then sent a pass across the crease for a picture perfect tip-in.

When Tarasenko scored just 68 seconds into the middle frame, then Buffalo took back-to-back penalties, the Wild were in complete control and looking for a three-goal lead. But Buffalo held the Minnesota power play harmless, then grabbed the momentum with two goals 87 seconds apart. The Sabres took the 4-3 lead with a power play goal on the second of back-to-back penalties called on Minnesota.

But before the second period ended, Hughes leaned into a slap shot from the blue line to tie the game once again. It was the second goal for Hughes since he joined the Wild in a mid-December trade with Vancouver.

The Wild pelted Buffalo goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in the second and third periods, but could not get a decisive shot past him until Kaprizov set up Zuccarello for the overtime winner. Luukkonen had 31 saves for the Sabres, who won in a shootout in November, in their only visit to St. Paul this season.

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Kwesi Adofo-Mensah certainly isn’t batting 1,000 during his time as Vikings general manager. The results – both in terms of success in the NFL Draft and on the field – show as much.

And the quarterback position heading into the 2025 campaign was bungled, particularly considering the 14-win season Minnesota experienced in 2024 and the quality of the roster outside of the most important position this fall.

So there’s a fair amount for which to criticize Adofo-Mensah.

But there also may be reasons to assume better days are to come. Some of those came in his post-mortem press conference Tuesday at the team’s practice facility in Eagan, as a reflective Adofo-Mensah evaluated Minnesota’s build of last season’s quarterback room.

He acknowledged the importance of the spot, noting the Vikings have won at a high clip in recent years “when we’ve gotten a certain level of play at that position, allowing us to be explosive enough on offense to set the table for how we play on defense, special teams.”

And the general manager noted the position wasn’t properly constructed to produce such play under center this fall, which was ultimately the Vikings’ fatal flaw.

When reflecting on the process that led to the decision not to franchise tag Sam Darnold, Adofo-Mensah said he still understands how Minnesota came to that conclusion. But he said the front office could’ve “executed better in certain places.”

That probably entailed entering training camp with more than one realistic option under center – a 22 year old, at that. Adofo-Mensah knows the path of young players “isn’t linear” and that you never know how any player’s first four or five starts will go.

“We have, obviously, a lot of historical studies about what those first few games are going to look like, or what that first year could look like in a sense. And, ultimately, that’s how we tried to build the team, knowing that those growth pains could come, to be able to overcome them and withstand them in a certain sense,” he said. “Sometimes, you have to go on incomplete information. And the information we had was all good, but it was, admittedly, incomplete and small sample. Ultimately, we trusted in the information we had, we trusted in our coaches, we trusted in the team we had around him to do that.”

But it didn’t pan out – not immediately, anyway. And there was no Plan B to turn to. Carson Wentz didn’t even join the team until just prior to the start of the regular season. There was likely an assumption Minnesota would keep Daniel Jones in the building after he signed with the team midway through the 2024 campaign. Instead, Jones bolted for Indianapolis in the offseason, where he won the starting job in camp and went 8-5 in 13 starts this fall.

“Learning lessons – I think execution wise, you have to treat it as such,” Adofo-Mensah said. “No matter what the conversations and relationships are, free agents are free for a reason, and they’re allowed to vet all their options, and ultimately we could have executed better around that.”

In an ideal world, Minnesota wouldn’t have made such mistakes. Had it not, it’s very likely the Vikings would have been a playoff team again this fall. But there’s power in admitting to miscues and attempting to learn and grow from them moving forward.

“You try to make sure that you don’t lock yourselves into what you did and thinking that it’s always right, so there are those nights that you wake up and stare at the ceiling and ask yourself (questions),” Adofo-Mensah said. “I’ve been accountable my whole life, and I don’t think you run from opportunities to get better, so I want to always make sure that I’m doing that.”

That’s the proper mindset. It’s Step 1 in the process of turning any tide. Adofo-Mensah doesn’t plan on making the same mistakes this offseason. If his words are any indication, J.J. McCarthy will not be handed the starting quarterback job in 2026.

Adofo-Mensah said the Vikings’ internal discussions are centered on returning the quarterback room “to a competitive, deep enough standpoint” to be able to execute coach Kevin O’Connell’s downfield passing attack.

Lesson learned. That’s Step 1. The plan is solid in theory. Now comes the most important part over the coming months: The execution.

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Gophers men’s basketball coach Niko Medved is doing whatever he can to help keep his shorthanded rotation in Big Ten games this season — mixing in zone defenses and playing at a slower offensive pace than he wants.

The recipe was recently coming up one possession short in back-to-back losses, 78-75 to Wisconsin on Tuesday and 70-69 in overtime to Southern Cal on Jan. 9. But the formula fell much shorter in a 77-67 loss to No. 13 Illinois on Saturday at State Farm Arena in Champaign, Ill.

Medved’s zone defense stifled the Illini and helped Minnesota (10-8, 3-4 Big Ten) force a 34-34 tie at halftime, but Illinois (15-3, 6-1) used an 18-7 run to create breathing room at 74-62 with 3:24 remaining in the game.

Minnesota forward Jaylen Crocker-Johnson scored a 22 points on a career high five 3-pointers. Cade Tyson added 15 and fouled out in the last minute.

Illini’s 7-foot-2 center Zvonimir Ivisic poised problems for the Gophers. He had 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

Crocker-Johnson scored Minnesota’s opening 11 points, including 3-of-4 from 3-point range. He had a game-high 17 points in the first half.

Later in the first half, Gophers coach Niko Medved went to a zone defense — like he did at that time in the Wisconsin loss. It had a similar affect, contributing to the Illini missing 10 straight shots and going seven minutes without a point.

The U took a 32-26 lead during that stretch, but the Illini tied it at 34-34 at the break.

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