NCAAF teams
Brian Bennett, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Paul Bunyan Axe tradition loses luster with new policy

Minnesota and Wisconsin will renew their long-running rivalry Saturday in Madison, and with a Big Ten championship game appearance on the line, it's one of the biggest installments ever of this series.

It's just too bad the postgame celebration could well be neutered.

One of the things that made this rivalry special, even in years when it didn't mean all that much in the big picture, is the Paul Bunyan Axe. It's one of the best trophies in sports, a giant axe on a wooden handle that's perfect for swinging around. Winning teams like to pretend to chop the goal posts down after a victory. And when a team won back the trophy, they would sprint over to the sideline to grab it, famously so when the Gophers pulled out a 2003 victory on a last-second field goal.

But as is often the case in our litigious, overly cautious society, it only took one small controversy to ruin the fun. Wisconsin coach Gary Andersen said at his news conference Monday that the axe will not be on the sidelines during the game Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium, instead staying in an undisclosed location until it can be delivered to the winning team's locker room.

Why the change? Because the two teams nearly got into a free-for-all brawl last year in Minneapolis, when Minnesota players and coaches decided to "protect" one of their goal posts at TCF Bank Stadium after the loss and not let the Badgers fake chop it down. It was all so silly, not the least because it's not like Wisconsin was actually going to destroy any property. Wisconsin players and officials were baffled by the Gophers' actions, but it was one way for Minnesota coach Jerry Kill to send a message to his team about not backing down.

Kill said after last year's mini-controversy that a new protocol needed to be established for the axe celebration to avoid confusion, which led to this decision. Although, curiously, Andersen said the Badgers hadn't contacted Kill or Minnesota about it. I guess when you win the rivalry 10 years in a row, you can write your own rules.

Andersen said the teams are free to bring the axe back to the field after it has been cleared, but the spontaneity of the celebration will officially be gone. We won't see anything as cool as Rhys Lloyd's mad dash in 2003, which is about all the former Minnesota kicker remembers from that game. If the Gophers were to snap the 10-game losing streak and clinch a Big Ten championship game bid, their celebration could and should be epic. But it won't be as memorable if they have to come back from the locker room with the axe several minutes after the game with the stadium emptying out. (They'll just have to chop up everything in Dinkytown when they get home).

No one wants bench-clearing brawls. But it seems like this could have been solved a little bit easier, perhaps by having the coaches tell their teams this week, "Hey, if we lose, get the heck off the field. And if we win, stay in one end zone until the coast is clear. Whatever happens, save all your fighting for the 60 minutes during the game."

That's not so hard, is it? Instead, a grand tradition could be watered down, just when this rivalry is reaching a crescendo.

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