UND women's hockey players file lawsuit alleging discrimination

Welcome to the Wednesday edition of The Cooler. Now that the #mprraccoon is safe, I hope everyone will read this:

*The University of North Dakota cut its women's hockey program a little over a year ago, citing financial woes in a move that stunned many people.

The battle to reinstate the program received a jolt Tuesday when 11 former UND players filed a discrimination lawsuit. Players are not seeking financial damages, the Grand Forks Herald reports. They just want their program back.

"That's our No. 1, No. 2 … all the way to No. 10 goal," said Dan Siegel, the attorney for the players told The Herald. "We want the university to start playing women's ice hockey again."

All 11 players who are part of the lawsuit were with the program when it was cut.

*The Rangers' Joey Gallo has seen some intense shifts this season, with teams employing four outfielders, three infielders between second and first base, and none between second and third.

He's the very definition of a powerful pull hitter, and his batting average of .199 plus his 17 home runs attest to the fact that usually his way to beat the shift is to hit the ball over the fence.

But in a recent game he heard the anguished cries of millions of fundamental-loving, practically minded fans — some of whom commented on Chris Hine's recent Star Tribune piece on shifts.

Gallo bunted, and he did it quite well. He rolled the ball toward third base, easily reaching for a hit. If he was faster, he might have had a double. No joke. Check it out:

*What a night in St. Paul. First, there was the saga of the aforementioned raccoon, which scaled a building, spent most of the day hanging out in perilous positions and was finally pulled to safety.

The little fella kind of upstaged the other big thing in St. Paul: Saints manager George Tsamis earned his 1,000th career win in a comeback victory over Fargo-Moorhead at CHS Field.

The Saints, by the way, managed to tie both of those things together.