I wouldn’t say I’m a detached person. But there isn’t a better word to describe my relationship with the Minnesota Golden Gophers during a childhood growing up in the Minneapolis suburbs. Detached; yeah, that about sums it up.

I lived about 25 minutes from the Minnesota campus, so it wasn’t a distance issue. My dad graduated from ‘The U,’ as we call it up in the Twin Cities, to the dismay of most people not from Minnesota. The foundation was there, but Goldy was the kid on the block I was just never good friends with. We just never really clicked, kind of like that last five or six Gopher men’s hockey teams.

In fact, my biggest connection with The U was probably an old Gophers hat that I literally wore into the ground – much like Tim Brewster is currently doing with the football program.

The devotion was so loose that despite my strongest convictions to cheer for my local teams – Go Twins! – I faced no qualms about spending my undergraduate career here in Madison. Call me selfish, but I wanted to go to college in a college town.

I don’t want to trace the divorce to a single point, but for the sake of this column, let’s look at that 2005 Wisconsin-Minnesota game.

We all remember the story – and if not, shame on you. Barry Alvarez and his Badgers are down 31-34, after a big touchdown grab by Brandon Williams, with 2:10 to play. A facemask penalty on that play gives UW field position, onside kick luckily pins Minnesota near its goal line and the Badgers force a three-and-out. Justin Kucek fumbles the snap, tries to keep the punt alive and Jonathan Casillas blocks it. UW recovers in the end zone, ends up winning the game 38-34.

I’m pretty sure I remember my mother making some kind of exasperated comment and I’m also pretty sure I laughed. So I enjoy the misery of others sometimes; don’t judge me. At that point, it seemed pretty evident cutting ties with Glen Mason and co. wouldn’t be the worst thing I could do.

See, the Battle for the Axe was the only game I ever really paid any attention to. It was the one game where I could think, “Well, we beat our rival.” That was important to me. I had a rival in preschool named Derek. He wasn’t aware of it, which made the rivalry kind of non-existent. Kind of like Minnesota’s success in trophy games.

That’s why rivalry games are so great. Brewster could keep his head from the chopping block with a win Saturday. Anyone who decided to stop hating Bret Bielema after the Champs Sports Bowl win would be right back on that bandwagon if the Badgers were to lose the Axe. The game doesn’t matter, it matters.

“It’s always a game, we always get fired up about it. It kind of starts with our Minnesota guys, just talking back and forth with players we know back home,” UW receiver and Minnesota-native Isaac Anderson said. “Just hearing what they’ve got to say, and we tell them what we’ve got to say.”

One game can define a season in a good way; even if it’s a losing season. This is Minnesota’s last hurrah.

Wisconsin should be plenty fired up this week after such a poor showing in East Lansing last weekend. A homecoming game against Minnesota should be gas on that flame. Bielema can’t afford for it to not be.

Nobody will admit it, because when you look ahead, you lose games, but this Saturday should be nothing more than an emotional tune-up for the next two weeks. The Badgers need to regain some confidence and swagger against the Gophers if they have any intentions of salvaging their season against Ohio State in two weeks. What better way to do that than to make a statement against a desperate team playing in the only meaningful game left on its schedule?

“Now it’s kind of a motivating factor after Michigan State, going into Minnesota,” center Pete Konz said. “If we do some positive things, hopefully we can get this ball rolling, get some flow. Get the zen in us. Just somehow keep the momentum going and feel out the season now.”

The rivalry might be one-sided at the moment; Minnesota hasn’t held the Axe since 2003. Many of the games UW has won in the last 20 years have been blowouts. UM can’t say the same of most of its wins.

So what’s there to get up for?

Well, for one thing, my father will probably begin talking smack to me again, and if that’s not locker room bulletin board material, I don’t know what is. Dad has been a constant source of Gopher optimism and every fall, when Brew’s crew was undefeated after non-conference season, he’d tell me how it was finally the year. Never a Big Ten title year, or a better-than-the-Music-City-Bowl year. It was the year the Gophers got the Axe back. That was always goal No. 1.

Of course, that kind of stopped this year when Minnesota lost to a high school team from Mount Rushmore. He passed up tickets to go to the UM-USC game to instead make it to Duluth for my cousin Payton’s second birthday.

But the talk will be back now that Paul Bunyan’s hardware is on the line.

And any mojo these 2010 Badgers had better be back too, because this game will either be the stepping stone that launched Wisconsin to a memorable season, or the lone bright spot for a team that had its sights set much higher. And heaven forbid it’s the Gophers who walk away with their heads held high.

Adam is a senior majoring in journalism who has managed not to piss off any Minnesota fans yet this season. How big is this rivalry game? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @adamjsholt.