It's time to stash your snowboard and blow up your inner tube. A significant spring thaw is expected to make the boating and rafting season stronger and longer this summer - especially out West.

Mike Fradera of Lakeland is a self-proclaimed optimist. Despite losing both legs on Aug., 17, 2007, when an improvised explosive device blew up during an Army patrol assignment in Bagdad, the 30-year-old longtime sportsman looks enthusiastically toward th

News, scores, stats and standings for Minnesota sports teams, including the Vikings, Twins, Timberwolves and Wild, plus the Minnesota Gophers, high school sports and outdoors recreation, with commentary by the Star Tribune's Sid Hartman, Jim Souhan and P

When Mayor Matthew Godfrey looks around a downtown that railroads built then abandoned, he sees rock-climbing walls, a sky-diving wind tunnel, a kayaking park. The future of his city of 82,000, he believes, is outdoors.

"Many a month has come and gone Since I wandered from my home In those Oklahoma Hills where I was born Many a page of life has turned Many a lesson I have learned Well, I feel like in those hills I still belong. 'Way down yonder in the Indian nation I r