The Vikings are a surprising bright spot, but Minnesota sports are still suffering through some serious doldrums.

The Wild have started flat following the NHL lockout, disappointing a fan base excited by the blockbuster off-season signings of stars Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.

The Gophers basketball team got off to a hot start again this year, then underwent its usual mid-season swoon. The Wolves are limping through an injury-plagued season. Gophers football appears locked in mediocre-at-best status in the Big Ten.

And the Twins, I suspect they could actually achieve their goal of losing at least 100 games this year.

So, yeah, we’re awful.

Clarification: Our men’s teams are awful.

The prominent women’s teams that play in this town are generally doing just fine.

In fact, our handy-dandy Idea Peepshow chart shows that in every year since 1999 (the year the Minnesota Lynx started playing), the major women’s teams in Minnesota have posted a higher average winning percentage than our top men’s teams.

The numbers don’t lie. The men’s teams have been slogging away mostly under .500. Women’s teams have been posting more winning seasons than losing ones.

The Lynx brought home a WNBA championship in 2011. The Gophers women hockey team, which is 24-0 in conference play this season, sets another record for consecutive victories every time it wins.

So give the female athletes competing on Minnesota teams their due. They’re giving the state’s sports fans a reason to hold their heads high.

Some notes and disclaimers about the chart:

* We calculated average winning percentage each year by adding up every team’s percentage and dividing by the number of state teams that played that year. Example: In 2010, it was .580 (Twins) + .375 (Vikes) + .183 (Wolves) + .463 (Wild) + .375 (Gophers football) + .500 (Gophers basketball) = 2.48. We divided by 6 to get an average winning percentage of .413.

* We did not add up the wins for each team and then divide by total games played. We felt that method would put too much weight on baseball teams, which play far more games than football. The way we see it, a 72-90 Twins season (.444 winning percentage) is about as painful as a 7-9 Vikes season (.438 winning percentage).

* Postseason records are not included.

* NHL records don’t include ties. Overtime losses are counted as losses.

* The statistics for college teams include only conference records. No cream puff games allowed!