Traveling football trophies

Heath Hotzler, Kerry Collins and I just finished a discussion on football traveling trophies and how they are getting fewer and fewer in this area with the disappearance of the Power Bowl game between Concordia and Minnesota State Moorhead. That, of course, followed the temporary suspension of the Nickel Trophy game between North Dakota State and North Dakota. (Please, God, don't allow this to be turned into a whizzing match between Bison and Sioux commenters, because that's not the intent, even though every freakin' post always turns into a whizzing match between those people.)

Anyway, we could only come up with a few traveling trophies that remain in the Fargo-Moorhead area. The "Paint and Bucket Game" is played every year between Valley City State and Jamestown College. The Dragons and Bemidji State play for an axe. Concordia and St. Olaf play for something called the "Troll."

I'll throw this out, just to see if we're missing any: Are we missing any?

And does anybody know of any area high schools that play for a traveling trophy? It seems like, for example, Fargo North and Fargo South should play for something, but I guess pride will have to do.

Let's hear it.

Posted by: Mike McFeely on 7/24/2008 at 3:19 PM | Comments (8) | Permalink

New voices for Sioux football radio broadcasts, too

The University of North Dakota announced Tuesday that it's re-upped with Clear Channel radio for another year. That means Sioux football games will be heard again on KFGO in Fargo.

But, like North Dakota State and its games on WDAY, there will be different voices. (In NDSU's case, Bison athletic department employee Jeremy Jorgenson will replace Steve Hallstrom as sideline reporter, continuing NDSU's vision of controlling all information disseminated about its athletic programs.)

For UND, Tony Stein and Tank McNamara are out as the color and sideline reporters, respectively. They've been replaced by former Grand Forks Central coach Mike Berg in the booth and ex-Sioux defensive back Kelly Howe on the sidelines.

UND and Clear Channel didn't announce why the changes were made, but it came down to a time commitment issue for McNamara and Stein. McNamara is getting married in the fall. Stein is already married with a child. Both were concerned about time spent on road trips for away games.

Posted by: Mike McFeely on 7/23/2008 at 10:36 AM | Comments (5) | Permalink

UP, UP and away

Took a tour of the under-construction Urban Plains Center in south Fargo yesterday, 100 days before the new hockey (and basketball, volleyball and concert venue) arena is set to open.

You can read my column on the topic by clicking here.

The UP Center, looking at the arena floor from concourse level north-to-south.
(Photo by Bruce Crummy of The Forum.)

As I wrote in the column, if you put aside some of the issues the arena faced and might continue to face and just look at the building as a building, it's going to be an awfully nice place for hockey games, really something that Fargo has never had before.

(One benefit, too, is that it is going to be a perfect, perfect, arena for North Dakota Class A basketball region and state tournaments. Nice and intimate, great sightlines, big enough to get some atmosphere. Just a nice basketball venue. And, actually, it would be perfect, too, for North Dakota State men's and women's basketball games for the same reasons -- but the Bison have their own plans to build a 5,000-6,000 seat arena attached to the Fargodome on the other end of town.)

For fans, the nice thing is that this arena is not a slapdash, desperate attempt at a hockey arena. It is smallish, but has bells and whistles. It's first-class. Looking at the photograph above, you can see the suites ringing the concourse level. Just below the suites, at the top of the terraced reserved seats, will be a ring of "club" seats. The huge lobby area would be to the right of this photo where the light is shining in (facing west). Looking directly across the arena, at the bright sunshine on the south end of the building in the photo, is where planners cut out two suites to have a "common" area with barstools and tables so people can sit and drink beer (or pop during high school events). There is a similar area on the north end of the arena, where Crummy was standing when he took the photo.

Like many others in town, I still have questions about whether the UP Center will fly and who will pay for it and when they'll get the other four sheets of ice built. The future still holds a lot of storylines for the arena. But I will say that the UP Center gives Fargo something it's never had -- a first-rate hockey arena for USHL and high school hockey games ... and a great venue for high school basketball tournaments.

Posted by: Mike McFeely on 7/23/2008 at 9:57 AM | Comments (7) | Permalink

Tick, tick, tick ...

The countdown to the madness begins.

The first round begins Friday. The next round, at least here in Fargo-Moorhead, begins Aug. 4.

The Minnesota Vikings open training camp in Mankato Friday, kicking off what is their most anticipated season in a decade. Adrian Peterson, Jared Allen, Adrian Peterson, Steve Hutchinson, Adrian Peterson, Bernard Berrian and Adrian Peterson have some national experts pegging the beloved Purple as a Super Bowl favorite.

While Vikings always have and always should possess a healthy dose of skepticism about their team, this is setting up as one of those years when the Vikings utterly dominate the sports pages, talk shows, water-cooler talk and TV sports casts almost to the exclusion of everything else. Randy Moss' rookie year of 1998 and the follow-up year in '99 were the last time everybody fell for the Vikings as hard as they're going to fall for them this year.

Will that passion/obsession be rewarded with a trip to the Super Bowl?

This much we know about the Purple and their fans: If things go well, it'll be a love-fest. But as soon as things start to go a little sour, the oft-damaged fans will be looking for blood.

Aug. 4 is the kick-off of North Dakota State football mania. That is the day the Bison will hold their annual media day, allowing Craig Bohl to give his assessment of his team while the jackals ask questions and interview players.

Considering this is NDSU's first year of eligibility for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs and their first year as members of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, this promises to be a manic year on the local scene, too.

Back-to-back 10-1 seasons tend to set the bar high and stoke the fires for the Bison faithful.

My early question about the Bison is this: What is going to be deemed a "successful" season? If they make the playoffs, is that good enough? If they secure the first playoff game in the Fargodome, is that good enough? Do they need to win a playoff game or two? Or will a national championship be the only standard by which NDSU is measured?

It'll be interesting to see as the season unfolds what is considered "success" now that the Bison actually have something for which to play.

Posted by: Mike McFeely on 7/21/2008 at 1:39 PM | Comments (8) | Permalink

Winners, at least ex-winners, do quit

A pair of former major champions in golf walked off the course at Royal Birkdale Thursday during the first round of the British Open, saying it was just too tough.

Sandy Lyle, who won the Masters and British Open back when he was the world's No. 1 golfer, and Rich Beem, who won the PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota in 2002, quit mid-round in the windy, cold, wet conditions when their scores were soaring through the roof.

Click here to read the entire story.

Lyle and Beem just replaced Kenny Perry at the top of the Biggest Wienies List. Perry is the PGA Tour player who has won thrice in America this year and is currently the hottest golfer on the planet, but decided to not play the U.S. Open and the British Open because he didn't think it would do him any good toward his main goal -- earning his way onto the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

Perry was at the top of the Wienie List for not even attempting to win two of the biggest titles in golf. Instead, he was content to play in minor events (he's at the PGA Tour event in Milwaukee this weeK) and compile Ryder Cup points (and money) that way. Perry is a lock to make the Ryder Cup team now, and I personally hope he goes 0-for-the-Ryder.

But at least Perry had an excuse as to why he didn't want to play in the major championships, weak as it might have been.

The same cannot be said for Lyle and Beem. To walk off a major championship because you are not playing well is akin to walking off the mound in the World Series because the other team is hitting you too hard. Or taking yourself out of the Super Bowl because you've thrown three interceptions.

If you ain't hurt, you better finish the job no matter how ugly things are getting.

Lyle and Beem just plain quit, after they'd already taken spots away from other golfers who would've killed to be in the Open. Inexcusable.

It's too bad golf's governing bodies can't get together and penalize these two for their quitting ways. Maybe they should each be forced to miss the next four tournaments before being allowed to tee it up again.

Posted by: Mike McFeely on 7/18/2008 at 11:44 AM | Comments (8) | Permalink