Somehow, I don’t envy the folks in Kansas and Missouri, including the Kansas City metro area, at all.
Yes, I’ve come to appreciate the Chiefs and their going for a third-straight Super Bowl championship. Definitely not what that is about.
The weather is what it’s all about.
If you’ve been watching the news this weekend, snow and ice made for treacherous road conditions. Few people ventured out, and when they did they found themselves slipping and sliding on the roads, even if they were going 20 mph or less. In church, someone noted that, in Overland Park, Kan., it could be several days before anyone is able to much less leave their home. Hope they stocked up well on groceries.
I’ve noted on here a couple times in the past the winter of 1979, the signature blizzard of which happened 46 years ago next week.
That’s the storm that slammed eastern Iowa and northwestern Illinois with 18 (or more) inches of snow, sustained howling winds of 30 mph and gusts of more than 50 mph, temperatures plunging to the mid-20 below zero range, and roads drifted shut for days. Nobody was going anywhere for several days, if not more than a week.
And you thought the Chiefs getting to a football game that turned out very little suspense, other than would Denver reach the playoffs (the Broncos did), was a huge deal.
Southwest Iowa, which for moment was supposed to be on the north edge of the storm, turned out to get very little to no snow at all. Which I guess was good, given there was ice about a month ago. (Even then, southwest Iowa escaped ... but eastern Iowa got the bulk of the storm, anywhere from a quarter to a third of an inch of ice ... enough to wreak havoc.)
I’m just hopeful there’s little more than a normal winter left for southwest Iowa. We could all use it.
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The Atlantic boys’ basketball team has had its highs and lows so far this season, but a good sign that the corner may soon be turned came Friday night when Kinnick Juhl had an unconventional double-double against Shenandoah.
Juhl dished out 10 assists while scoring 27 points, partially off six three-point baskets, as the Trojans dominated their way to an 86-60 win over the Mustangs. Gavin McLaren also almost had a double-double himself – it’s not all that common to see two double-doubles in a game – as he recorded 27 points and grabbed eight rebounds.
Those are the types of performances Atlantic will be looking for as it heads into the always competition-heavy January. There’s never an easy win in the Hawkeye Ten, and the Trojans are playing the best teams in this part of the state.
As for the Trojan girls and their fellow teams statewide, it’ll be another month before the post-season begins.
Nontheless, the Cedar Rapids Gazette has already been prognosticating where teams will be playing when regional action kicks off the week of Feb. 15. Keeping in mind that groupings and pairings won’t be known until at least the first week of February.
Published earlier this week, the Gazette suggested that Atlantic would be in a regional that runs roughly between U.S. highways 59 and 169, with a branch headed near the Iowa-South Dakota border. The Trojans would be a potential first-round host in Iowa Class 3A, welcoming Clarke of Osceola as its possible first-round opponent. The mock bracket has that winner facing either Sheldon or Spirit Lake.
The other half of the bracket has Algona as the No. 1 seed, with Southeast Valley of Gowrie as its opponent, and the winner playing Carroll Kuemper or Van Meter.
Other No. 1 seeds in the Gazette’s mock bracket are Cherokee, Dubuque Wahlert, Estherville-Lincoln Central, Forest City, Mount Vernon, Roland-Story, Williamsburg.
Of course, these are not official, and a lot could and will change between now and early February when the actual post-season pairings are released in all five classes.
It is still fun to talk about where teams are now and in which direction they’re headed.
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Finally, Hulk Hogan being loudly booed?
And I don’t mean in the New World Order-era of WCW.
I didn’t see the Netflex premiere of WWE Monday Night Raw, but my guess is people are tiring of the Hulkster and just want him to ride gracefully into retirement.
Of course, when you were as big of a professional wrestling star as he was 20, 30 and 40 years ago, and he’s one of the shrinking number of generational legends still around – Ric Flair being the other top name – it’s hard to go away.
One report had it that the 72-year-old Hogan, thanks to years of physical abuse to his body, was unsteady on his feet when he came to the ring. I just hope that if he fell and was legitimately hurt on the way back, the fans didn’t see it as “part of the act,†but a sad fact of life that many former professional wrestlers face and that’s the effects of lifelong injuries taking their toll.
