National Championship

Oh man, that BCS national championship was pretty intense last night. Unfortunately, my trend of being disappointed by football results continued last night. I have nothing against Auburn, and I think that Cam Newton is an absolute beast, but I've always liked Oregon. Quite honestly, how do you not love a team that is wearing bright neon yellow-green socks? Also, that two point conversion to tie the game was pretty awesome although somewhat predictable. Once he started rolling to the right, I knew that the ball would be coming back across the field. Nevertheless, why did Oregon think that it was a great idea to run the ball up the middle every single time? Every time was basically the same result of very little or no yardage gained. I am not necessarily a huge football strategist, but I do realize that sometimes if the plan isn't working, you need to change to another plan. Oregon seemed to do best when they got the ball outside. However, I guess that's part of the reason that they had to run inside as well just to keep from becoming predictable. My only response to that would be that if the opponent can't stop you, why change? All in all, I thought it was a pretty solid game that was fun to watch.

Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr

Loss of Activity

What does everyone think about my Eagles? Pretty sad. Whatever, I guess now I'll have to be a moderate observer during the Super Bowl. That means that it is now entirely basketball season as far as I'm concerned, but I must admit that it was more basketball season than football season as far as I was concerned. However, now the rest of the world will embrace basketball in about a month. Anyway, although it is a short story long, I was disappointed by the football result. Let me say that this week is extraordinarily inconvenient. Most of the high schools in this area are experiencing the agony of midterms or final exams. Therefore, there are very few basketball games going on this week. That is not a great thing by any means. However, there is one game going on tomorrow night, so that will be awesome. It's funny when something takes up such a large part of your time because you tend to be lost without it. I know though that I will be back in the swing of both basketball and college next week, so that will be interesting and fun all at once! We shall see what will happen...

Photo by jurvetson on Flickr

That Game Between Commercials

Well, the NFL playoffs have not quite gone as everyone expected. Nevertheless, it has been exciting so far. Now, the highlight is coming up. Of course you all know what I'm talking about. The most important part of the end of the football season is in the Super Bowl commercials. Isn't that why most people who never care about football for the rest of the year seemed to all watch on one night? I wonder if there will be any controversy on that this year like we had Tim Tebow and his apparently incredibly offensive pro-life advertisement that really turned out to be not even that blatant. It seems to be that way a lot of the time when something is talked up to be such a big controversy, it never can live up to the hype. However, who knows what will happen this year? Oh yeah, there is a game played as well in between the commercials. I have to get behind Philadelphia on that one out of loyalty sake, but quite honestly I would be very afraid of New England if I was in the playoffs. They have had a great year. However, let's go Eagles!

Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr

Puttin' in the Time

I think that power soccer went pretty well tonight. Of course, like I have told you all over and over and over again, spacing is so important, and we are definitely working on it, but we still need to improve. Also, I think that we will improve as we get more acclimated with how we play and how we should play which sometimes are different things. However, I definitely saw some good signs tonight especially from the passing department. I felt like we were passing better which is vital and a skill that sometimes we have problems with. Not that any of us really dominate the ball, but our passes were not necessarily powerful enough to get to our teammates. Tonight, I noticed that passes were getting places, so that was awesome. Also, even though we had a few pretty big hits tonight, I feel like our defense is getting better. Obviously, you don't want to be picking up penalties during the match, so the hard hits will need to be avoided, but there was better defense, so that was encouraging. All in all, at least I was content with how we played. Of course, we need to definitely work on improving as always!

Why I Write about Power Soccer

Apparently, the power soccer scene has been relatively quiet across America over the past month. I know that stuff has been happening such as a round-robin tournament in Pittsburgh at the end of December, but I have not been able to find any other games going on. Of course, a large part of this is probably due to the holidays, but nevertheless, I wish that there was more media coverage concerning power soccer. We have an international competition coming up in 2011 where I would daresay that we are the favorites given the players on the team and the fact that the Americans won in the last World Cup. However, very few people know about the sport, so media exposure could definitely help. I know that Team USA is trying to do this, but it is very difficult to break into an already crowded sports scene especially when it is a minority sport. However, teams are making local efforts. I know that I have seen several articles in various newspapers around the country. Unfortunately, most of them are relatively smalltime papers, but at least we are getting the sport out there. That is why I write about power soccer so much. Really, there's not too much content on the Internet about the sport outside of those within it. Therefore, I am hoping to reach a different audience who might stumble across it as opposed to directly search for it.

Gyms in Vermont

So, I am heading to Thetford tonight to watch my sister play basketball. I have never been there before, so that'll be fun. For some reason, I really love visiting new gyms. It might be something about the idea that there's basketball going on so that makes any room great. However, I think that it might be the fact that every gym is different. For example, if you literally want to sit on the court, go to Craftsbury. One of my personal favorites is Cabot. I've been going there since I was really little, and back in those days Cabot was a powerhouse. Therefore, I always associate that gymnasium with those great teams of the past. It also kind of looks like a boat turned upside down with that type of bracing on the ceiling. I know that the playing surface is far less than ideal, but I also like the atmosphere in that gymnasium because it truly is a town activity. Granted, I haven't been over there for two years, but it truly was the event where everybody came out to watch the game. I always thought it felt kind of like Hoosiers because it was really the only winter sport in town and they were really good (although they have fallen on tough times). Maybe Thetford will break into the top ranks tonight, but who knows?

Photo by  Minimalist Photography on Flickr