Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Tuesday Night Beer: Mavs Beat #9 Mankato

How 'bout that one! UNO's hockey team headed to #9 Minnesota State tonight and beat the Purple Mavericks 4-2 behind a strong performance in goal by Jeremie Dupont. Dupont struggled in the early part of the season, and eventually the steadier Jerad Kaufmann took over as UNO's goalie in the second half of the season. Nice to see Dupont put the demons from earlier this season behind him, and with tonight's performance, gives UNO another option in the playoffs. Kaufmann has been solid, though unspectacular this season. Dupont has the bigger upside, but until tonight, hasn't played like it.

Brandon, the Hi-Plains Drifter, passed on a neat story about last week's Husker gathering with Tom Osborne and Bo Pelini in Grand Island from Monday's New York Times... If you've got sound available, be sure to check out the audio slideshow; you get an idea how the folks around the Tri-City area are feeling.

If you can't stand those warm fuzzies coming out of Grand Island, CornNation.com has the ugly story of all-American Sarah Pavan's estrangement from the Husker volleyball program. I'm not one to "blame the newspaper" because usually when there is this much smoke, there's fire. Listen, Tommie Frazier wasn't beloved by his teammates in his day either, so this really shouldn't tarnish Pavan's accomplishments on the court. If anything, this story might tell you a little more about the differences between male and female athletes.

Tomorrow, Mayor Fahey and his stadium committee are going to announce their plans for a new downtown College World Series stadium near Omaha's Qwest Center. That's not news; it's been in the news for some time now. What I'm desperately hoping for is that Fahey and the committee finally counters the ridiculous speculation and conspiracy theories that are being foisted on the citizens of this community. Fahey needs to go through the entire timeframe of how the NCAA and the city came to the conclusion that Rosenblatt was no longer viable and explain every option that was considered before selecting a Qwest Center parking lot.

I've been especially disappointed in Kevin Kugler and Mike'l Severe of KOZN radio's coverage of this debate. Today was especially humorous when they mocked the idea of people walking eight blocks from a ballpark near the Qwest Center to visit the Old Market and continuing to raise the "parking" argument for leaving the Series at Rosenblatt. If a new stadium is built, there will likely be over 5,000 parking spots available at the Qwest Center for use during the series. How many are available at Rosenblatt? 1,000...maybe? Last few times I went to Rosenblatt for a big event (CWS game and Nebraska/Creighton), I've parked 10 to 12 blocks away. Of course, parking is really the heart of the whole debate as the property owners around Rosenblatt fight to keep people parking in their yards at $20 a car each day.

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