WOWT: Stanley Cup? Hail No!

After Monday night's epic triple overtime Stanley Cup Final game five, hockey fans were anxiously awaiting tonight's game six in Pittsburgh to see how the Detroit Red Wings would respond to being 35 seconds away from hoisting Lord Stanley's cup, only to let the Penguins tie it and then win it just before midnight.

Mother Nature and WOWT-channel 6 had other plans tonight. With tornadoes rumbling across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, weather interruptions preempted much of tonight's game. And for good reason... severe weather is much more important than a hockey game or Husker football game.

But by that same measure, if you are going to interrupt regular programming for storm coverage... cover the frickin' storm. For much of the evening, WOWT chose to show Ejacuweather Meteorologist Jim Flowers standing in front of his weather computer. (Thanks to Ted Brockman of the Omaha TV News blog for coining the "Ejacuweather" term!) Super Dooper Mondo Radar? Well, it's in a fuzzy monitor in the background. Pictures of storm damage? How about occasional pans over to anchors John Knicely and Tracy Madden instead.

WOWT did decide to bring back partial coverage of the game with about a minute left in the second period by showing the game in a box covering about half the screen. Which was a fine compromise, except that we still had to look at Jim Flowers face over the rest of the screen. Still no radar images to let us know where the storm was. Just Smiling Jim reassuring us that everything was going to be fine.

Which made it a lose-lose situation for everyone. If you wanted to find out where the storm was, you had to switch over to one of the other Omaha stations. Both KMTV-Channel 3 and KETV-Channel 7 did fine jobs showing us where the storms were at and where they were going. But if you wanted to keep track of the hockey game, you had to deal with Smiling Jim yakking it up.

I will credit Flowers for turning off the continuous coverage late in the third period when it became apparent that the threat of tornadoes had passed. We did get to see Pittsburgh pull within one goal with about 90 seconds left, as well as watch Pittsburgh narrowly miss scoring another game-tying goal as two shots narrowly missed as the the clock expired.

But WOWT dropped the ball tonight. They would have served the public better by either limiting their weather coverage to a simple scroll, or if they were going to preempt the hockey game, show us something other than Jim Flowers face.

Good Knight and Good Luck

The Omaha World-Herald is reporting that the Calgary Flames are finally pulling the plug on the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights. Sad news for Omaha hockey? To some extent...yes. Loss of a hockey team is never something to be celebrated. But by that same measure, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Three hockey teams area is overkill for a market the size of Omaha. This isn't a black mark on Omaha as much as it is a black mark on the Flames and the city fathers who backed this boondoggle.

AJ the Huskerh8er called this right from the start. (Warning: profanity laden tirade) They got off on the wrong foot, and then proceeded to step all over themselves for most of their time in Omaha, leaving their few fans to wonder what went went wrong. MavRick wrote a nice essay last summer about the situation which sums it up quite nicely.

Back in February, I called May 6th in the OAK's death pool, so I'm not surprised by today's news. Some might think I'm taking pleasure in the end of the Knights, which isn't correct. The end of the Knights doesn't automatically make the Mavericks and Lancers more successful. But it does make Omaha a better community for one or both of the remaining teams to hopefully thrive. And thriving is what counts.

The dedicated Knights fans, though few in number, have the right to mourn the passing of the franchise to the Quad Cities. They'll say a few spiteful things towards fans of the other hockey teams, trying to pass the blame from the OAK's management. That's ok...they're angry about the loss of professional sports.

With the departure of the Knights, does this change the financial situation of the Civic Auditorium, perhaps freeing up resources for the oft-discussed Coliseum near Chili Greens? The DLR study on the viability of the Auditorium complex was due "mid-May", so we should be hearing about this any day know. Did this impact the Flames decision to pull the plug?

Comings and Goings and Developments

Bill Callahan filled the open spot in the Husker coaching staff by hiring one of his former players at Wisconsin, Joe Rudolph, as tight ends coach. Rudolph doesn't have a lot of experience in coaching, so it looks like Callahan is basing this hire on their 5 years together at Wisconsin and with the Philadelphia Eagles. DoubleExtraPoint has a little more commentary on Rudolph.

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports that expected starter Mike Huff will miss spring practice after surgery on his Achilles' tendon, putting his status for the fall in question. Another starter, senior Chris Patrick, appears to be exiting the football program, with both Patrick and Callahan declining to say anything.

The Omaha city council yesterday voted to spend $70,000 to determine how viable the Omaha Civic Auditorium is in the long term. Currently the Music Hall sees sporatic activity and the arena is home to the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights (for this season anyway) and the Omaha Beef. This looks to be the first step towards justifying the construction of a new mid-town coliseum near Ak-Sar-Ben for UNO hockey and basketball. This one bears watching as UNO ponders the future of it's athletic programs. And as the Capitol Avenue corridor in downtown Omaha continues to be redeveloped, the land the Auditorium currently occupies will soon become much more valuable for future economic growth for the city of Omaha.

Speaking of UNO, Bowling Green is heading into town for the first round of the CCHA playoffs. While Bowling Green struggled for the first 4 months of the season, they've played better as of late, winning games at both Michigoon and Michigan State in the last few weeks. In any event, playoff hockey can bring out the best in a team, making playoff hockey one of the most exciting sporting events you can find. If that isn't enough of a reason, it's the Omaha swan song for UNO's career scoring leader, Scott Parse. UNO is firing up the Hobey Baker hype machine for Parse, who will attempt to break the 200 point barrier this weekend.

No word as to whether or not Bowling Green is bringing any duct tape or Sharpies with them this trip. Not sure what that means? AJ gets a little more graphic and explicit in his explanation....

UNO Game Winner against Ohio State

CBS has posted Bryan Marshall's game winner from Saturday night on YouTube...

A Slow Starting Weekend

If you thought the first half of "Big Monday" between Nebraska and Kansas was bad...the second half of the rematch in Lawrence was even worse. Altitude decided to show a hunting show instead of the game, so I was limited to catching bits of the radio coverage, and Nebraska was competitive early on. But Kansas went on a run late in the first half and it continued into the second half until Doc Sadler waved the white flag and cleared the bench for the final 10 minutes, creating an eyepopping 92-39 blowout. I see Doc's point...the Huskers have 5 games left, and they all look winnable to some extent: at #142 Baylor (2-10 in conference), #66 Missouri (5-7 in conference; Huskers won at Columbia last month), #130 Iowa State (4-8 in conference), at #236 Colorado (2-10 in conference), and #20 Oklahoma State (5-6 in conference).

After the game, the Huskers were even talking about the NCAA tournament. Some people might call it insane, but winning out will give the Huskers a 20 win season and a 9-7 conference record. Likely? Probably not, but nobody expected the Huskers to have a winning record at this point either. The Huskers still don't have a big win, unless you want to count their November win over vastly overrated Creighton. (#49 in RPI and sinking...)

Friday night, UNO mailed in the first 50 minutes against Ohio State in hockey, falling behind 4-0 before Scott Parse took over, scoring two quick goals to cut the lead in half. Parse picked up the action down the stretch, but the Mavs couldn't get closer than 4-3 in the end.

Saturday night, Parse made sure that UNO wouldn't make the same mistake when he fed Alex Nikiforuk who buried the puck 22 seconds into the game. However, the Mavs went scoreless the for the next 60:07, with Bryan Marshall scoring 29 seconds into overtime to give UNO home ice for the first round of the CCHA playoffs.

The positioning for the playoffs is quite a jumble with UNO, Ohio State, and Western Michigan all within 1 point of each other. UNO needs 3 or 4 points this weekend in the great white north of Alaska if they want to host the hapless Bowling Green perverts.

While it's been a rather disappointing season for UNO so far, I remember the last time I saw Scott Parse take over when the Mavs looked like they were short on heart... it was early January 2006, and UNO went on to only lose once over the next 6 weeks. Not sure if UNO has another run like that in them...but if they do, look out. This team definitely has the talent to compete with anybody...but is also inconsistent enough to lose to anybody.