Monday Morning Meissnervations

Good morning everyone. Welcome to another Monday!

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Wow, was Saturday a big day for the sports room at Chez Meissner.

First of all, the Oregon State Beavers dominated the Pac-10 leading Stanford Cardinal early and cruised to a solid 38-28 win. Jacquizz Rodgers was superb, rushing 33 times for 189 yards and a school-record tying 4 touchdowns, while also catching 5 passes for 82 yards. His brother James had 139 all-purpose yards and a touchdown, while quarterback Sean Canfield was 22-of-32 passing for 290 yards and a touchdown. Next up, the always anticipated matchup with B-Y-E. Then, it's off the Los Angeles on October 24th to play USC. That should be a good one. The Trojans were off this past week, and play at Notre Dame this week.

The Tampa Bay Lightning beat Carolina 5-2 for their first win of the season. Ryan Malone scored three goals to key the win. Perhaps the most exciting one, was the empty net goal late in the third where, along the boards at the blue line in his own end, as he was being tripped and with one of his skates over the boards and into the bench, he actually looked for and found his target, teed up the puck and shot it into the goal some 120 feet away. Now THAT takes some skill! Oh, don't forget Antero Niittymaki and his 24 saves either. Let's hope they can build off that effort, starting with tonight's game against Florida.

And the Saskatchewan Roughriders beat the Toronto Argonauts 32-22. Darian Durant threw three first-half touchdown passes, to Weston Dressler, Chris Getzlaf and Gerran Walker. Stu Foord rushed for a touchdown and Luca Congi kicked a field goal, 4 converts and a single. Unfortunately, the news out of Regina isn't all good. Weston Dressler broke his fibula and sprained his ankle, but maintains he'll be back for the playoffs. Here's hoping his prediction is correct. He's a big part of the Rider offense. In the meantime, Jason Clermont has a chance to finally show what's still left in his tank. It all starts with this Saturday's game at Calgary against the Stampeders, 2:30p.m. EDT, 3:30p.m. EDT kickoff on http://www.620ckrm.com/. Right now, Saskatchewan is tied for first with the Stamps in the CFL West, pending the outcome of today's Calgary at Montreal game.

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Anyone know when the humidity here goes away? They get a foot-and-a-half of snow in North Platte, Nebraska(about 100 miles West of where we used to live) over the weekend, while it's still into the 90s here(with about 437% humidity). There are four seasons in Florida, you know: Warm, hot, really hot and you've got to be kidding me!)

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Baseball playoffs continue. On Sunday, the Yankees beat Minnesota 4-1, the Angels beat Boston 4-1 and the Dodgers beat St. Louis 5-1. All three of those series are over in three straight. In the only series still going, Philadelphia beat Colorado yesterday 6-5, taking a 2 games to 1 lead. Game 4 is in Denver today, 6:07p.m. EDT on TBS. If game 5 is needed, it's at Philadelphia on Tuesday, 8:07p.m. EDT on TBS.

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Mr. Baby is no more. Our little Jimmy is officially a toddler! He's walking more than he's crawling, he's talking up a storm and amazingly, he's cuter than ever! But, it appears he's getting a head start on the terrible twos. Well, we'll love him through it, to the best of our ability.

We love our Jim-Jim!

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Small-field ball had another interesting week. First, it was Minnesota winning at Green Bay 30-23 last Monday, to wrap up week 4. Aaron Rodgers had a big game for Green Bay, passing for 384 yards. But, in the end, Brett Favre had a bigger game when it really counted. He may actually have something left in the tank after all.

Yesterday, Favre threw for 282 yards to lead Minnesota past St. Louis 38-10. Dallas survived in Kansas City 26-20(Cassell wish he was still with the Pats?), Carolina edged Washington 23-20(Is Zorn saving time by starting to pack his belongings and getting an open reservation on a moving truck?) and Cleveland beat Buffalo 6-3(in Toilet Bowl I).

Pittsburgh beat Detroit 28-20(Lions are getting better), Cincinnati beat Baltimore 17-14(Bengals are showing they're better than expected), Philadelphia beat Tampa Bay 33-14(Josh Johnson isn't the answer for the Bucs and neither would Josh Freeman...no one can move that pathetic team), the Giants beat Oakland 44-7(The Ray-duhs are the league's worst team. Their quarterback, who can throw the ball 65 yards from his knees can't throw it when he's standing up and their coach might get arrested for assaulting a former assistant. Oakland is truly the worst team in the NFL) and Atlanta pounded San Francisco 45-10(Dang it!).

Denver beat New England 20-17 in overtime(Why, oh why, does the NFL continue with sudden death overtime, when no other football league does? How can you have a timed period of play and have a team lose while not getting a chance on offense? Either start with a series of plays for each team from the 25 or 35, or make the overtime a full 15-minute, non-sudden death period). Seattle beat (the living daylights out of) Jacksonville 41-0, Arizona topped Houston 28-21(The Texans failed to score from a yard out on four straight plays in the closing minute) and Indianapolis beat Tennessee 31-9(Payton Manning threw for 300+ yards for the fifth time in as many games this season).

Week 5 wraps up with this week's Monday Night game on ESPN, the Jets at Miami(I'm a Jets fan this week).

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Wanna see a really neat blog? Go to the Other Blogs of Interest section on the right side of your screen, and click on Chad, Andrea and Calla. They're a really neat couple from Kearney, Nebraska with their cutest of cute two-year old daughter, Calla. Check it out sometime. LOTS of pictures showing life in their family, starring Calla.

They were nice enough to remember me recently, and I just want to return the favor. People like them were the hi-lite of my family's stay in Central Nebraska.

BTW: Have you gotten her hooked on Storm hockey yet?

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Speaking of the Storm, they've started the new season 2-1-0, after sweeping the Indiana Ice over the weekend, winning 5-1 on Friday and 4-3 in overtime on Saturday. Reports I'm hearing indicate they will be improved over last year's 11-win season(I would hope so). How much improved remains to be seen.

I've kept an eye on the message boards over the summer/early fall, to see what the wagging tongues have to say about things there. I was getting the impression that, just because the old owner was out and a new owner, who is pouring money into the franchise like improving your business would be declared illegal tomorrow, the crowds would automatically be huge. Well, Friday drew 1,755 and Saturday 1,802.

Some just don't understand, that repairing the damage that was done in the past(including a HUGE disconnect from their fan base), isn't instantly forgotten and takes a long time to repair. Good luck to Greg Shea and his staff. They'll need it, but I'm betting they can improve things.

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Personal message to jokster:

I'm sorry for the content of my last message, but not for the tone. If you think for one moment that I believe you when you say you were "joking" with your mean, hurtful and gender-based negative comments, then you truly are dillusional. And that's not just my feelings either, others share them as well. Look yourself in the mirror, before you start hating people just because of what they are from birth, not because of who they are now. You need help and I hope you get it.

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Has anyone seen ANY news about the new United Football League? I thought they were supposed to start play this past week? And what's with that statement on their website, saying how they'll locate in markets underserved by pro football, yet they locate in New York and San Francisco? Huh?

Apparently, there's a franchise in Florida, called the Tuskers. At first, I just thought some Nebraska fan named the team, but misspelled Huskers. Someone please tell me just what a Tusker is anyway? Is that an elephant dentist? What is a Tusker?

They supposedly claim to be a "feeder league" for the NFL. Hasn't every professional league that's started in the U.S. after the NFL claim they aren't going to compete with the NFL, then are left to wonder why they've been driven out of business after trying to take the NFL head on?

I heard that cheap seats for the opening game in Orlando were $34. Say what?!?! Ummmm, no. Not for minor league football, no sir.

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Okay, I just checked out the league's website, http://www.ufl-football.com/. How 'bout that headline:

"Forget Tebow, this is Florida Tusker time." The first paragraph of the lead story is "Clearly, everyone isn't interested in the General Hospital soap opera starring Tim Tebow." That is actually the beginning on an article, not a game recap, at Orlando Sentinel's online paper. (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/football/florida-tuskers/orl-shannon-owens-column-ufl-tuskers-101009,0,805589.column?page=1. The writer of the article does make some very good points about taking the league for what it is---at this point--- and not to stack it up against the NFL. No league has ever won that battle. And search around the Sentinel's website---the newspaper, not the New York team of the same name---they do a good job covering the team. And apparently, they are the only newspaper in the country covering the UFL.) Still, I would think a smart league would want to distance themselves from that. (Oh, BTW: The Florida and New York teams both live and train in Orlando. To be fair though, the UFL did want to play this season with four generic teams, travel around the country and play what would amount to an exhibition schedule, but fans demanded teams, nicknames and the like.)

Excuse me, but you want my business? Don't tell me what you aren't, tell me what you are. Reported attendance at the Citrus Bowl, was 11,203.

Instead of their news finding me, I had to go looking for their news. Florida beat New York 35-13 and in the other game between Las Vegas and Redwoods(Northern California, in case you were wondering), your guess is as good as mine. I could not find the score anywhere on the league's website, which hasn't been updated to reflect opening week scores and/or standings.
I had to watch a video hilite reel to learn that Las Vegas won the game 30-17. (The local paper's online website, http://www.lvrj.com/sports not only didn't cover the game, but carries no mention of the team at all. I can find nothing in the online San Francisco newspapers either. The only mention at http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports are ads obviously purchased by the team.

And why does it appear that a game between Florida and Redwoods will look like a scrimmage game? Four teams in the league and two of them wear the same colors? Youch!

There's no season-long schedule to be found anywhere either.

Okay, okay, time for some benefit-of the-doubt thoughts. Their website, in those blue and lime green colors, actually looks good. And, it's easy enough to get around. Now, they just have to get on top of it, and keep it updated.

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Well, that's it for now. Have a good week everyone!