Friday Night Tweets: Terror Suspect and Major Storms

With so much chaos going on in Boston and the fact that a major rain storm struck our mid-Atlantic part of the country from Greensboro, NC, to Philadelphia, which got particularly nasty in Washington, DC, Baltimore and Annapolis (Maryland), we were more or less stuck inside.

We should point that image one, a recreational boat in Smith Mountain Lake, Va., (near Roanoke) was used because the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev, a son of Chechnyan immigrants, was hiding inside one such boat. The second image is because it is raining in Baltimore, where major league baseball's Baltimore Orioles play. And, the third image is for the four victims of the bombing and police shoot-out. Boston University student Lingzi Lu (her name has also been spelled Lu Lingzi) was among the three killed in Monday's blast.

So, here is a look at some of the more interesting tweets we saw tonight as a real-life episode of "The Fugitive" unfolded before our very eyes. Some tweets have been reworded to avoid confusion:

1) Boston Globe News @GlobeMetro: BREAKING NEWS: Police have taken the cover off the boat; the man believed to be the Marathon bombing suspect is inside.

2) Capital Weather Gang @capitalweather: "Wow, a gust of 70 mph clocked near Charles Co., MD, as storms roared thru.

3) Will Wheaton @Wilw: New York Post reporting, CNN confirming: D.B. Cooper is in the boat (not to point out the obvious, but this is a joke)

4) Boston College @BostonCollege: "Also thanks to all students and parents who tweeted appreciation. It did not go unnoticed."

5) Politico @politico: "Injured man (Jeff Bauman) who helped ID Boston suspects is uninsured."

6) Jake Updegraff @OnAirJake: "Poor Dzhokar Tsarnaev, apparently he never watched Disney movies or any movies at all. The bad guy always loses."

7) The Boston Globe @BostonGlobe: "BREAKING NEWS: Police appear to be preparing a robot with a camera to approach the boat."

8) Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof: "And our awareness of geography is such that Czech Republic has to explain that it's not Chechnya." (Chechnya is a part of Russia)

9) Lucas McNelly @lmnelly: "This is generally the part of the story where I start wondering if I could have gotten away."

10) The Fix @TheFix ("Washington Post" political reporter Chris Cillizza): "Serious Q: More reporters or more cops on the scene in Watertown?"

Bonus Picture to Fill Space- Big Trout

Wow! We have gotten a tad behind with blogging, so we will dedicate this entry to our outdoors equivalent, which is fishing (ok, so this could cause for debate).

This photo of man catching a big trout was taken somewhere in Michigan (we believe).

On Saturday, in Charleston, WVa., there will be a kids' fishing rodeo at Coonskin Park from 9:00 a.m.-noon; those who are interested can call (304) 341-8000 for more information. The participating children must be between 3-10 years old, from what we gather.

SIDEBAR ONE: Kudos to Boston College for winning the NCAA men's hockey title with a 4-1 win over Ferris State (Mich); the title game was played in Tampa, Fla.- of all places. For the winning Eagles, Steven Whitney scored two goals while goalie Parker Milner made 33 saves. The Eagles ended their season with a 19-game winning streak. The last team they lost to was Maine in a road game on Jan. 21.

SIDEBAR TWO: Additional congratulations are in order to the 12 NCAA Women's College Gymnastics teams which advanced to the NCAA finals in Duluth, Georgia, which get underway in one week. Here is a partial list of the qualifying teams, the other six will be listed on our sister blog: "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Times:"

Raleigh Regionals: 1) Florida 2) Ohio State; Fayetville, Ark., Regionals: 1. UCLA
2. Arkansas; Salt Lake City Regionals: 1. Utah 2. Nebraska

The Other Sweet 16- the NCAA Hockey Tournament

We had problems finding suitable images for college hockey teams, so we just went with Peter Puck, the cartoon character who was featured on NBC broadcasts of NHL games when I was a kid in 1970s. Amazingly enough, the games were broadcast in Roanoke, Va., in those days, but they were preempted in many Southern markets. Ironically, today there are several NHL teams south of the Mason-Dixon line, including the Carolina Hurricanes, the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers.

But, our focus today is on NCAA college hockey, a sport I have just started to try and follow in recent years. One thing that is confusing about college hockey is the conference alignment, the major conferences include the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA), which includes several Big 10 teams, including Michigan and Michigan State, two teams which also made the NCAA field of 16, and the Hockey East Conference, which includes the number-one team in the country, Boston College.

In total, five CCHA schools made the field, including Ferris State (Grand Rapids, Mich.), Miami (Ohio) and Western Michigan, which actually upset Michigan for the conference tournament title. There are four schools from the Hockey East Conference; the other three that are in the field are Boston University, Maine and Mass-Lowell.

On Saturday, in a game that will be broadcast on ESPN-U, the Boston College Eagles will face another team with a bird nickname as they face the Air Force Falcons, a team that is ranked 16th in the country.

That game will take place in Boston College's home state as the two teams are in the Worcester, Mass.-region. The other game in that region pits the defending national championship Minnesota-Duluth against Maine.

The winner of the Worcester-regional will then face the winner of the St. Paul, Minn.-region for the Frozen Four, which takes place in (of all places) Tampa, Fla., starting on April 5th.

In the St. Paul-region, Minnesota will face Boston University, and Western Michigan will face North Dakota.

Though I am not an expert on college hockey, by any stretch, I am going to 'predict' that the Frozen Four will be between Boston College and Minnesota, and the other game will be between Miami (Ohio) and Denver University.

We will have more coverage of the other regionals on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Times."

Boston College won its third straight Hockey East Conference title in the conference tournament in Boston when they beat Maine 4-1; the two games could meet in the quarter-finals if the Black Bears upset Minn-Duluth. For BC, the team got two goals from freshman Johnny Gaudreau (Carneys Point, NJ) and goal-tender Parker Milner, a junior (Pittsburgh, Pa.) made 41 saves.

The Falcons won its fifth Atlantic Hockey Association Conference title in six years thanks to senior Paul Weisgarber (Fargo, N. Dak.) and sophomore goal-tender Jason Torf (Hermosa Beach, Calif.).

Boston College has won two hockey titles in recent years (2008 and 2010).

It should be an amazing journey to the Frozen Four, irregardless of which team wins.

More ACC Mascots

Well, we didn't want to snub anybody even though both Boston College and Wake Forest (pictured here) are already out of the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, NC.

With the exception of Duke, this has actually been a down year for North Carolina's men college basketball teams. Western Carolina, North Carolina A & T and High Point University got to the semi-finals of their respective conferences, but alas all three teams fell short.

Appalachian State in Boone, NC, made it to the Southern Conference finals but they lost to Wooford University, which is located in Spartanburg, SC, at the conference tourney in Charlotte.

My friend Olaf Jacobsson (psedonymn) from Wilmington, NC, is an uber-Tarheel fan, but even he thinks that the very best they can do is beat Georgia Tech tonight (tipoff at 7:00 pm).