Salute to NCAA college sports (1 of 3)

The six athletes pictured are 1) Amy Boswell, women's volleyball, BYU; 2) Alex Lyon (the goaltender), men's hockey, Yale; 3) Nadia Podo (in white), women's lacrosse, Towson; 4) Jordan Sheffield, baseball, Vanderbilt; 5) Sophina DeJesus, gymnastics, UCLA; 6) Joergen Brath (from Norway), men's skiing, University of Utah

March Madness Finale: NCAA Tourney Teams with Women's Gymnastics Programs

We conclude our five entries dedicated to the NCAA Tournament, also known as March Madness, with a look at ten schools who made the Big Dance that also happen to have women's gymnastics programs. In total, 30 schools of the men's basketball field have women's gymnastics team. Of the ten teams listed here, only three are still in the tournament:

1) Florida Gators * (pictured top: Florida gymnast Kytra Hunter. Amazingly enough, the Gators are ranked number one in both sports)

2) Nebraska Cornhuskers (The team's mascot Lil' Red is pictured center)

3) Western Michigan Broncos ^ (We couldn't find an image we could use of the basketball team, so we went with an image of the Broncos' hockey goalie Lukas Hafner instead).

4) Ohio State Buckeyes. ^

5) Arizona State Sun Devils

6) UNC Tar Heels

7) Michigan State Spartans *^

8) Michigan Wolverines *^

9) Oklahoma Sooners (The Sooners have a solid chance of winning the NCAAs in gymnastics)

10) North Carolina State Wolfpack.

*-Teams still in the NCAA Tournament

^- Teams that also have men's hockey programs

http://www.collegegymfans.com

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/

Kudos to UNC on ACC Men's Lacrosse Title

The University of North Carolina (UNC) won its first ACC men's lacrosse title since 1996 when the Tar Heels held their home turf in a 16-13 win over the University of Virginia.

According to goheels.com, the game was played in front of 4,001 fans in Chapel Hill, NC, and both the 'Heels and the Cavaliers had to deal with the proverbial elements of mother nature as the game was played in the rain.

For the 'Heels, Davey Emala and Chad Tutton scored seven goals each. Their teammate Marcus Helman (pictured center, we believe) was named as the outstanding ACC Tournament Player.  To play UVa, the 'Heels first had to defeat their arch rivals Duke; Virginia had to upset Maryland.

For the Cavs, Matt White scored seven goals.

'Teels goalie Kieran Burke had 17 saves.

The 'Heels trailed 5-3 after the first quarter, but they took a 10-7 lead by half-time.

UNC now goes to 12-3 and looks forward to the NCAA tournament, but due to their disappointing finish the Cavs at 7-8 are not going to the tournament, a rarity for the school in Charlottesville, Va., for the sport.

SIDEBAR ONE: We saw that Link-TV, a non-profit progressive television outlet in America thanked Rick in Floyd, Va., for his support; we want to thank Rick too.....for no particular reason.

SIDEBAR TWO: Today's sponsors are Doomsday Dating, which we heard about from a female stand-up comedian from Winston-Salem, NC; she insisted she wasn't kidding about the existence of this Davidian singles group, and yes they do really exist!

SIDEBAR THREE: Since we completely neglected the Yale Bulldogs for the team's first ever men's hockey title as captain Andrew Miller lead his team in a 4-0 upset win over their cross-town New Haven, Conn., rival the Quinnipiac Bobcats....yes, we think that must be the NCAA's most difficult to spell school as well...at the Frozen Four in Pittsburgh, but we are pointing it out now.

SIDEBAR FOUR: Tomorrow, we kick off Soccer Week (pardon the pun), and as a teaser, we will issue a SPOILER ALERT to the six people in America who were taping the English Premiere League game between two lower-ranking teams Aston Villa and Sunderland (perhaps Rick from Floyd, Va., was one of them). Aston Villa really kicked butt by a 6-1 score today.

http://www.goheels.com

http://www.dailytarheel.com

http://www.doomsdaydating.com

http://www.linktv.org

http://www.yalebulldogs.com

http://www.visitfloyd.org

http://www.visitchapelhill.org

Best Tweets of the Night

Greetings from Coffin Gulch, Nebraska (this is a fictional town in the cartoon version of the famed 'French cowboy' Lucky Luke, and no we are not in Nebraska).

Here is a look at some nifty tweets from Saturday night. We should point that in no way are we suggesting that Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is a far left radical like Angela Davis (pictured here), in fact, this is a center-left blog. And, our views on gun control are likely to cost us readers in Coffin Gulch.

Here are a rundown of the tweets, circa 6:00 p.m. in Coffin Gulch, Nebraska (for the sake of clarity full names are given):

1) PSU Gymnastics @ PennStWGym (Penn State Women's Gymnastics): Madison Merrian hit her foot hard on the bar we'll see how she is (Merrian had a 9.8 earlier in the meet on vault in a home meet versus Minnesota, Kent State and Towson).

2) Donna Brazile @donnabrazile: "As a black woman, we have gone through so much with our hair. So, let it roll. Curl it or wear it natural: What you say?"

3) Shannon Wheeler @MuchCoffee (Mr. Wheeler is a cartoonist in Portland, Ore.): "Happy gun day."

4) Trample by Turtles @tbtduluth (TBT is a popular folk, rock band): "I think we should spend winters in AZ."

5) Huffington Post @HuffingtonPost: "Booboo the grizzly bear cub is safe and sound." (Yeah, we are wondering about the details ourselves!)

6) VCU Ram Nation @VCURamNation (VCU is a college basketball team in Richmond, Va., they were winning by a large margin over JMU tonight in men's basketball): "Juvonte Reddic with another bucket in the paint.

7) Michigan Hockey @umichhockey: The Lakers tie it up with just over a minute left in the first period 1-1. (Michigan's men's hockey team is on the road tonight @ Lake Superior State, the Wolverines beat the Lakers 6-4 on Friday night).

http://www.collegegymfans.com

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.

Weekend Road Trip- Connecticut to Colorado (5 of 20)

Today, we continue our time-consuming series on road trips across les etats unis (French for USA) by looking at the time it would take one to get from New Haven, Conn., 06510 to Colorado Spring, Colo. 80903. As one might expect, it is a long drive.

We chose these two zip codes because both Yale University in New Haven and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs have outstanding men's hockey programs (we know Yale has a women's hockey program too, alas we didn't get to see if that sport was offered at AFU).

Yale actually defeated Air Force in a NCAA tournament game that went to overtime. But, the Bulldogs fell in the final eight. Tonight, Minn-Duluth and Notre Dame face off in the Frozen Four, followed by the University of North Dakota's game with Michigan. The event is taking place today in St. Paul, Minn.

Both schools also have women's gymnastics teams, a sport that I am a huge fan of. We found out that for the Bulldogs' gym team, captain Sherry Yang from Maryland had a 9.3 on vault at a meet at Towson University in here home state on March 11. The team also has two (we presume twin) sisters from Singapoer in Nicole and Tabitha Tay, both of whom are freshman.

As for the Falcons' women's gym team, senior Brittany Dutton, a 5-1 gymnast from Georgia, has been among the stand-out gymnasts as she competed in NCAA regionals in Denver. Her teammate Linnaea Hance has a pet cornsnake! And, her fellow Falcon Jen Larsen likes "Scooby Doo," a cartoon which is a year older than me (we believe in debuted in 1969).

As for the hockey teams, Jimmy Martin, a senior from St. Louis who was captain for the Bulldogs had an outstanding year as did Falcons' stand-out Jacques Lamoureux from North Dakota who amazingly enough cites the Edmonton Oilers as his favorite team (a member of the U.S. military roots for a Canadian hockey team!).

We found out the mileage by checking out the distance from Ibiza Restaurant in New Haven, a Spanish diner that offers chipirones, baby squid braised on its own ink, and Jack Quinn's Irish Ale House and Pub in Colorado Springs which offers Irish strout beef crostini.

We concluded that the distance was:

A) 26 hours

B) 28 hours

C) 30 hours

D) 32 hours

The answer to last week's question was A). Durham, NH, and Norman, Okl., would amount to a 28 hour drive presuming one does not stop at a Burger King in Kentucky along the way.

Road Trips USA (4 of 20) New Hampshire to Oklahoma

Greetings to those of you enjoying your well-deserved lunch hours in Long Beach, Calif.

Today, we continue our either much-loved or much-disdained Road Trips USA series of entries as look at how far the women's gymnastics team from The University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH, will have to travel for their 'regional' meet at The University of Oklahoma in Norman, Ok.

But, rather than examining the exact distances between the two campuses which are quite far away, we are going to go with the distance between Ozzie's Diner on 1700 Lexington Ave. in Norman, Ok., and Young's Restaurant/Coffee Shop on 48 Main Street in Durham, NH.

We almost went with the Pink Cadillac Diner in Rochester, NH, since we love the Pink Cadillac Diner in Natural Bridge, Va. (we presume they have no other connections), but we decided it was only fair to stick to the zip codes in question.

Is the answer:

A) 28 hours even

B) 28 hours and 20 minutes

C) 28 hours and 50 minutes

D) 29 hours and 35 minutes

The UNH Wildcats are also very competive in men's hcokey as they got to the Final-8 before losing to Minnesota-Duluth over the weekend.

Of course, those of us here in ACC country are more familiar with Durham, NC, where Duke University is. The Blue Devils terminated their women's gymnastics program many years ago. If you want a precise answer, ask Google.

In our last entry in this series, we asked how far Durham, NC, was from Tucson, Az. The answer was A) 32 hours even!