TERRE HAUTE —
It’s niche sports day here at the Tribune-Star, so we’ll start with a test of how much you learned while watching the recent National Hockey League season.
Had it not been for what I’ll be writing about in a few paragraphs, I would be in serious NHL withdrawal (yes, I caught myself watching an NHL Network rerun of Game 7 of the Hurricanes-Oilers final from 2007 a couple of weeks ago). Major League Baseball (and remember, I’m a Cub fan) just doesn’t have the same tempo.
My NHL fandom, however, is strictly situational.
The Bill Wirtz Blackhawks of the 1990s keep me from fully embracing the current Stanley Cup champions (back then, the Hawks would consistently bring in “character” guys, translation of which meant they couldn’t skate or handle the puck but would win all the fights in a three-goal loss), yet I was happy to see them beat the Philadelphia Flyers in the finals — even though, 35 years ago, I was a huge fan of the Broad Street Bullies (Bobbie Clarke, probably because of the scraggly hair and lack of teeth, is still one of my all-time favorite players).
But one of the main things I’ve always liked about the NHL is the names, going all the way back to Gerry Desjardins and Yvan Cournoyer and Henri Richard and Guy LaFleur. If you could pronounce the names, I reasoned, you were a true fan and not just some punk wannabe.
Which brings us to your quiz. All you need to know is how to say the last names of two players and both first and last of a third. Answers a little farther down.
1. Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Toews of the Blackhawks.
2. Conn Smythe Trophy contender Dustin Byfuglien of the Blackhawks.
3. And, just to see if the only hockey you watch is the playoff variety, Tampa Bay Lightning sniper/pest Martin St. Louis.
• The temporary hockey replacement — is World Cup, you may have guessed, and a further comment on how pathetic and dismal the Cubs are is the fact that last Friday I listened to most of the U.S. match against Slovenia on the radio. It’s safe to say that soccer on radio isn’t something I would have considered until a couple of weeks ago, but with British announcers (and their utter lack of political correctness) it’s actually kind of fun.
If the referee didn’t have a particularly good performance that day (and those same announcers were all over him from the get-go), I’m guessing he was no worse than the U.S. defense, by the way. And if we haven’t advanced to the knockout round by beating Algeria (remember, I’m not in the office Tuesday or Wednesday), we have no one but ourselves to blame.
One of the things U.S. soccer lacks, by the way, is a good nickname. If hockey’s strength is its pronunciations, international soccer’s cachet is due to all the team names: the Azzuri (Italy), the Three Lions (England), the Elephants (Ivory Coast), the Black Stars (Ghana), Bufana Bufana (South Africa), El Tri (Mexico), La Furia Rojas (Spain), the All Whites (New Zealand, whose national basketball team, of course, is the Tall Whites), the Indomitable Lions (Cameroon), Les Bleus (France, as in singing les bleus) and my personal favorite, even though they aren’t in World Cup, the Reggae Boyz (Jamaica). If we want to compete, by golly, we need a nickname.
But we probably don’t have one because very few people in the U.S. play soccer for fun. I keep hearing about the upcoming soccer boom in this country because of all the kids in soccer leagues, and I say … well, I say just the opposite. Let’s see, in every other country you have kids playing in the streets and here you have kids being dragged to games by Mom and Dad. Hmmm.
So I’m not rooting against our nicknameless boys, even though they are the 1990s Blackhawks (we’re not skillful, but we try really hard!), but the games I’m looking forward to (“a good watch,” as I heard one team described by the British fellows) involve teams like Paraguay, Argentina, Portugal, Ghana (Jenny has a rooting interest here), Spain and, of course, Brazil. My team to watch a week ago was Cote de’Ivoire, but the Elephants are toast as we speak (thanks for going in the tank, North Korea; hope none of you guys are planning to defect).
• Answers:
1. Taves (rhymes with “saves,” even though he’s not a goalie).
2. BUFF-lin (no, I can’t explain it phonetically).
3. Mar-TAN Sahn-loo-EE.
• Capital of baseball — I have located the baseball capital of the world in terms of most great players per capita, and it isn’t even San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic.
In covering my first Rex game last week, I discovered that outfielder Cooper Smith is from Montgomery, Texas, home of the famous Ransom’s Steakhouse and Saloon frequented often by the Amey family during our recent spring break trip.
Who else is from Montgomery, which is maybe one-third the size of Seelyville, you ask? Well, there’s John Danks, Chicago White Sox lefthander; Andrew Cashner, Chicago Cubs eighth-inning rookie reliever (and hopefully not the next great arm ruined by Larry Rothschild after Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Jeff Samardzija, et al); and Jordan Danks, John’s little brother and future Chisox outfielder, to name three so far.
Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. for comments or news items at (812) 231-4277 or at 1-800-783-8742; by e-mail at andy.amey@tribstar.com; by mail at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN, 47808; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.
Amey Takes Aim
World Cup replaces void opened when Stanley Cup ended
- Amey Takes Aim
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Amey Takes Aim: NHL playoffs to put TVs to good use
If Jenny had known, she probably wouldn’t have bought that TV.
But four or five years ago, my Fathers Day present — for those unfamiliar with Amey family traditions, the Fathers Day one is “let’s get something we all really want and pretend it’s a gift for Dad” — was a 42-inch Vizio. It’s been used even more than the cell phone I never would have bought for myself, or the TomTom that disappeared since Jenny’s smartphone arrived.
And it came with high-def.
I’m not going to insult you by telling you how great high-def is, because to do so would be to imply that you are even farther behind the technological curve than I am. I’m guessing, however, that not all of you have yet discovered what it does for hockey. -
Amey Takes Aim: Can’t bottle the joy of Amey vacations
The first bad sign was the Gatorade bottle.
In the Bataan-Death-March drive to Orlando that got the Amey family spring break vacation off to a bad start, seeing it between lanes of I-24 — as we zipped along at a 100-miles-in-five-hours clip — filled with an ominous yellow liquid was a little bit scary. And although we didn't stop to check for sure, I'm fairly certain I knew about its contents.
And the person stuck in the same traffic jam with us, the one with the existential license plate YMIHR4, couldn’t have asked a more pertinent question.
But, after seeing a lot more of Oak Grove, Ky., than we’d planned, and after enduring more traffic slowdowns in Nashville, we were on our way. Even some rain in the dark in the Smokies didn’t slow us down much, so you would think our first-day troubles were over.
You would be wrong. -
ANDY AMEY: Farewell to basketball
I believe you’ve heard me say before — just about a year ago, perhaps — that a boys high school basketball season that ends with the Tribune-Star in Bankers Life Fieldhouse can’t be considered a bad one, which is why we have a little celebrating to do thanks to the Linton Miners.
Lover of irony that I am, I’ve also got to point out that this season was another branch sprouting from the Wabash Valley’s most legendary coaching tree, that of Joe Hart.
Joe never got much credit for his work at Dugger, but he took Brody Boyd, Clark Golish and the Bulldogs to a state championship game in 2000, and since then three of his former players — Joe Pigg, Clint Swan and now Joey Hart, his son — also have coached teams in the final game of the season.
Joe probably wishes he could take credit for Doc Nash, another down-home type who gave a banjo lesson earlier Saturday in leading Borden past a bigger, more athletic Triton team (banjo lesson is a Howard Sharpism, for you younger readers), but his lineage is still the best I can think of around here. -
AMEY TAKES AIM: Maroons, Rox final a true Classic
I don’t make predictions nearly as often as I used to, but I had one several months ago that was proven correct last week.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Nitpicking aside, West Vigo Hall of Fame selections spot on
I can’t imagine a better first class of inductees into the West Vigo High School Athletics Hall of Fame than the one that was feted Saturday night in the Jim Mann Green Dome.
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Tough bunch of people
I’m getting my warm clothes ready for a trip to Linton this week, and if a few thrills from the Miners, Casey or North Vermillion happen the next couple of weeks, I hope I get to see them.
But high school football is over in Vigo County for the season — as coach Chris Barrett of Terre Haute North said, prematurely — and I’m sadder to see it go than usual.
Walking the sidelines and doing midweek or postgame interviews enables me to meet quite a few of the guys whose names you are about to read, and haven’t been more impressed than I was this fall. What outstanding groups of young men. What a tough, tough bunch of people.
Many know that one of my favorite athletic adjectives appeared consecutively in the previous sentence. -
AMEY TAKES AIM: A weekend to remember with ISU’s ’72 football team
They’re all still pretty hale and hearty, the boys of the fall of 1972 who returned to campus over the weekend to honor their former football coach.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: ISU reunion raises more questions than answers
One of the wrestlers I used to hang out with occasionally claimed to be a pretty good second-story man — although he may have just been talking, since I never saw any of the goods — and it was with him in mind that I was able to get access to the Indiana State Wrestling Alumni Reunion late Saturday night.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Deciding not to ‘vacate’ during ‘vacation’ – & other ventures
Flaunting the law, setting a bad example for the kids in other ways, grooming and acquiring dogs … not a typical Amey family vacation, but an appreciated one just the same.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Huntsville’s Stars, Havoc take back seat to GGS
The second-best thing about the Amey family’s spring-break trip to Huntsville, Ala., is that we left a lot of things on the table to do the next time we’re down there.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Rox well represented on Amey teams
If having the state finals in town makes it a successful girls high school basketball season, then certainly having a team to follow at the state finals makes it a very successful boys high school basketball season . . .
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AMEY TAKES AIM: A feeling of pride, not disappointment, comes from watching Rox play
It’s not going to come as a startling admission that I — once the rest of the local opposition has been eliminated from consideration — am an unabashed fan of whatever team the Wabash Valley sends onward in postseason high school sports competition.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: This private school plays basketball the right way
Any girls high school basketball season that ends with state championship games in Hulman Center is a pretty good one — even though I wished I’d seen Riverton Parke and Seeger knock off a couple of private schools the week before to even the public school-private school battle a little bit.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Even 2 of state’s best once had doubts
Look at them now.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Getting ready for the dance
Terre Haute North got the good news Sunday night — or did it?
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Harrowing path for state hopefuls
The bad news is that the winner of Class 4A Sectional 13 in boys basketball heads northeast instead of southeast for regional play in March — to Hinkle Fieldhouse instead of Seymour as a result of Indiana High School Athletic Association’s changes.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: A superior all-star arrangement
I don’t work on Wednesdays, so I wasn’t able to attend the first Wabash Valley Football Coaches Association draft last week to set up the annual all-star game that will be June 23 this year.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: The biggest & baddest of a holiday classic
There are more things to love about the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic than could fit in this newspaper, but one of this year’s best things was that for an hour or so on Wednesday, it was Justin Paddock’s world and we were just living in it.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Taking note of ISU’s latest football win
The biggest difference I’ve noticed, as I transition from the high school football beat to quasi-official status as the Indiana State football beat writer for a few weeks, is the length of the games.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: IHSAA playoff draw not as bad as it could have been
First reaction to the Indiana sectional football pairings drawn late Sunday by the Indiana High School Athletic Association? It could have been a lot worse.
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ANDY AMEY: Between the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & a hard place
Just in case any of you noticed — with some anticipation — the recent lack of my bylines, I can tell you that your wish (and mine) did come true. It was vacation week for the Amey family.
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Amey Takes Aim: UFC fighter’s bloodines traced back to ISU brothers
As a mild-mannered reporter from a great metropolitan newspaper — or thereabouts — I admit I haven’t paid much attention to the burgeoning mixed martial arts scene.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Predators’ win is music to new fan’s ears
For many, many years, the number of live games televised on WGN has been cited as perhaps the main reason for the popularity of the Chicago Cubs (it’s got to be something besides masochism, right?).
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AMEY TAKES AIM: You’ll be having a good ol’ time on vacation with the Ameys
When one of the first people you meet is Tammy Wynette’s stepdaughter, when you’ve stepped on the feet of people you haven’t met while trying to navigate Ernest Tubbs’ old Silver Eagle tour bus, and when the activities director of your resort is, well, Elvis, you might be vacationing in Nashville.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: The Annual All-Amey basketball teams close out the prep season
The most encouraging boys high school basketball event I’ve attended so far in 2011 has been the Lafayette Semistate a couple of weeks ago.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Family remembers Cheryl Weatherman as caring grandmother
As far as Riley and Keely Davis are concerned, Cheryl Weatherman was simply their grandmother, and a pretty darn good one at that.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Honor to see Turkey Run girls close out memorable career
I don’t know if anyone in this part of the state could actually say they enjoy going to Fort Wayne and back, but I was glad to see the Turkey Run Warriors play one last time during the girls basketball state finals Saturday.
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So many matches, so many favorites
Go ahead, ask me anything about the 224 wrestlers who competed last week at the Indiana state finals — or at least about the 112 wrestlers who survived Saturday’s first round.
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ANDY TAKES AIM: A sportwriters’s lament: Oh, the games we missed
I was already tired of winter by the time that first bitterly cold snap passed through in mid-December, so it’s safe to say the season hasn’t grown on me.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Time of the season for teams to tough it out
In the last month or so I figure I’ve seen at least four boys high school basketball teams with legitimate state-championship dreams as the season heads into its dog days.
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