TERRE HAUTE —
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?).
I’m not here to argue that point today, only to say that seeing a team live can have an even greater effect.
Right now, after seeing them live a little over three weeks ago, I’m pumped that the Nashville Predators have won their first playoff series ever.
As I’ve mentioned before, I rooted for the Preds all season knowing the family would be at that April 5 game, wanting it to have some playoff-style intensity. Since then we’ve gotten a call at home from the Nashville ticket office hoping we’d enjoyed the game and asking us if we needed any playoff tickets — that’s got to be a small-town hockey thing, because we’ve never gotten callbacks after any major league baseball teams we’ve seen — and I rushed home from work Friday night knowing the Preds and the Anaheim Ducks would finally be a national television game.
The two players I told JoJo to watch three weeks ago were defenseman Shea Ward, with his booming slap shot, and Jordin Tootoo (can you guess his number?) because, I told her, he was an “agitator.”
“What’s an agitator?” she asked. “Just watch,” I said.
It was too late for her to be awake when I got home Friday night, Preds teetering on the edge of a loss that would put them down 3-2 in the seven-game series, but I should have gotten her up. Ward ripped one from the blue line with 36 seconds left in regulation time that sent the game to overtime, and less than two minutes into the extra period Tootoo bolted down the ice, ripped two shots at the Ducks’ goalie, then got the rebound of the second one and passed it to Jerred Smithson for the game-winning goal.
It was Smithson’s first goal since January — he had a whopping five during the regular season — and to prove it was no fluke, Tootoo assisted on two goals in the series-winning game on Sunday, with Nick Spaling — another player not known for his offensive prowess — getting both goals.
Understand that I’m not a diehard fan of any hockey team. I’m sentimentally drawn to underdogs (I own an Edmonton Oilers sweatshirt — although that’s more because Gretzky used to play there and because the shirt was on sale — and I liked the Tampa Bay Lightning even before Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis and Steven Stamkos got there), teams that need fans desperately (you go, Phoenix Coyotes) and teams with players I love to watch (my ideal Cup final right now would be Vancouver, with the Sedins, or Detroit, with Pavel Datsyuk, against the Capitals with Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin). I also like the Maple Leafs, because they’re from Toronto.
My former ideal finals pairing of Los Angeles vs. Pittsburgh has been put on hold because of injuries to Anze Kopitar and Evgeni Malkin (if you’re counting, my favorite international team is apparently the Russians). And I prefer the Western Conference, maybe because its games are usually still on when I get home from work.
But the Preds satisfy the first two criteria to a degree, since they’re enjoying the most postseason success they’ve ever had right now and since Nashville isn’t exactly a hockey hotbed, and they provided the Amey family with a fun night. If they’re not exactly dazzling offensively (Sergei Kostitsyn might be their only Russian), they’ve at least got Tootoo and his line to get in opponents’ faces, knock people into the boards and get some goals they’re not supposed to get. So I won’t be rooting against them for awhile.
Now, back to the original premise. If your argument is that there were enough other factors to make me enjoy the Preds besides the visit to Smashville earlier this month, it would be a valid one.
But I have an ace in the hole, as it were. I’ll prove my point with something else that’s happened in the last 13 months.
You probably don’t remember the Ameys’ 2010 spring break trip by now, but it was to central Texas, and we saw the Giants play the Astros.
No, I’m not talking about the World Series. I’m talking about the fact that for the last half of last season, I started paying lots of attention, and enjoying the success of, the Astros!
I’ve never met an Astros fan, and why would I? A team so dull it makes the Preds a thrill-a-minute proposition, a team with the second-worst uniform colors in baseball (sorry, Padres), a team that hasn’t had an exciting player since Cesar Cedeno … I’m rooting for them, hoping Clint Barmes gets back in the lineup soon and that Brett Wallace and Chris Johnson are baseball’s next great one-two punch.
I rest my case.
Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. 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
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Discussion
AMEY TAKES AIM: Predators’ win is music to new fan’s ears
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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.
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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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