NCAA March Madness and a few related trails

Unfortunately I do have classes to teach this coming Thursday afternoon (okay, I'm actually blessed to have the privilege of teaching these classes, its not really unfortunate but...) so I will miss a little bit of the beginning of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament aka "March Madness."

I have two standard favorites - the Duke Blue Devils because I've always just liked them and Coach K, as well as the Gonzaga Bulldogs, because they are one of my alma mater's. However, while I hope that they both do well, I think it will be tough for either of them to win more than one game in the tournament and I doubt if either of them will make it to the Sweet 16. The Zags will face a very stiff challenge from Indiana, though that should be a great contest. Duke should be okay to take out VCU in the opening round, but I don't like their chances against Pittsburgh. If Gonzaga does manage to beat Indiana, it would be awesome for them to get "revenge" against UCLA in the second round. And if all went really well for both teams, they would actually play each other in the Sweet 16. Now that would be great!!!

Speaking of playoff basketball, it would be great to see the Prairie Christian Academy Sabres men's basketball team win provincials this coming weekend in Edmonton. They have been the top-ranked team the whole season (now that's pressure!) and so hopefully they will win at all for PCA for the second time in school history. The first time was in 1999 when my great friend, Stan Parker, was the PCA Sabres coach and my soon-to-be-brother-in-law, Jon Hunt, was one of many fine players on that team, including Ryan Reed, Nico Jol, Andrew Peters, etc, etc.

Which leads to another related trail... The zone championship game in 1999 was the BEST event ever in the Rick Down Athletic Centre (previously known as the Sportsplex). The Sabres defeated Siksika 108-100 in an incredible championship game and yours truly was running the clock and the scoresheet for that fantastic match!!! However, in just less than 8 weeks, that will become the SECOND BEST event in the RDAC... :-)

And one last related trail... speaking of the Rick Down Athletic Centre, check out my colleague Michael Pahl's recent blog on "being a grandpa." It is very touching... and shows a side of Professor Pahl that students probably don't often see/hear but is indeed his true heart and character.