On To State! On To Green Bay?

The WIAA Board of Control voted yesterday to move the boys and girls high school basketball state tournaments to the Resch Center in Green Bay, perhaps as soon as next season. The UW had said it could not guarantee accesss to the Kohl Center in some future years becuase of conflicts with Badger hockey and the WIAA had no interest in moving to the Alliant Energy Center or the UW-Field House. Let's face it...it also gave the the WIAA a way to negotiate a better deal on concessions, parking, hotel rooms and all of the other streams of revenue a state tournament can bring. I don't blame them...they are trying to fund all of the other state tournaments that the organization runs and the Resch Center is a nice facility. I have no doubt that in future years fans will come to embrace a new tradition...but for old time fans and some schools with strong basketball programs, a spring trip to Madison was always something to look forward to...a reward at the end of a long winter...that change will take some getting used to.

There are no givens at tournament time...it's win or go home. The DC Everest hockey team found that awful truth to be the case last night as they were upset by the Lakeland T-Birds 3-2. Despite the best regular season maybe ever...the Evergeens are left with the bitter taste of "what if" as they head into the offseason. Wausau East, Stevens Point , SP Pacelli and Marshfield also saw their hockey season come to an end last night.

There are some interesting games set up for next Tuesday. Wausau West faces Mosinee at Marathon Park (that should be a dandy) and two old rivals will square off up in the Dome as lakeland travels to Northland Pines.

Former New York Met and Montral Expo catcher Gary Carter passed away yesterday from a maligant brain tumor.  He was only 57. I got his autograph at the 1975 Major League all-star game in Milwaukee. Later he broke my heart with the game winning hit in Game Six of the 1986 World Series (the Buckner game) as his Mets beat my Red Sox.

 We talked about this on WIFC this morning...here is The Name Game by Shirley Ellis

Songs of The day  (from my I-pod)

The Immigrant Song-Led Zeppelin (1970) Robert Plant wrote it during their tour of Iceland...released on the their 3rd album...John Bonham crushes the skins again!

Immigration Man-David Crosby/Graham Nash (1972) a Nash tune from their first duo Lp and based on Nash's treatment at the Immigration center in New York. Here is a live version featuring most of "The Section" LA's best studio muscians of the 70's