Where the hell is Portland State playing?

Watching the Griz game last night, I noticed that even though they were on the road against Portland State, they weren't playing at the familiar PGE park. What the heck is going on I thought, it looks like they're playing on a high school field.

(I also wondered why Montana's uniforms looked so bad and tried to adjust the TV, then I realized that's just normal)

Come to find out, Portland State is actually playing at a high school field. PGE Park is getting renovated for the upcoming MLS team it will be hosting (it will be nice to have the Sounders beat them again and again), and Portland State had to move their football games to Hillsboro stadium, 20 miles from downtown. It has a capacity of over 7,000 and hosts high school and lower division college games. It was also built in 1999.

I saw one main grandstand, one endzone stand and a bunch of kids in the adjacent field playing football while the game was going on. It was really like a high school game!

Oh, and the Griz won on a last second field goal and are tied with EWU for first place in the Big Sky Conference. Boo.

The Dam Cup

Eastern Washington University and Portland State University are entering the 2010-2011 sporting year with a new rivalry. The winner gets The Dam Cup.

The Cup will cover five sports and will help push the rivalry between Washington and Oregon through the Big Sky Conference.

The five sports competing are football, volleyball, women’s soccer, women’s basketball and men’s basketball.

The so-named rivalry refers to the four dams linking Oregon and Washington that one passes on the 339-mile drive from the Portland State campus to the Eastern Washington campus.

Located along the Columbia River, they are Bonneville Dam, The Dalles Dam, The John Day Dam and the McNary Dam.

The purpose of the Dam Cup is to create a rivalry between Portland State University and Eastern Washington University and provide a sense of pride between alumni in the Portland and Spokane areas. Other goals include increasing attendance at events between both schools and building school spirit among each institutions' student body.

The winner of the Dam Cup will possess The Dam Trophy acknowledging the achievement for the following year. "It has always been enjoyable when we beat Eastern Washington," said Portland State Director of Athletics Torre Chisholm. "This should make it even better."

The Dam Cup is based on a point system. Each game played in the five sports between the two schools has a point value. Points are only rewarded for regular season contests. The annual football game is worth four points, the women’s soccer match is worth one point, each women’s volleyball match is worth two points for a total of four points possible, and each men's and women’s basketball game is worth two points for a total of four points possible in each sport.

The total points possible are 17 which means that to win the cup a school would need to win at least 9 points.

Here are the Dam Cup events:

Soccer - Oct. 8 @ PSU
Volleyball - Oct. 9 @ PSU; Nov. 6 @ EWU
Football - Oct. 30 @ PSU
Men's Basketball - Jan. 8 @ PSU; Jan. 27 @ EWU
Women' Basketball - Jan. 8 @ EWU; Jan. 27 @ PSU

Let's GO EAGLES!!!!

Eastern football to play at Qwest in Seattle

CHENEY, WA. -- The Eastern Washington University football team will play five home games in the 2009 season, and one of them will take place across the Cascade Mountains on Halloween Day.
The Eagles will host Portland State on Oct. 31 in a Big Sky Conference game that begins at 1 p.m. at Qwest Field in Seattle. It’s believed to be the first time in Eastern’s 100-year football history that it has played a game in Seattle. The Eagles will play their first game in the Puget Sound area since Oct. 30, 1982, when Eastern won at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma.

October 31st, you can bet your socks that the Northern Rangers will be at that game. We'll blog and vlog about it and even wear our red swim caps to the game. Go Eagles!

Eastern Washington Men's Basketball: We're in trouble

The Eagles' season is now in question after a 63-50 shellacking to Montana tonight at Reese Court in Cheney, Wash. The Grizzlies led by as many as 25 points on three separate occasions and pretty much led the entire way.

Man... I hate these guys. I just heard they finally got 8-tracks in Missoula. Simply a stunning town.

But anyways, Anthony Johnson of Montana led all scorers with 21 points, and the guy is averaging 23 points per game. Meanwhile for the Eagles, Benny Valentine was a star again with 15 points and pulled the Eagles within 11 (61-50) thanks to a three-pointer as 49.3 seconds were left on the clock (Let me be sarcastic in saying woo hoo).

While that may not seem impressive, EWU was down 57-32 before rattling off 15 consecutive points including Valentine's three.

The Eagles drop to 9-10 on the season and 3-4 in the conference. Their big loss to Montana is against a team that is just fourth in the Big Sky with a 10-9 overall record and 4-3 conference record. Crap, that's not a good sign.

Oh and Saturday they play the team at the top of the standings, Portland State, who's 14-5 and 5-1 in the conference. They also defeated Gonzaga earlier this season in a huge upset at the MAC. Better hope they get loss on the way to Reese Court on Friday.

Okay that was a joke, but the Eagles better bring their A-game.

Best and Worst of Big Sky Helmets

I found this site while cruising around the Internet tonight. It showed all of the football helmets used in the Big Sky Confrence. But the coolest part was that it showed the past helmets as well.

For the link CLICK HERE.

But let me tell you about some of my favorites.

First off, I think the BEST helmet would go to the Idaho State Bengals of 1962.

I love the way the helmet logo is the state shape, and then it says STATE. I think that is crisp, clean and very original.

The SECOND BEST helmet would go to the Portland State Vikings of 1999-2001.

The white and green really flow together and the viking is futuristic and badass.

The THIRD BEST helmet has to go to (I can't believe I am going to write this) but the Montana Grizzlies of 1988-1995.Now stay with me for a moment. The graphic doesn't do the colors justice. The real colors of the helmet were gold paint, with a copper logo and a silver facemask. Here's why:

The University of Montana's official colors have for many years been silver, copper, and gold (in recognition of the state's mining industry), but a set of "spirit colors" which are used by the school's athletic teams was adopted in about 1996; these are maroon, silver, and gold.

Any school that uses copper in its scheme can't be that bad right? Right? Ok, I like their helmet, still not their school.

The U of M actually brought back the uniforms this season for their home game against Montana State. The uniforms are terribly ugly, but the helmets are cool.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love stuff from random schools. I own many random college t-shirts, sweatshirts and hats simply because they look original. That is why the Griz make the list. Based on appearance alone.

HONORABLE MENTION: The Eastern Washington Eagles of 2000-present.

The red is great, the logo is great, but just misses the top 3.


Which leads me to the top 3 WORST helmets in the history of the Big Sky teams.

The WORST helmet goes to the Idaho State Bengals of 1992-1996.

Yes, Idaho State had the coolest and the ugliest helmets over the years. They also have had 22 helmets since 1960. PICK ONE ALREADY!!!

But I don't like this helmet because they stole the University of Miami "U" and tried to jam it in there with the "IS". WAY too much going on.

The SECOND worst helmet goes to the Sacramento State Hornets of 2001.

Yeah. The helmet says SAC on it. Nice.

And finally, the THIRD worst helmet goes to the Montana State Bobcats of 1961.

Look closely at this helmet. It looks like a knock off of the University of Michigan. I see that the front lines make an "M", for Montana. But seriously? Who thought that was a good design?

Honorable mention: The Weber State Wildcats of 1980-1996.

Purple and white. Bad. Giant "W" with an arrow pointing forward. Bad. Used it for 16 years. Bad.

And that is my top 3 best and worst of football helmets of the teams in the Big Sky history.

Gonzaga "Cougs" It

What the hell happened?

A few days after losing to No. 2 UConn, Gonzaga was looking at a tune-up, feel good home game against Portland State.

Portland State of the Big Sky Conference, Portland State that had trouble getting to the arena because of road conditions, unranked Portland State.

And the Zags laid a big, fatty 77-70 loss nugget of an egg game.

While I'll give the Vikings credit, they played Washington very tough this year and have one of the better college basketball players in the country in Jeremiah Dominguez.

But Gonzaga came out flat, a fact not lost by the usual home-town announcers on KHQ. You could tell their energy level was not very high and they seemed to be suffering from "post-traumatic big game syndrome."

Either way in one evening the Bulldogs have gone from Final Four possibility to a team that now has a lot of questions. They can't put it in cruise control for the rest of the season.

As for Portland State, I'm dreading the day when they come into Reese Court to play EWU.

What's going on in the world of Hoops

It feels like its 1984 again. Not only have I gained so much weight from blogging that my basketball shorts are now "short shorts" but the Lakers and Celtics are the two best teams in the NBA. And it's not even close, it's those two teams beating the brains out of everyone else and then there's Lebron moonlighting with the Cavaliers.

Sound familar? Sound like the exact same conditions that a certain Bulls dynasty came to be? Hmmmm.

And how are our newly beloved Portland Trailblazers doing? Well let's take a look.

They're 15-10 so far this season, coming off of a embarrassing loss to the lowly LA Clippers, who picked a perfect time to suck - with the Lakers being so dominant there's no way anyone will pay attention to the JV LA squad.

Washington product Brandon Roy is doing his thing, averaging 22 points per game and five rebounds. While the big guy that everyone expects to be the savior of the Rose City is averaging eight points and eight rebounds a game.

Then there's LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Fernandez - they've been having what you might call a pretty good season. Averaging 17 and 11 points respectively. It seems that the rise of the Portland Trailblazers might go a little quicker than expected.

In the world of college basketball, we've got a mixed bag.

Gonzaga gets its first defeat of the season and my prediction of a possible No. 1 ranking goes to hell.

Washington State defeats Montana State in Seattle after being blown out by Gonzaga last week. Good for them, nothing says NCAA Tournament like beating a Big Sky team.

At least they blew out the Big Sky team they were playing, Washington barely squeaked by Portland State. They seem to have trouble with teams for the Rose City as early in the year they lost to the University of Portland (of the WCC).

Now the Huskies will play Eastern Washington, who is coming off of a vacation in Hawaii where they lost by 20 points to the Warriors. No matter though as they're still one of the pleasant suprises in college basketball this year. This will be a good test against the Huskies, who could be either really good this year, or disappointing.

Should I talk about the Thunder? Nah, didn't think so.

I believe that school is just South of North

OK. OK. I'll admit it. I've been watching basketball every chance I get. But perhaps the best thing about the tournament has been the radio commercials.

There is one, that makes fun sports fans who jump on a bandwagon and have no idea where there school is located.

Such schools include: Gonzaga, Drake, Marquette, Xavier, American, etc.

I had my own run in with such a bandwagon fan the other day. He was walking around the UNL campus sporting his Gonzaga hat. I asked him why the Gonzaga hat? (Cause in this state if your hat isn't red and doesn't sport a white "N" on it, you are a minority)

He said he was a big Gonzaga fan. So I (being the smartass I am) followed up with, "Do you know where Gonzaga is?"

The kid looked at me as if I had just asked him where his nose was on his face. "It's in Northern California." He snapped back.

"Wrong," I say. "Spokane, Washington."

And to that, he came back with perhaps the most overused comeback of all time, "Yeah, well your mom knows where that is."

Worst. Comeback. EVER.

So before you pick the team you're going to root for during all of March Madness, at least make sure you know where they are located.

On a side note, I did not know that Portland State University is the largest, public university in Oregon until yesterday.