Spokane Shock Weekly Update

Just wanted to cheer everyone up with that photo.

With the preseason game still a couple weeks away, the majority of posts for the Spokane Shock have been about two of their teams named to the af2 all-time list. The 2006 and 2008 squads, both teams made it to the championship game with the latter losing it in a heartbreaker.

The 2006 squad which won the Arena Cup was named No. 3 all time while the 2008 team was named No. 9. Now I don't want to ruffle any feathers here but after watching both teams first hand I've got to say that I think the No. 9 team probably had more talent.

Obviously you can't rank them higher because they didn't win an Arena Cup (@#%^$* two point conversions), but if you look at last years roster, whoo boy.

And guess what, most of them are coming back for next year. Except for Roshawn Marshall, who will be going to the rival Boise Burn. That's a shame because I'm really going to miss that guy's beard. It was epic.

The Shock also picked up a quarterback that is sure to lead them to a championship because he shares the same first name with Casey and the same last name as me. That's right, say hello to the official quarterback of Just South of North, Casey Hansen.

Spokane Shock Weekly Update: it's gametime!

Remember all the fuss made about the start time during the World Series last year? It was mostly from east coasters who were getting sick of staying up past midnight to watch playoff baseball, causing me to laugh at them because when you live on the west coast you really don't have to worry about start time of games since we're three hours behind everyone else.

Meaning that when you wake up in the morning on Sunday during the NFL season, you only have to wait until 10 a.m. for the first round of games to start as opposed to 1 p.m. on the east coast, which stinks because that's plenty of time for your significant other to drop the "honey-do" list on your lap before kickoff. Another advantage of the west coast, is that the Sunday night game starts at 6 p.m. our time meaning that you'll get in bed with plenty of time to sleep before work the next morning.

So as sports fans on the west coast we really can't complain, but since this is a blog, I'm going to. There's been several instances when I think to myself "why the heck did they schedule the game at that time?"

First, some college basketball games have been starting later and later. Gonzaga plays tonight with an 8:30 p.m. start time and that's something that WSU and UW have been familiar with as well. They've even done it on the weekdays which means you're sometimes watching the Cougars and Huskies at 10 p.m. at night.

And when you have to wake up early the next morning, the second half of the game can be tough to handle. But why are they scheduling these games so late? It's certainly not to set themselves up for the East Coast, which is bedding down for the night before the game even started. So are they setting things for the Hawaii Time Zone or something? If you want to watch the game at the bar, you're hitting the louder night crowd that's going to detract from your experience, as opposed to a group of people just wanting to watch the game.

Second, the Spokane Shock have played around with their starting time for games. I believe their first season they kicked off at 7 p.m. on Saturdays. Then they moved their games to 5 p.m. which wasn't late or anything but made me scratch my head a little since a lot of people work of the weekend and it doesn't exactly allow them a whole lot of time to get off work and get to the Arena. It also kind of curtails your Saturdays as well since people have to be ready to head to the game by early afternoon.

But it looks like this season they've moved it back up to 7 p.m. which I think allows for most of the normal fans the best possible start time.

There has been a couple of roster changes, announced by Spokane Shock Director of Communications Kevin Maloney:

The Spokane Shock announced today that DB Brandon Isaac has been traded to the Manchester Wolves for future considerations. In another roster move, the Shock released WR Damon Morton.

The Shock’s roster now totals 34 players; 35 players will be brought into training camp that begins on March 8th.

I love future consideration trades. "We're going to trade you for somebody we don't quite no yet." Really makes a player feel good about himself.

They're also bringing back defensive coordinator Alex Sirianni, who was huge last year for the team. I know it's the af2, but the Shock had one of the best defenses last year, and that squad seemed to be able to make stops when it was needed - except for the final game of the season but we won't mention that game.

Spokane Shock Weekly Update: Bringing in the local guys

The Shock have brought in some Vandal-ade for the upcoming season. Idaho DBs Stanley Franks and Herbert Cash were signed by the team.

Franks and Cash both played collegiately at University of Idaho. Cash, 6-0 195, tallied 30 tackles – including 1.5 sacks - with two interceptions in two seasons as a Vandal.

“It wasn’t his numbers that jumped out at me, it was his film. Sometimes, when you don’t have very good numbers it’s because offenses don’t want to throw it your way,” Head Coach Adam Shackleford explained. “He did a lot of different things on his film that were very impressive. He definitely deserves to come into camp and compete for a spot on our roster.”

The Shock have also added Indiana quarterback Blake Powers, which sounds like an awesome name for a quarterback. Hands down. I'm not even going to look at his stats. Powers is just instantly a badass.

Sad news though, Spokane did release former University of Washington WR Sonny Shackleford, who was instantly snatched up by the Mahoning Valley Thunder, which is apparently located in Serbia.

Things seem to be shaping up though, any thoughts on the roster so far?

Spokane Shock Weekly Update: Defense!

The Shock's defensive backfield is going to be one of the most feared in the af2, as the team has just signed all-league Aaron Williams to compliment last year's Rookie of the Year in Sergio Gilliam.

Williams had 12 interceptions last season and Gilliam set the af2 record for picks in a season with 16. Boy howdy, opposing QBs are going to think of the Spokane Arena as a graveyard with those two guys roaming around.

Looking at the roster that's shaping up, there are a lot of guys from last year and a lot of GOOD guys from last year. The prospects and expectations are going to be high this year for a drive to the af2 championship.

READ WILLIAMS PRESS RELEASE I SERGIO GILLIAM ROSTER PROFILE

A big thanks to Kevin Maloney for providing all the info about the roster moves. And if you can't get enough of star wide reciever Raul Vijil, Kevin also wrote up this feature on him as the face of the franchise. There's also a link to a nice You Tube highlight reel.

So what are your thoughts about this year's team. They've got to be the favorite in the af2 this year, hands down.

Spokane Shock Weekly Update: The Thrill is Back!

We're going to do a new feature here on Just South of North. With plenty of local teams to cover in the Pacific Northwest, we've decided to pick some of them that matter the most to you, the readers, and do weekly updates.

First up? Spokane Shock Saturdays. The af2 dynasty sitting next to the river in the Lilac City and since the AFL has cancelled the season this year, will probably be the best place to watch Arena Football now.

While it's rather strange for the main league to cancel a season but the feeder leagues to keep going, that's exactly what is happening and while many AFL players are out of work, they won't be playing in the af2. The big change will be players looking to move to the AFL from the af2 will probably return to their former team for another year.

One of those players? Raul "The Thrill" Vijil, one of the best wide receivers in Eastern Washington University history and the best WR in the history of the Spokane Shock. Here's his stat line from Kevin Maloney's release on the Spokane Shock website:

After three seasons with the Shock, Vijil is the franchise’s all-time leader in receptions (223), touchdown receptions (62), reception yardage (2,454) and all-purpose yardage (4,164).

Kevin also gave us an interesting number to ponder coming into the 2009 season:

Vijil, 5-10 190, is the 11th member of the 2008 National Conference Champions to re-sign with the Shock.

We're going to see a lot of familiar faces this season, meaning that the team wont have to spend as much time trying to mesh, meaning that the players wont have to spend as much time adjusting to the indoor game, meaning that the rest of the af2 is basically screwed.

Woo hoo! Is the Ninth Man ready to ride again?