Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Oh, Wednesdays

You learn something new everyday and today I learned that Wednesdays are my favorite days.

The hard work of Monday’s writing and Tuesday’s designing are done with. The paper doesn’t show its face until tomorrow so today is a planning day.

When I was younger, Saturdays were my favorite days. I didn’t have school and I didn’t have school the next day so I could stay up late. Homework didn’t have to be started until Sunday and I could sleep in.

Plus, I usually had a hockey game.

Now, on Wednesdays, I get to sleep in a little bit before making it to the 11:00 a.m. budget meeting. At this point, Jenna, Aimee, Sasha and I discuss our ideas for the next paper.

[sidenote: everyone seems to have great ideas, but let us know if you have any]

When we feel everything for the next week has been discussed and decided, we break out of Jenna’s office full of hope for the next week.

I [try] to write a blog post at this time and I know that my last one was too long ago. Blame Thanksgiving for that- more later.

We make phone calls and send emails to set up interviews with people. For me, sports happen Thursday through Saturday. Sunday is when I bother the coaches for comments before writing 12 stories on Monday.

Unless I need to set up an interview or visit a practice, Wednesdays are my break.

Plus, at night, I get to play hockey.

Who could want anything else?

Thanksgiving

The reason for the sparse amount of posts between the last one and this one, aka none, is because I was prepping to go home to Minnesota. I was writing my fingers off and calling people every ten minutes so I could have mostly everything done.

Tuesday, the 24th, we worked our tails off to get the paper done. Jenna and Sasha weren’t going far for Turkey day, but Aimee and I were.

Aimee flew to California while I took the train to Minnesota. I wrote a story about that experience that will be in tomorrow’s paper. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Home was good. It was nice to be back and the time I spent there was too short. I ended up getting sick on Friday, so Saturday wasn't great but Christmas is right around the corner.

Sports

I know this is a sports blog but my thoughts are all over the map, so I share them.

Winter sports start this weekend. Wrestling mostly. Polson and Mission are at Polson while Ronan travels to Libby. Arlee is in the Cascade tourney.

I’m kind of excited to get back into sports. The last couple weeks have been weird, writing stories about other sports away from the mainstream high schools. It was a welcomed change but I’m ready to jump back into this.

I sent out surveys to the coaches and their responses are in this week’s paper. Ronan and Polson wrestling teams look to stay strong after its successes last year and I’m still up in the air on the basketball teams. Things can change quicker with team sports.

Ovie=suspended. His style of play has always been to go as fast as he can and hit something. Whether it be the back of the net with the puck or an opposing player was always up in the air. His style is so physical but when will he hurt himself? Will this suspension change his style of play?

ESPN’s Scott Burnside wrote a solid article on that:

To answer my question.

Ovie will miss two games and pay $98,884.16. As Yahoo's PuckDaddy blog put it: “Oh, and Ovechkin will forfeit $98,844.16 during those two games. And in the time it took you to read that, he just made it back.”

Minnesota hockey has been in the press:

Former Gopher Keith Ballard took a baseball-style swing with his stick and ended up hitting his goalie in the neck.

I know it happened a couple days ago, but it still boggles my mind. People that played against him said he had a bad temper and was pretty cheap behind the play.

The Minnesota Wild grew mustaches for a men’s health fundraiser along with Edmonton and Atlanta.

Link of the day: Three important things to ponder.

Enough for today.