Technically Speaking

The RiverCity Rage went on the road to play the conference championship for the IFL United Conference and won 43-30 over the Wichita Wild in Wichita, KS Hartman Arena last night.

Unfortunately, the ticket to go to Wichita was cost prohibitive (around ~$800) to fly round trip and the drive is about 6.5 hours one way, so I stayed home and caught some online updates. One thing that I find surprising, especially as sports minded as this entire region of St. Louis can be, is that there is hardly any coverage of this very high octane St. Louis area indoor football team. They don’t just have offensive on their mind due to the nature of indoor football in general, but they actually have the right stuff that wins championships – DEFENSE!

In last weeks divisional title game that I attended, there was at least two times that I recall where the defense held their ground and gave the ball back to their offense on a turnover on downs! Defense again from what I read in the actual STLToday coverage this morning proved to be the winning formula for the Rage. Now again, here is the sad thing about this – the Rage are listed under “other sports” and you have to really search to find them. Not only that – they have to share the article with Venus Williams?!? WTF!

Rage defeat Wichita, will play for IFL title

The RiverCity Rage continued their unlikely playoff run Saturday night, capturing the Indoor Football League United Conference title with a 43-30 victory over the Wichita Wild in Kansas. The Rage, who lost four of their last five regular-season contests, improved to 11-6 and advanced to play the Billings Outlaws for the IFL championship next Saturday, tentatively scheduled for Billings, Mont. Billings (14-2) won 66-35 over the El Paso Generals on Saturday in the Intense Conference title game in Montana.

RiverCity’s Byron Jones returned the opening kickoff Saturday 59 yards to put the Rage on top. RiverCity quarterback Ben Sankey threw three first-half touchdown passes and Terrell Washington blocked and recovered a late field-goal attempt in the end zone as the Rage were up 36-14 with seconds to play in the opening half. Wichita (10-7) made its move in the third quarter, cutting the margin to 36-30 late in the period. But the Rage defense responded and RiverCity’s Randy Bell closed the scoring with a fourth-quarter TD run. (Joe Lyons)

The above quoted part is the only bit of Rage information you’ll find on the STLToday site this morning. Here is a team that is playing in it’s version of a Super Bowl if you will, on a much much smaller scale – yet receives the treatment of a high school team with it’s page 25 out of 22 page coverage and has to share their coverage with an article about a tennis star. Truth be told, I’ve seen the local high school teams receive better press coverage and treatment. Some will say, “Hey that’s St. Louis for you there, I mean – What High School did you go too?”

At least the Kansas news had a little longer article this morning. Admittedly if you dig hard enough, you can find smatterings of press coverage and stories on the Rage if you search deep for it.

I guess I shouldn’t really complain too much being that it’s considered a minor league sport at best. I do however agree with some commentary I found scattered on various forums on minor league sports had to say about the IFL needing to really update their web page. I think that having someone in charge of online media operations would be worthwhile.

I guess you will have a hard time convincing major league sports fans that the IFL is worthy of any coverage at all when your web site gives the illusion of being in the bush league. If you take time to view the team pages as well as the main IFL page, there is much needed done and a director of online media operations is a role I could see someone doing. After viewing a few of the teams and the main IFL page, you will either think the league is not worthwhile to watch and be a fan of, or in some cases, you’ll wonder when pages will be updated if ever.

The bottom line here is that the Rage are the heavy underdog team heading into a rough and tumble Billings, MT team in 2 weeks to take on the Outlaws. While they may be the underdog team, after attending the divisional title game last week, I have a feeling there will be a few Rage fans in attendance in Billings in 2 weeks!

Technically Speaking, anyone up for a road trip to Billings, MT in 2 weeks?