Technically Speaking

After I posted my last on the RiverCity Rage being in the IFL Championship game, I was poking around on KSDK to see if they had anymore news or articles on the Rage. I was impressed to find that they have a Minor League sports page!

Wow! I was thinking “they must have them listed here“. Nope. If you want a good laugh and to show you how out of touch the sports departments are concerning coverage of minor league sports in the supposed city that is known for it’s sports (that would be the big STL) – click on the STL SkyHawks for that example!

Don’t you love it? A link to a minor league basketball team that is some page not related to that team. Looks to be a splog. Yet, where is the link to the minor league indoor football team – the RiverCity Rage? I didn’t even bother to see if the other links work.

I thought the STL liked it’s sports championship caliber teams? No matter if it is pro, college or even high school. I guess the exception to that rule comes when it it’s a winning football team, yes indoor football is different, but I find it enjoyable to watch. Hey – when you consider the debacle we have had to watch as a football fan in the STL for the past few years with our supposed major league NFL representation, the Rage actually do things well on the field. Plus they win when it counts – the playoffs!

Technically Speaking, doesn’t surprise me one bit, as KSDK’s site has to be the most supposedly updated yet archaic example of good web design – they still have pop under ads as an example of what I mean, which annoys me to no end. When did that advertising trend end? Like 2002?

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?

As I alluded too in my last post, here is the video of Scorpio doing his impersonation of Michael Jackson at the RiverCity Rage divisional playoff win over the Maryland Maniacs last Saturday 7/25/09.

Technically Speaking, the lady you hear screaming was sitting right behind me!

The IFL United Conference championship game is set for next week in Wichita now.

The RiverCity Rage won last night’s Atlantic division championship game in convincing fashion over the Maryland Manics, 55-31 – and were leading 35-7 at the half. Half time included a Michael Jackson impersonator named Scorpio.

Here are a few pics of Scorpio performing at halftime. I actually took a short video where you can hear the person behind me going crazy about it. Quite interesting to hear in person the fanaticism that MJ brought out in people!

I have some game pictures that I haven’t uploaded, and these were taken with the iPhone. You can obviously tell by the quality of the images.

Technically Speaking, indoor football is really fun to watch live and it was nice watching a local pro football team win and advance to their conference championship game!

I just finally offloaded some pics I had sitting around on my iPhone. This one below I posted on my tumblr blog just a few moments ago. Yes, this is for real, taken while stopped at a light!

Here are a few pictures I took via the iPhone at Mayhem Festival 2009:

And another one – God Forbid prior to them taking the stage:

Here is one of Seasons After – this year’s Jagermeister band, really good band – the festival surprise for sure:

Lastly, I went to this River City Rage indoor football game back on June 20th as a last minute thing to do one Saturday. I totally loved it! I’m more about football any day of the week than any other sport.

Now they are in the playoff’s and they get a home 2nd round playoff game this weekend – tomorrow night. I already have my tickets for that. Here a couple of pics I took last month.

Oh and it appears there is some Michael Jackson tribute show at half time by someone named Scorpio. Interesting. Hey, it’s the IFL and it’s the playoff’s!

SPECIAL HALF TIME SHOW BY
MICHAEL JACKSON

UNDERSTUDY/IMPERSONATOR
SCORPIO

FROM LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

The multi-talented Mr. Spicer, aka Scorpio began

to sing at the young age of 5 years old.

When Scorpio came to California he joined the longest running

black dance show, THE SOUL TRAIN. He was one of the

top soul train dancers/performers.

He began to choreograph and help with video performance

for such artists as New Addition, B2K, etc.

In 1993 Scorpio performed on the XXV Super Bowl half time

show with none other than the king of pop himself,

If you are looking for something different and fun to do tomorrow night (Saturday 7/25/09) and you are near the Family Arena, you should drop in on a very cool way to play football.

Technically Speaking, that’s it for now.