Jim Reagan
Word this week comes that the Oklahoma City Blazers are ceasing operations. I’ve long been a critic of the Central Hockey League and hope hockey returns to the city with an A-H-L team.
I’ve missed the Blazers the last few years. A divorce and a move to Durant ended my days of going to see them. I did watch a few games on the internet, here and there.
Actually, I had stopped going a few years before. My last game came shortly after my split. My ex-wife and I went to see them at the Ford Center. It just wasn’t the same. Our memories came from the Myriad and , to a lesser extent, the State Fair Arena.
I started listening to hockey in the mid-60’s with John Brooks calling the glory days of the old CHL. The Blazers were farm hands of Boston and we had several great players in town. Followed the old O-K-C Stars, too.
But, my best memories come from the revival of the CHL and the Blazers for the first few season’s in the early ’90’s.
Like coach Mike McEwen getting on the radio and trashing the CHL
Like OKC beating Tulsa 9-1 the night after Bruce Shoebottom was assaulted by Tulsa police during a playoff game in Tulsa.
Like Ron Aubrey doing a post game interview on the ice in socks.
Like taking my family on a road trip to Wichita to see the Blazers on Super Bowl Sunday
Like Joe Burton and Alan Perry
I’ve posted a few pictures from an early days game at the State Fair Arena.
Those were good days.
RR
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22610&id=1560086651&l=55327bc348
Jim Reagan
Durant American Legion baseball will be in Texarkana, Texas today and tomorrow.
Larry Dyson Motors is scheduled to play at 5:30 pm this afternoon.
Tournament Games at 11 and 5 are on Saturday’s slate for the Legion team who is 7-4 on the season.
————————————————————————————————
Houston denied Texas a series sweep and beat the Rangers 5-3 last night in the final game of the two team’s interleague series in Arlington.
Texas heads west to begin a weekend series tonight against the Giants in San Francisco. The Rangers lead over the second place L-A Angels is down to a game and a half in the American League West.
————————————————————————————————-
Atoka high’s L.T. Pfaff is one of 15 high profile prep quarterbacks expected to compete in the Top Gun Challenge competition next week in Edmond. Pffaf joins top Q-B’s from Oklahoma and Texas in the two day event.
Also expected to take part will be Chase Boyce of Tulsa Union, J-T Realmuto of Carl Albert, and D-J Betik, a top quarterback out of Ennis, Texas. Pffaf broke the Oklahoma state single-game passing record twice last season.
————————————————————————————————-
The recently retired director of Athletics at Pottsboro high school in Texas has been named the golf coach at Southeastern
Storm Athletic Director Keith Baxter says Don Hudson moves in to fill the spot vacated by Paul Aycock.
———————————————————————————————-
And, golfers were greeted by overcast skies; but, no rain as the U-S open resumed early this morning at the Bethpage Black public course in New York. Heavy downpours washed away most of yesterdays opening round.
This came from Eric Rhoads of Radio Ink:
Subject: The RAB Should Know Better
The RAB Should Know Better
The annual RAB Mercury-Awards will be presented today, but no award will be presented in the Station-Produced category. According to the RAB, the judges said the station submissions were subpar, and not of high enough quality for awards. There will be no awards in the PSA, Political, or Student-Produced categories, either.
I smell a rat.
Though I trust Jeff Haley and the RAB, I have to admit that my first thought was that not presenting these awards will save money. Times are tough at RAB, and I wonder if the participating groups who always come up with the money said, “Cut it back this year, Jeff.” Of course, in this case I wonder if they said it after the awards were launched. Or the judges may be thinking, “Why stroke local radio anyway? The awards were really designed to get creative juices going at the agency creative level so they would understand what could be done with radio.”
But I still smell a rat.
To say there is no local advertising good enough to receive an award raises two giant problems:
1) If you hold the Olympics, the best athlete wins. Period. There is nothing in the rules that says that athlete has to beat the record of previous winners. If an award was promoted and people entered, the award should be presented. Even though the official rules say the judges are free to decide not to present an award in any category, that is not how anyone understands a competition like this or how they expect it to work when they pay their — non-refundable — entry fee.
2) If the RAB is designed to promote radio, who in their right mind would EVER make a public statement that there were no local radio spots good enough to win an award? Translation: Don’t count on local radio to produce good spots. This is a PR nightmare for radio. I can see this plastered all over Advertising Age: “Radio Industry Can’t Find a Good Spot at Any Local Radio Station.”
Let’s assume that the RAB was willing to award this money and the judges really did say there were no spots good enough to win.
That probably is the case. And that would signal two different giant problems:
1) The awards were not promoted well. My guess is that this is a big part of the problem. As I travel the country, I hear loads of very high-quality local spots. The RAB recently laid off its longtime PR person, and perhaps the new staff simply did not have the “corporate history” to understand what is necessary to promote these awards and get enough entries from local stations. Of course, it’s also possible radio has its head down and simply cannot focus on entering contests at the moment, nor are they willing to spend a few bucks on an entry fee.
2) Radio production quality has suffered. This is a very real possibility with cutbacks across the industry. And, frankly, the industry has often seemed not to value the importance of high-quality local creative. I recently bought ads and asked for a two-voice spot, one female. I was told, “It’s not possible. We cannot provide you with a female voice on the spots.” This was a major-market, top-tier radio station.
No matter what the problem, this is an embarrassment to radio. I hold RAB and its CEO in high regard. But something like this should not happen.
Eric Rhoads
www.radioink.com
Comment on this message.
Subscribe to Radio Ink’s free daily radio-industry headlines.
Copyright 2009
Streamline Publishing Inc.
224 Datura St., Ste. 1015
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
Click here to change
Jim Reagan
One of golf’s major tournaments is underway this morning at Bethpage in New York.
Defending champ Tiger Woods is a solid favorite to repeat. But, Phil Mickelson could be a sentimental choice of the fans. Mickelson’s wife, Amy, faces surgery for Breast Cancer early next month.
Tiger Woods won a U-S open at the Bethpage Black course in 2002.
Early golfers this morning were greeted with cool temperatures and rain.
————————————————————————————————
Five former or current Grayson County juco baseball players were selected in the recent major league baseball free agent draft.
Taken from the current Viking squad were pitchers Ryan Beckman and Brett Bruening and first baseman David Stewart. Also getting the call were Grayson transfers, Sam Honeck, a first baseman at Tulane, and T-C-U right fielder Chris Ellington.
————————————————————————————————-
Arkansas staved off elimination at the College World Series beating Virginia 4-3 in 12 innings last night in Omaha.
The Hogs still must beat L-S-U twice to advance to next weeks best of three championship series.
——————————————————————————————–
And, Texas slipped by Houston 5-4 in 10 innings at the Ballpark in Arlington last night.
It was a night to remember for ex-ranger Pudge Rodriguez. He set a major league record for games caught in a career. But, he also committed two errors in the process.
Jim Reagan
Southeastern Football was scheduled to hold it’s second of its two walk-on day’s this morning at
10 A-M on the turf at Paul Laird Field. Storm head Coach Ray Richards says non-scholarship players have had a positive impact on his program
Richards and his staff sent the hopefuls through a series of drills to check foot speed, agility, and strength. The Storm coach expects up to 50 players will have taken part in the tryouts after today’s session.
————————————————————————————————-
A second Durant high baseball player has signed a college letter of intent. Left handed pitcher Travis Caraway will attend Murray State in Tishomingo. Caraway finished his senior year with a 6-4 record and hit .457 for the Lions.
————————————————————————————————
Texas recovered from a 6-0 deficit and blew by Arizona State 10-6 to remain unbeaten at the College Baseball World Series in Omaha. The victory sends the Longhorns to the bracket finals on Friday.
Arkansas tries to stay alive at 6 tonight when the Hogs meet Virginia.
—————————————————————————————————-
Ian Kinsler led off the game with a homerun and added another smash in the second inning as Texas beat Houston 6-1 in Major League Baseball at Arlington. Kevin Millwood pitched seven strong innings to pick up the victory. In the game, former Ranger catcher Pudge Rodriguez tied Carlton Fisk for the most games caught in a career.
——————————————————————————————–
Jim Reagan
Larry Dyson motors Durant American Legion baseball team will be at home today to host Okmulgee in a single nine-inning game at The Durant Sports Complex. Today’s action was originally scheduled to be played at Okmulgee.
Durant Legion is 6-4 for the season and is expected to begin play later this week in a tournament at Texarkana, Texas.
————————————————————————————————
Arkansas was plastered by Louisiana State 9-1 in baseball’s College World Series last night in Omaha. It was the Hogs first loss in the double elimination opening round. Texas will play Arizona State tonight in a winner’s bracket game at 7.
————————————————————————————–
After more than 3-decades of coaching, Drew Young is finishing up his duties in Sherman as he goes north of the Red River to become Durant’s first full-time athletic director next month. Young tells KLBC sports, he is excited about his new role heading up the physical education program within the Durant public schools.
The outgoing Sherman football coach and A-D expects to oversee all facets of the Durant athletic program, including all levels of the coaching staff. He also hopes to implement a central workout program among all sports, both boys and girls, and to fine tune the systems P-E curriculum.
————————–
And, the summer mini-camp is underway for the Dallas Cowboys. Running back Felix Jones sat out of the afternoon practice while nursing a calf injury. At least three Cowboy receivers are also on the sidelines during the work outs.
Jim Reagan
The Los Angeles Lakers are the NBA champions.L-A polished off Orlando 99-86 last night to win its 15th league title. Kobe Bryant scored 30 points for the Lakers and was named the Finals MVP. Lakers coach Phil Jackson has now won ten NBA titles.
The Magic couldn’t follow up its upset of Cleveland in the Eastern Conference Finals dropping four out of five to the Lakers. The last two losses were at home
————————————————————————————-
Number one seed Texas scored its final three runs on bases-loaded walks and slipped by Southern Mississippi 7-6 at the College Baseball World Series Sunday in Omaha. Texas moves on to meetArizona State Tuesday. The Sun Devils were 5-2 winners over North Carolina earlier in the day,
————————————————————————————-
The Los Angeles Dodgers won the rubber match of a three-game inter-league series in Arlington yesterday against Texas. The Dodgers touched up rookie Derek Holland in a 6-3 victory. The Rangers lead over the Angels stands 2 and a half games after a rugged stretch of games that included the Dodgers series and road trips to American League heavyweights New York and Boston.
—————————————————————————————–
And, Mark Martin was yesterday’s NASCAR winner at the Michigan Motor Speedway. Martin won the race after leaders Jimmy Johnson and Greg Biffle both ran out of gas during the races final stages.
Jim Reagan
It’s time to blog.
I’ve fixed the issues with my computer (I got a new Macbook) and have returned from vacation. I am resuming my sports updates this morning.
JR
Oklahoma City’s hopes of landing O-U Sooner star Blake Griffin in the upcoming NBA draft took a major hit last night. The Thunder will probably have to work out a trade to bring the projected top pick to the Ford Center.
The NBA‘s draft lottery results were revealed last night and the Thunder will get the third pick in the upcoming draft. Griffin is most likely headed to the Los Angeles Clippers who won the lottery pick sweepstakes. Memphis will pick second.
————————————————————-
On the floor last night, the Lakers, took game one its western conference finals best of seven with Denver. Kobe Bryant scored 40 points in a 105-103 win at home.
The Eastern Conference final opens tonight with Orlando at favored Cleveland.
——————————————————————————————————-
Spring football drills are underway at many area high schools.At Durant, Lions coach Bryon Cordell has seen his numbers rise this season to nearly seventy varsity hopefuls.
Oklahoma high school teams can practice in full pads in the spring and Cordell has six more workouts scheduled through next week at Paul Laird Field. Durant’s summer workout schedule will include a three-day team camp June 4th through the 6th at Southeastern. Squads from Atoka, Dickson, Hartshorne, Hugo, and Savanna are expected to attend.
——————————————————————————————————
Things would be a lot easier if the Texas Rangers could stay out of Detroit. Texas saw its seven game winning streaked ended by the Tigers 4-0 yesterday.
The Rangers are 0-4 in Detroit this season. Matt Harrison will get the start tonight for Texas.
————————————————————————————————-
And, media reports indicate disgraced Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick left prison at the crack of dawn avoiding a horde of reporters by slipping out a side door.
Vick will remain in home confinement until July 20th. His agent says Vick has no immediate plans to apply for reinstatement to the NFL.
