Junior Hockey Blog

The Billings Mustangs are 19-14, 4 games back in the northern division with 7 games to go until the end of the first half. Helena is in first place. In American Legion ball, The Royals and Scarlets finished one and two going into the state tournament, which will be held in Bozeman next weekend. The Scarlets are 50-14 and the Royals are 46-13. The winner of the state tournament will go on to regionals in Yakima, WA.

Joseph Hachem, a 39 year old chiropractor from Australia has won the 2005 World Series of Poker down in Las Vegas. The tournament will be shown on ESPN on tuesday nites starting July 19th and lasting for 3 months. The winning hand was a 3-7 straight, his winnings were 7.5 million dollars. Annie Duke, the top ranked women's player, was eliminated on day 4 of the tournament. She lived for a number of years in Columbus, MT (40 miles from Billings) and often played poker at the Crystal Lounge in Billings. She was quoted last month in Sports Illustrated as saying, "I would often drive 40 miles on sheer ice to go play poker." Joseph Hachem said that he is not sure what he will do with his winnings.

While the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry seems to get more attention, The Cubs/Cardinals rivalry has a great deal of history and geography behind it. Since the late 1800's these two teams were as far west as National league baseball went. Starting in the 1930's games were broadcast on radio. St. Louis fans could get the games on radio as far away as Arkansas, Tennessee,Mississippi, Texas,Kansas, and Oklahoma. While Chicago Cub fans were listening in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, North Dakota,Minnesota, and South Dakota. The state of Illinois was split in two,with northern Illinois primarily Cub fans and southern Illinois primarily Cards fans. Yes I'm sure there were exceptions to the rule, but for the most part the above rang true. It was like this for over 50 years, until the Dodgers moved to L.A. in the late fifties, and the American league's Braves moved to Wisconsin in 1953 thus forming a natural rivalry with the Chicago White Sox. Now two generations later allegences are still strong as ever in the mid-west having been passed down the family tree. I still believe the Red Sox/Yankees is the best rivalry in baseball, but the Cubs/Cards is not only a close second but definitely has a very interesting history to it.