Sports

Trip Diary: Day 2

By Adam Clark

Posted on Nov. 24, 2008, at 12:00 a.m.

All times in EST.

08:30 a.m.: I crawled out of bed, looked out the window and wondered what to do until the 5:05 p.m. kickoff.

08:45 a.m.: I still sat in bed wondering.

09:00 a.m.: .still wondering.

09:15 a.m.: I decide to take a shower and then promptly sit back in bed. Did I mention Iowa is very flat?

12 p.m.: After sitting on Facebook and watching College Gameday for a while, Amy and I cross the street to go to Subway where I ate a $5 foot-long sub in record-time.

1 p.m.: Back to the hotel, we sit around for another two hours before the shuttle to the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls leaves. In the process, we notice that the rest of the CAA teams are doing well in their respective first-round games.

3 p.m.: Shuttle leaves the hotel and we arrive at the dome about fifteen minutes later. What a special atmosphere the dome is. Tons of people tailgating outside and even though the place didn’t come close to selling out because of the Thanksgiving break weekend, they attract double of what Alfond Stadium would get.

3:30 p.m.: I head up the flight of stairs to the press box and see WMEB 91.9-FM’s James MacKay and Matt Shinberg who were there calling the game. Down to the other end of the press box is my seat sandwiched in between a crowd of UNI reporters.

5:05 p.m.: Kickoff and the Panther fans take out their keys and rattle them. It’s apparently a kickoff ritual. Not sure what it does as they do it when UNI receives the kick too. Crowd is raucous, however, and I can barely hear.

6:15 p.m.: WMEB’s broadcast team has me on their halftime show and we talk about UMaine’s struggles in the first thirty minutes as they are down 23-7.

7:45 p.m.: UMaine falls to the highly-ranked UNI squad 40-15, but what a great season. Certainly a great way to begin fall sports for the university after no varsity sports team had a winning record last year.

8:45 p.m.: Both coaches and some select players from each team talk about the game at the press conference and after that we get on the shuttle again and head back to Waterloo.

1:15 a.m.: After some Chinese food which I am regretting at the moment, watching Oklahoma and Oklahoma State put up a ton of points and writing a game recap, it’s time for me to sign off. Flight leaves at noon and barring any delays (light snow this evening and supposedly into the day tomorrow) we will be back in Bangor tomorrow at 11:15 p.m. For now, that’s a wrap. Great season Black Bears!