As much as I’ve been enjoying the high drama of NCAA tournament basketball (not that I’ve had the courage to look at my bracket recently), and as ready as I am to sustain a few weeks’ worth of hope as another Royals’ baseball season gets underway on Thursday, the Kansas City Chiefs fan in me is thrilled that March is almost over. This is the month in which the NFL ground to a halt and left us nothing to look forward to—not even the expectation of progress—until April, when hopefully there will be a hearing to get things going again and then a draft to get hopes rising again.
How dead is it right now to be a Chiefs fan (let alone one who is asked to write about them every week)? Well, enough to drive you crazy. After the break is just a partial list of professional and college sports teams in the Kansas City area that are currently making more headlines than the Chiefs…
1. The Kansas Jayhawks: Yeah, you heard about what happened? “Rock Choke.”*
*The award for Best Tweet In The Immediate Aftermath Of The Kansas-VCU Game goes to my friend Scott: “How does a native Kansan know it’s spring? Birds chirp, days last longer, and KU loses to a school no one knew existed.”
2. The Kansas City Royals: Baseball America declared the team’s farm system the best collection of baseball talent in America, and now this exciting young team is just two days away from its only home sellout of the year!
3. Sporting KC: Currently in the midst of a long road trip while awaiting the opening of LIVESTRONG Sporting Park in June, the team’s practices feature the extended tryout of Chad Ochocinco, the only NFL player currently active in Kansas City (or anywhere).
4. The Missouri Mavericks: What the puck? The Kansas City area’s only professional hockey team is in the playoffs this weekend! Free pom poms for everyone in attendance!
5. The Missouri Comets: What the…ball? The Kansas City area’s only professional indoor soccer team was in the playoffs last weekend! I totally would have gone if I’d known (and if I lived a little closer to Independence).
6. The Kansas City T-Bones: The entertaining minor-league team with no major-league affiliation has announced its upcoming Summer 2011 schedule: plenty of games against the Saltdogs, AirHogs, RailCats, and more!
7. The Kansas City Command:* After an 0-2 start, KC’s arena football team looks to get back on track against the Spokane Shock before its home opener next week against the Iowa Barnstormers. Football in Kansas City—there ain’t nothin’ like it!
*Formerly known as the Kansas City Brigade (if they were known at all).
8. The Kansas City Roller Warriors: Yes, KC’s “premier” all-female flat-track roller derby league* hosts a double-header this weekend when the Dreadnought Dorothys take on the Victory Vixens and the Black-Eye Susans skate off against the Knockouts.
*I am not making this up, though if necessary I would have. It’s a good one to end the list on.
So there’s a lot going on sportswise in Kansas City right now, some of it even vaguely interesting. But I would trade all of this wonderful diversity for one positive shred of Chiefs news that was a bit more substantial than Jamaal Charles‘s “Race for the Cover.” Yes, it’s all a bit, well, Madden-ing.
So, for now, I guess I’m off to Opening Day. And I can wait more week for the NFL, and the Chiefs, to do something constructive. Or at least, please, something I can make fun of.