bell - a verbalization of consciousness

Register Guard

So, Oregon Ultimate got a little plug last week from the local paper: The Register Guard

I think the Register Guard is also coming to our practice this week for pics and interviews. Pretty cool, if you ask me. I guess I’m just trying to chronicle it all. Here are some pics from NW Regionals as well… There were three top photographers there, and I compiled pics of just Oregon for display.

Here’s the Register Guard article, in case the link disappears in the future:

Community Sports
Published: Monday, May 8, 2006

Captains Aaron Bell* and *David Berney Needleman will lead Ego, the
University of Oregon Ultimate frisbee team, into the club sport’s national
championship tournament May 27-29 at Columbus, Ohio. The UO squad won the
regional qualifier a week ago at Vancouver, B.C., downing Stanford 15-10 in
the championship game. Needleman, an ultimate player since age 11, played at
the national level for his high school team in Massachusetts before coming
to Oregon in 2002, where he went to nationals with Ego in 2003. Bell, who
founded and captained the Pacific Lutheran University ultimate team for four
years, also has national tournament experience with mixed club teams in
Seattle and Portland the past two summers. As a UO graduate student, this is
his final year of collegiate eligibility and Bell says it’s been the best
year of his ultimate career. At nationals, Oregon is expected to be seeded
fourth behind Wisconsin, Florida and Colorado.

12 days until Nationals.

NW Regional Champions!!!

We just keep winning!

… we beat UBC in semis: 15-11 … and then we beat Stanford in the finals 15-10! I’m pretty sure I pee’d myself…

More clips on Ultivillage?… yup! Check it out—

Lay-out on Ultivillage.com

So, the Bell.tron gets a little fame today in the ultimate world. Check out this lay-out caught on Ultivillage.com

I know my momma would be proud!

PS: you’ll notice Bell “The Shadow” Tron on the far left of the screen while Ego breaks the Hodag cup, and the moment the big swing from Dusty happens, I’m off to the races. Jah boi!

PPS: Next up—- NW Regionals, this weekend in Vancouver, BC. Top two teams advance to Nationals. We’re seeded 3rd. Keep us in your thoughts, and give us your blessings!

Trouble In Vegas

Here’s your one look into my weekend in Las Vegas. You can infer the rest…

Left to Right: Freshy K, Werby-Werbs, Bell Tron, Jammer (in the red tie), Mr. A (in the blue hoody), and Mouton 2020 (in the P.i.m.p. Game hat, aka, “the Pizzle Gizzle Hizzle”). Conspicuously, in the background you’ll find a sign that reads: “DO NOT ENTER“….

SWEEEEEET BISCUITS!

… we dun got 2nd Best in the Nation… (B-5, what!?! woop-woop!)

From the heavens above, and by the power within, our team, Portland Whor$hack, went to the Ultimate Frisbee National Championships this past weekend, and brought home the Silver! (Incidently, our team was refered to as “Ror$hack” at the tourney because our actual team name was a bit controversial…).

Anyways, we came into the tourney seeded #12, and we basically just played out of our minds. We even had plenty of opportunities to win the finals game, but after having gone up 10-9, some uncharacteristic decision making on our part, and some incredible defensive plays by our opponents put the final at 15-11, with the second place finish for us to enjoy. I never felt what a complete team atmosphere could feel like until this weekend. Literally, every day was a perfect day. Once you add the ultimate to the comradery, mix in the stories with the team energy, and watch every evening sunset as you splash eachother with the gulf of mexico, you get Whor$hack 2005… an experience that will never be beat. I am so proud to have been a part of such a great family. I miss you all already….

With our second place finish at Nationals, Portland will be representing the United States at Worlds next summer in Perth, Australia!!! Jabu!…. take that to the bank!

(Here’s a look at the champs… those who can storm the field in style to celebrate their second place victory!)

Thanks so much to all of my family, friends, roommates, and ex-teammates who have taken interest in my ultimate addiction. Thanks for calling and checking on us, for having us in your thoughts, for following along on Score-o-matic throughout the tourney, and especially for giving me the confidence to keep playing hard. Special thanks to Uncle Larry, and Kevin Wright for coming down and watching us play. You guys are the best. I wish we could have brought you home the gold, but I’m thinking of myself especially when I say, “we still have a lot to learn.” (aka, how important using a time-out on an upwind break-point in the red-zone can be!) But hey, it’s chill, and we move forward with pride and confidence… College season, here we come… -booyah.

Write ups for the games? Here you go:
(Big thanks to Alex Masulis, for the sweet summaries…!)

-Thursday Recap
-Friday Recap
-Saturday [quarterfinals & Semis] Recap
-Sunday [finals] Recap

Seriously though…. How did we have soooo much fun? One love.

"Ultimate Talk"...

Geeze, I had no idea…

"Scorcher, 2005" - a boise ultimate tourney

Well, I just got back from Boise after an incredible weekend of sloppy fun, and slutty ultimate — literally! Our team was conspicuously named “Slut Hut”, as we ended up being a rag-tag combo team of cats from Eugene, Portland, Tacoma, and Boise… We played awesome, winning a come-from-behind semis game against some wiley veterans, and finals was even more incredible. We were down 13-7 to Missoula’s “Fly-coons”, game to 17. We turn on the heat, and bring it to 15-14!, them. It was sick. Bad guys score and keep the lead 16-14, win by two. Right now, I’m wishin’ we would have thrown some junk in that last D-line, but we’re still fired up, so… We put out a sick line, and bring it within one: 16-15. Our defense goes out on a mission… zone for 5, we get the disc back 3 times to tie it up at 16’s, but we just can’t get the flatball movin’. Fly-coons stick it in on their 4th attempt, and win the game 17-15… and to top it off, we had one time-out left in the bank that we could’ve (should’ve) burned on anyone of those turnovers…. damn! It would have been nice to win the whole thing and earn, what would have been, a first tourney win for a lot of people, but what can you do?! The whole weekend was ridiculous: we won the party, and made an exciting finals game with a pick-up team… not too shabby!

Sluts, lookin’ pretty cool…

Sluts, doin’ what they do best…

For more pics, check out Nick Dare’s site thingy, and if any of you have additional shots from the tourney/weekend, hook me up!

College NW Regionals 2005

Talk about disappointment. Ranked at the top of the country, three bids to nationals, and we fumbled. No team took it away from us. No team put in more time. No team had more bling. But in the end, Oregon beat Oregon when the game was on the line. Needless to say, it’s been a pretty rough three days back in Oregon; and the incessant pouring rain hasn’t been much of a counsel. However, drinking with my teammates everyday from 3pm until 10pm has somehow helped with the deliberation process. Damn.

The craziest part is that we were one of two teams to go 4-0 on Saturday, and this includes a pretty decisive victory over Stanford (15-12), who ended up winning the whole tournament. UW beat UBC on Saturday, so that jumbled the brackets for Sunday. We ended up meeting UBC in semis, instead of UW, and we lost 15-10. Then we played Cal in the backdoor to stay alive. They were rested after throwing their morning game to Stanford 15-3, and, to be honest, they played hard. We just rolled over, for whatever reason. You could blame the rain and wind, you could blame the pressure, you could blame the lack of experience on our team, you could blame the lost van keys and the lack of a warm-up … but regardless of the excuses, we lost. For a full write-up of the games, check out this site.

I guess you need this bitter taste of (self-)defeat in your mouth to really learn how to play like a champion. Losing like this is about as painful as it gets. Honestly. My heart goes out, especially, to all the fellas that will be leaving Ego Ultimate this year (BP, Seth, Jeremy). These guys put in an entire college career, and though they have a 2nd place National medal from 2003, their last season came up short. I can only hope that we returners build from this year, and come out next year with a vengence. Hell, 2006 is my last year of eligibility … might as well go out with a fury.

Here are some pictures for the grandchildren — courtesy of Andrew at Free Heel Images and Scobel.

Jump Attack

I started the Jump Attack program yesterday. I feel great. My body is sore. My muscles are tired. And I really feel confident that this program is going to help increase my explosiveness, quickness and verticle jump. This book is so fun to work out to. There’s all these helpful pictures and really specific explanations on how to have “Perfect Form” on all of the lifts (some of which I’ve never done before). And the author’s tone (Tim Grover — Michael Jordan’s personal trainer) is super intense. It’s like, I want to work out for this guy! It reminds me of the days of “Tae-bo II” with my friends Minerva, Colby, Annilee and, of course, my friend and yours, the infamous Billy Blanks.

Anyways, if you’re up for a good work out, in addition to your usual ultimate routine… i think this one will be a promising one. Oh, and check this: After the workout, I went to this picture-presentation of this guy that cycled around Turkey, and after that I went to the little Chinese Restaurant on 13th. Not only did pay $7 for so much food that I had to take half home, but I got a fortune cookie that read: “You will become stronger as you become tired” … or something like that. It was perfect for the moment.

National Champs!

I know… I know… it’s been a long time coming, but can you blame me? I know there are people as excited to hear about nationals as I am excited to tell it. So, what’s the word? The word is: WE WON! We won the whole thing. The mixed nationals championship is ours! Seattle Shazam took the tourney in one of the most exciting ways possible — well, at least I think so. And to top it off, the women’s division title and the men’s (open) were won by the same city - SEATTLE! It was a total sweep.

Sarasota was great, and I have much to say… but for now, i’ll satistfy all of our appetites with some pics. Here are some pics and video from this random Blog site of a guy I don’t know…. and here are Bil’s Pics of all the divisions and a section devoted just to “Shazam.”

I will get back to you about details shortly. This week has been a frantic week of getting back into gear scholastically and I’m hoping to have my life back in order sometime this weekend. Oh, here are the results and scores and here are the Tourney write-ups if you’re interested in how all the games went down from a reporters perspective.

We got medals, and drank beer from giant trophies … there was champagne everywhere and smiles on all of my teammates faces… it was heaven. Really. I even got to meet your sister Volker (but only briefly).

Ok, gotta get back to work…

shazam...

Here are some more pictures of our team, and I think they do a relatively good job of showing everyone’s personality — however bizarre that might be. I had talked about wanting to chat about each game, but the more I think about that, the less I really want to write summaries … I did that forever at PLU and I might have run out of steam, but I’ll give a brief overview.

SATURDAY: We came into the tourney as the #3 seed, and had seed #5, #9 and the #16 in our pool. Our first game was against the #9 seed, Mischief. They were a good team, and had some height and speed. It looked like they had some pick-ups from UCSD and some other bay area folks. We got out to an early lead and just maintained. The final was 15-10. We expected this team to give some of the other teams quite the run for their money. In fact, they were up on Persauder (#5 seed) for double game-point, but Persuader pulled it out at the hard cap to win by 1. It would have been a great upset, and would have taken some of the pressure off of us when we played Persuader. While that game was going on we played Swizzle. They came out of the NorCal section, but my understanding was that they received a bid to regionals after some other teams decided not to go… thus, swizzle was the last seed and expected to get worked. We won 15-1, but I’d have to say that Swizzle was one of the most fun teams to play against, and they were really good about spreading the disc around to their women as often as their men. And they won the party on saturday night! Our third game was against Persuader, the number 1 team from Utah. They went to nationals last year but were seeded 5th for this tourney because they hadn’t played any of the top 4 teams (Brass Monkey, Whoreshack, Shazam, Red Fish Blue Fish - respectively) this season. We knew they would be a hard team to face, and they had knocked out Shazam the year before. Coming off of such a close game with Mischief, we assumed they’d be tired and that we could roll through the game — not a chance. After a super hard fought game, we won 16-14. It was really close and Persuader was definitely in it to win it. We tightened up our rotation and pulled out the game. A lot of people got beaten up this game, namely tad and jimmy. Both were out for our final game of the day, a cross-over against Brass Monkey (#1). We won the toss but loss the first break, brass monkey went up 2-1, then 3-1… we answered and B.M. ran away with the half, 8-4. Going into the second half we just opened up the rotation, took our whipping, and went home to lick our wounds, 15-6. We know we could play Brass Monkey better, but we honestly thought it would be in the finals on sunday. In the other big cross-over game of the day, Whoreshack beat Red Fish Blue Fish, 15-12 in a way that everyone expected. The top 4 seeds seemed to be seeded correctly, and I would have never expected the final seeding to come out the way it did….

SUNDAY: So, the next morning, we played Solid Gold in the quarterfinals. We won convincingly, 15-5. Solid Gold is a good team, and will beat you if you’re not on your game, but we came out Sunday morning with a job to do. Seriously, the team seemed indestructable. Meanwhile, Do’h, the number 2 team from Seattle, BEATS Brass Monkey in the quarters, 15-12. A monumental upset. This knocks Brass Monkey out of semis and their only chance at a bid to nationals was through the backdoor. Then, shazam plays Whoreshack in the semis and we play out of our minds, winning comfortably, 14-11. Meanwhile, Do’h advances to Semi’s to lose against Red Fish Blue Fish, and Brass Monkey begins its fight back on top against Persuader (#5), winning 15-5. The games go on. We meet Red Fish Blue Fish in the finals, a super windy game which is RFBF’s favorite conditions. they run such a monster zone. But for every break they get, we seem to kick it into high gear and answer with a break of our own. we trade leads. The crowd hoots and hollers, and in the end, we pull off the win on a downwind drive, 13-12 at the cap (on double game point). The top two teams go to the Show automatically, and seeds stay as is… meanwhile, Whoreshack plays Brass Monkey in the game-to-go-to-the-game-to-go. A totally unexpected turn of events. Remember, everyone thought finals would be Brass Monkey versus Shazam, and Whoreshack would be playing RFBF in the backdoor… but the monkey ended up back there and worked Portland, 15-7… this was also the first time Whoreshack and Brass Monkey had ever played each other. It was rough, and my heart went out to Portland. They were a solid team. Then, brass monkey played their 8th game of the weekend against Do’h, again, in the game-to-go. We all stayed around to watch this match, not sure who we wanted to cheer on. Do’h had picked up some juniors women players from the Seattle area and seemed to have finally learned the trick of using them well. they went up early in the game. All of a sudden, D’oh was up 9-6, pulling downwind. Then, Brass Monkey turfs the first pass in the endzone. What! D’oh gets the disc on the goal line with a chance to go up 10-6, and pull downwind! A nice easy cut is set up, completely wide open, and James Evans (for Do’h) overthrows it!! I couldn’t believe it. Brass Monkey rallies their gift, and puts one in. And another. And another. Soon, the game is tied at 9’s. Both teams look tired. But they’re putting everything out there. 10’s. 11’s. D’oh starts looking in trouble, and they stop using their women effectively — just like old D’oh, boys hogging the plastic in a series of huckfest. Then brass monkey starts running away with it. There’s some tough calls and a lot of stuff goes to observers, but in the end, Brass Monkey wins 15-11, on a callahan score. It was exciting. Do’h put everything they had out there…. and almost walked away with the biggest upset in history (a 7th seed knocking out the 1st seed)!

That was the weekend. I guess that was more of a summary than anything else. Final seeding:

1. Shazam
2. RFBF
3. Brass Monkey
… and the rest is history…

Regionals Pictures

Here are a few pictures of Shazam at the Regionals tourney in Ogden, Utah. In some of the pics you can see the beautiful mountains in the background. When the sun came out of the clouds, or when it began to set in the evening, the moutains were absolutely gorgeous … but the ultimate was even better! Below are pics from finals… (if I find more, I’ll post ‘em)

This is Jon Ladd going up for a sick grab… he always gets that stuff like it’s nuthin’. Cory and Capt’n Tanya are in the background.

Amber, doin’ her thang…

Capt’n Steve, with a sick layout…

Mattson, dancing for the cup… PS: “Red Fish Blue Fish” has some tall women as you can tell…

More Mattson, but my favorite part is John Ryan coming to the disc in the background with his hand raised …

Jimmy catches a disc from Pam…

Erin (or Gally, or Gina) comes down with it while sporting her new skirt, acquired from the night before at the party. (PS: while she was at the party, Tad, Scott, Jimmy and I were dumping buckets of ice in the bathtub at our hotel in preparation for our 15 minutes of “ice tubbing” … yeah, try that sometime!)

That’s me, on the pull…

Ok, this was sick. Jimmy cuts down the line for a disc in the endzone, the pass is behind him and, in mid-sprint, he lays out backwards for the disc…

… and comes up with it! “Game,” indeed.

NW Mixed Regionals...

It’s on! Shazam, the Ultimate Frisbee Club team from Seattle that I’ve been playing with all summer, won regionals! The story gets better. We should be seeded as the #1 Mixed team in the nation going into the National Championships, which are in Sarasota, FL during the weekend of Halloween. Finally, all that hard work and commitment has paid off… cuz we’re goin’ to the “Show”! And what’s more, we expect to win it.

We’d played out of our minds on Sunday, and that’s chill. I’ll have to get back to you about the details, but as for right now, I gotta get home and get some rest. After a long day of class and Oregon practice, I’ve got a headache the size of jupitor and a body that wants to lay down.

I’ll say this though, flying home last night from Salt Lake City was an interesting event - on many levels. First off, I was seperated from my team. The rest of the team flew back to Seattle, and after having such an incredible weekend together, it was rather anticlimatic to journey the long road home alone. Secondly, nearly two full teams from the Portland area (Whoreshack- the #2 team in the regionals tourney, and Psychic Friends Network - #11) were on the plane with me. Teams that we beat; and one team in particular, Whoreshack, who probably should have gotten a bid to nationals. They were certainly favored to go to the show (I’ll speak to this later). Anyways, despite how good of people these players were, and despite how easy it is to hang out with them in general, there was something different in all of their faces last night. The Whoreshack players were on top of the world the night before. Winning their pool convincingly, and anticipating their trip to Florida. But Sunday night, their eyes were red and tired, and the spirit in their smiles was no more. My heart went out to this team as they took the long trip home, knowing that it was their last trip together this season. Needless to say, small talk was just that — small. They congratulated me on our success, and I theirs. On top of it, I saw many of these competitors, who are feared and respected opponents on the field, retreat to their airplane seats and perform that magic trick that every ultimate player in the world does …. (drum roll!) … become normal again —- they begin to grade papers, prepare legal documents, and catch up on some must-needed rest before heading into work the next day. It’s a wonder these players take time out of their otherwise normal lives to make room for such an exciting sport. And then I began to look around the rest of the plane. I was sitting next to a newly-wed couple with a tiny infant nestled between them fast asleep; there were old people and young people, suited people and casual people, international people and local people and they were all coming or going from their own little weekends, in their own little micro-worlds. Each of us different. But each of us in the same place for a short moment in time. Once on the plane, I spoke to no one on the flight. Just looked around, and began to fall asleep. I can only hope that a fraction of those people on that plane had the chance to rejoice in as fulfilling and as monumental of a weekend as I. Cuz for me, this weekend was history…

Potlatch Pictures

Here are some random pictures that I found on Bil Elsinger’s site - (Bil also plays on Shazam, which is pretty cool … yeah! for friends!). Peeps should definitely check out Bil’s site. It has a tremendous amount of pictures, mostly frisbee, and they’re all worth checking out. He’s had, literally, millions of hits world-wide. In other thoughts, I still think its funny how tournaments are becoming more of a reunion of sorts, and that people in pictures are becoming more and more familiar and recognizable. It only makes me feel that much better about time well-spent playing ultimate!

So here we go:

In white, are teammates Ryan Hendricks and Kelly Somethin-or-other. Both quality people.

Ryan, again, with the D. Nice action, brother.

My guy, Adam Utley, gettin’ big. A lil’ Reign pride for ya.

In white, Paul and Sarah. Probable recipients of the “best potential couple” award. (… just kidding… i wouldn’t do that to you Sarah… I mean Paul… I mean Sarah… I mean…)

Becky, in white, our lovely captain — but not to be confused with the motivational speaker (aka, yours truly).

In white and in the background, is the great and fearless, Adam “HUGE” Holt (aka, Nike Intern of the Year).

The Bell-man, doing my thang. (… ‘bout to cross this guy over, if you know what I’m sayin’…)

Hope, in white, who is absolutely incredible. Big ups to Hope, for sure.

And one more of the Bell-man, gettin’ up for the D. Not too shabby. (Oh, and there’s Huge on the left, and you can kinda see Kelly’s hair in the center…)

Last Reign Banquet

Reid: If you think I’ve put in a lot of work, compared to Aaron, I’ve done like 10%.

Tad: I just want to take this moment to look around the room. I’ve learned everything I know about ultimate from Bell, and as I look around tonight, I can safely say that Bell has taught everyone here how to play ultimate. That’s pretty incredible. Thank you, Bell. (Standing Ovation).

I wanted to cry.

Regionals...

Northwest Regionals:
PLU Reign doin’ a little Hokey Pokey. This pic just makes me happy.
We went 1-3, so what… sure, we could’ve done better, but we played 40 games this spring (23-17) and I couldn’t have asked for more — my senior year of ultimate was rich and rewarding.

Oh yeah… I’m not posting… (shhh — don’t tell anyone!)

The Packers Triumph

The packers have once again earned their place atop the NFC North tonight! Unbelieveable. Today was a magical day, and clearly the heavens are shining down on Green Bay. As a college student living in the Pacific Northwest I don’t get many opportunities to see the Packers play — though my heart is with them every sunday (and/or monday). Meanwhile, I’ve watched two horrible developments take place throughout the season. First, the Seattle Seahawks, led by their fearless, backstabbing, traitor coach Mike Holmgren, continued to have a winning season, turning heads all over Washington — and the nation. Second, the Vikings started out 6-0, and I live with a Vikings fan - Justin “silly” Sill. So, Silly is givin’ me a hard time all fall, and I promised him that their demise was near coming. And, boom, JUSTICE!! Justice has finally come. You can bet your last dollar the second I heard the Arizona miracle, I was making a call to Minnesota to rub it in his face! (Ha!).

Well, since I’ve been home I’ve watched every Packer game that’s been on — the packer way — with my Wisconsin friends and some Wisconsin Beers. My face grinned for 4 days straight after Brett Favre’s ridiculous showing on Monday night, with 3 million passing yards in the first half, and 93 touchdowns in 3 quarters (well, that’s what it seemed like). And I knew that this weekend was a big one. If the packers were going to make it to the playoffs, Dallas had to win or the Vikings had to lose. All Dallas had to do was beat New Orleans; it seemed reasonable, but, of course, they couldn’t pull it off. This was an emotionally disappointing way to start watching the packer game. We had no doubt in our mind that the Pack could beat the Broncos (that’s right, Adam), but our hopes now rested on the Vikings-Cardinals game, which seemed awfully unlikely. We may hate the vikings, but we respect their ability. It should have been an easy win for the Viks. Ninety-nine times out of 100, the Vikings are going to beat Arizona, but today was not one of those times.

So, here I am, downtown Milwaukee, on the east side, at Jeremy J’s crib with Joe Hahn, Greg, Schleiks, Jeffery, and Hoffman —- the game has been great. We’ve seen back to back interceptions, 98-yard runs, great grabs, big hits, and the packers kicking butt (31-3). Meanwhile, the Cardinals were up, 3-0, and we were excited. 6-0, we were thrilled. 6-7, we were like, “yeah, well, there’s still hope.” 14-6, we were becoming doubtful. 17-6 with 4 minutes left, we wanted to cry.

So, 6pm rolls around, with two minutes left in the Packer/Broncos game, and I realize I have to get back home to go see this movie, The Last Samurai, with my mom (quality bonding); so Schleiks, Hoffman and I hop in the car, and head over to Hoffman’s house to drop him off. On the way, we turn on the Vikings game (on the radio) in time to hear that the Cardinals have scored a touchdown at 2 minutes, and were attempting the 2-point conversion. Failed!. We’re almost to Hoffman’s. THEN, Arizona recovers the onside kick, and our fingers become crossed. We arrive at his house, hop out of the car, run to the house, ask his roommate (who’s watching the game) what’s going on, he tells us the game isn’t being broadcasted anymore (because the packer game is over, and they stopped showing footage of the vikings/cardinals game) —- we stare at a seemingly blank screen (of commercials). THEN, my cell phone rings, I answer, Jeremy is on the phone, “Bell! they did it” —— the TV miraculously flips to the first instant reply of the magic —- Arizona’s McCown throws it up on 4th and 25, and its pulled down in the back of the endzone with the tippy-toes of receiver Nathan Poole gripping the endzone turf. Jeremy and I are screaming to eachother on the phone, and tears of joy are simultaneously felt all over wisconsin. My first thought was a funny one — “The Arizona Cardinal Victory is really a Packers Victory”. The pack has done it! With a solid 4-0 December, and by the mighty power of #4, Green Bay heads to the playoffs. My sympathies to Silly, and his fellow Vikings friends, and to the Arizona team who sacrificed their 3-13 season & assured 1st round draft pick for a 4-12 season & 3rd round draft pick, …. but, it’s playoff time!

In the beginning of the season, I mentioned two drawbacks — the vikings, and the seahawks. With one down, what’s in store for the Seahawks you ask? Well, they face Green Bay next sunday —— in Lambeau! Holmgren vs Favre, when it matters. Could it get any better?!

I am merely one humble perspective to the greatness that is this situation… It is my obligation as a resident of the great state of Wisconsin that I post the chilling tale as told from the mouth of my good friend, Johnny Hyland.

“Today was a truly magical day at lambeau. After a great win, which featured phenomenal defensive play, and a killer ground effort, much of lambeau felt uneasy about our current standing. We had won 4 in a row, all which scored 30 or more points, our defense was improving beyond belief, and our leader was on a mission from the heavens. We knew that the most exciting team in the NFC, possibly the NFL could be done in a matter of minutes. The only closure to a crazy season was a wonderful curtain call for the man himself Brett. Then, the man behind me received a phone call, the game we had been monitoring had stopped being monitored when the helpless cardinals were down 17-6 with 5 minutes to go. All of a sudden, this phone call yielded tremendous info, the cardinals has scored to bring it to 17-12. Within 10 seconds, section 115 erupted, as if more good news had occurred, the cardinals had received the onsides kick. They were soon down the the 8 yard line, and the crowd was cheering “go cardinals go”. The Pack didn’t know what was going on, for they were still playing a game, and all of their cell phones were hidden in the end zone. Soon, it was 4th and 24 from the 28 yard line, cardinals with one last attempt to beat the dredded queens, and i had gotten a friend on the phone, 5 second pause, followed by Touchdown, Touchdown Cardinals!!!! I turned around and screamed touchdown, and everyone went crazy. I saw numerous beers fly in to the air, i saw kids get picked up in the air by complete strangers, Brett Jumps up on the bench and sports the number one to west crowd, and sherman gets drenched. For a moment, everything in the world was right again, and our crazy season lives on another week. After the game, the team dances to hip hop in the locker room, while our leader sits in his locker and bawls. One more he says, one more for Irv. It was magical in many ways, and was a tremendous christmas present.” — Johnny Hyland (12/28/03)

Hyland, I couldn’t have said it better. Long live the Pack!