Although dancing is banned at center court in Champaign during halftime, the University of Illinois men’s basketball team managed to squeak into the dance that really matters.

(As an aside, I’d be amused if the pro-Chief crowd put together a Footloose spoof about a town where dancing was made illegal by well-meaning, yet misguided town elders and the brash youngsters showed them that dancing can be a harmless good time by organizing an unsanctioned dance performance on the edge of town. I’ve said before that the only dog I have in this race is the one that caninifies the virtue of not bullying people into changing their ways through name-calling and getting authorities to intervene with incomplete facts. The halftime show is a necessary evil—the players need to rest and the coaches need to explain adjustments based on what they saw in the first half. At least we had something unique here, until the overgrown Holden Caulfields could stand no more phoniness. I will say that I’d be against the U of I creating a real mascot that tries to fire up the team during the game, and I’d wager I’m not alone based on this hilarious article about the last mascot the U of I introduced. Mascots are lameness of the worst kind—icons to a fanbase’s lack of knowledge and passion for the game. [Fredbird aside, since he's all about the small kids. His cheerleader crew is something of an embarassment, though.] I like the band playing during the game. I’ll admit to thinking the baton twirler at the football games is fascinating. Haven’t been to a game in forever, but Mandi Patrick could throw that thing amazingly high and accurately straight up into the air.)

Before the announcement, John Supinie put the prospect of ending up at the NIT in useful perspective.

I got the news in the locker room before my second hockey game in thirteen years tonight (the first one was last Sunday.) I played much, much better than last time. Whereas my legs turned to rubber and the contents of my stomach wanted to leap from my body after two or three shifts last Sunday, I felt surprisingly good through almost two periods this time. I wasn’t very useful for the third period, but we’d put together a substantial lead by then. We were up 7-1 after the first period and the rest of the game was pretty much a grind to a 9-3 victory (I think that was the final score). To say the least, the improvement my body made in the past week was extremely pleasing and I’m rather proud of the way I played tonight, a few serious mistakes aside.

I got my first injury, too. More a boo-boo, really. I somehow fell down, spinning, in front of the net and my legs twisted funny and my left skate slashed an exposed centimeter of my right thigh, cutting two fairly deep gashes. A squirt of ice cold water stopped the bleeding—I think I’ll have a pretty cool scar in a week. A good reminder to us aging gentleman to take your stretching seriously. A sliced thigh is far better than a torn ligament. I’d like to blame the fall on the poor quality of the ice with the suddenly warm weather, but I’ve been losing edges pretty often these past two weeks. My dad bought my skates for me when I was in ninth grade, so they’re pretty old. The blades are a little loose in the plastic carriages that hold them in, so I might have to go buy myself a new pair before the next league begins and break them in during free lunchtime skates. It’d be nice to have two pairs of skates for that purpose alone: one I keep in my office, so I can go to lunch skates whenever I feel like blowing off steam; and another pair of game skates to keep in my hockey bag at home. Or in the fragrant spare bedroom I’m using to air out the equipment between games, I should say.

Tonight’s game was the semi-final and we’ll be playing my friend Bobovski’s team, who beat the top team in the league in a shutout in the game before ours. In all my years of playing hockey, I’ve never played a game where a friend of mine was on the other team. This should be fun.