Tournament spot on the line this weekend
The University of Montana soccer team will play its final Big Sky Conference matches this weekend against Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado. The Grizzlies will host the Lumberjacks Friday at 3 p.m. at South Campus Stadium, then travel to Greeley, Colo., to face the Bears Sunday at noon at UNC's Jackson Stadium.
What's at stake: For all eight teams in the Big Sky Conference, their postseason hopes. All eight teams have a pair of matches this weekend, and with every team sitting between three and 10 points, no one has clinched a spot in the four-team tournament and no team has been eliminated.
With seven points and residing in the middle of the standings, Montana could win the regular-season championship this weekend and host the Big Sky tournament the first weekend of November, or the Grizzlies could come out of Sunday's match with the same seven points and find themselves in last place (though no one who has watched the team play the last month of the season expects Montana to be holding steady with seven points come Sunday afternoon).
Jets set in Arizona
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- This clearly wasn't Winnipeg, what with the 38 C temperature and sun beating down on cacti. But there was that familiar "Go Jets Go" in the background everywhere you went on Saturday afternoon.
No, this is the home of the Phoenix Coyotes. But for one afternoon it felt a lot like home, with pockets of blue sticking out in the stands of Jobing.com Arena and filling the rink's surrounding bars.
The Jets took on the Coyotes Saturday afternoon and thousands of Winnipeggers made the pilgrimage to Arizona to cheer their new team in a 4-1 losing battle against their old team.
Estimates had close to 2,500 Winnipeggers at Jobing.com Arena and there were hundreds of fans in Jets colours rolling around the plaza at Westgate adjacent to the arena before the game. At game time, 15 private suites were filled with Winnipeg fans in Jets gear.
Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz arrived at the game on a bus with 30 other Jets fans and hockey legend Thomas Steen.
Several wore T-shirts with the epigram, “Think: It's not illegal yet.” Among the demonstrators was Dave Reilly, 47, of Chicago, who had been in Occupy protests in New York and Chicago before he came to Phoenix. Reilly had been a training coordinator
