By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
The University of Montana Volleyball team opens their 2013 season at the University Of Virginia tournament. The trip to Thomas Jefferson’s old school bodes well for the Griz as they opened the 2009 season in Virginia in the Virginia Tech tournament and ended the season in the Big Sky semi-finals. Last season the Griz didn’t come close to the play-offs losing their final 8 matches and just once outside the borders of Montana.
Growing up in Spokane in the 1960’s and 1970s new Phillies manager, Ryne Sandberg, was a fan of the LA Dodgers as Spokane was home to the Dodgers AAA affiliate. Sandberg added another special memory involving the Dodgers when his first managerial win came against LA. Sandberg began his pro baseball career for the Helena Phillies in 1978, the first season Helena had a team in the Pioneer League.
Two-time defending FCS champs North Dakota State opens its 2013 season oat Kansas State, a team that won the Big-12 title and lost to Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl. The Bison of NDSU are trying to become only the second team in FCS history to win 3 consecutive national titles, Appalachian State took the title three straight from 2005-2007.
A very obscure, but kind of fun trivia. With the 2013 Grizzly football schedule in place by the end of this season Montana will have played over 200 games at Washington Grizzly Stadium. Another way of looking at the volume of games at the stadium is the fact in the 107 date span from August 31-December 15 there are only 4 dates where the Griz have never played a game at Washington-Griz, October 16, November 8, November 12 and December 10. Interesting November 8th is the University of Montana gaining statehood. On the other hand only one date has been the date of four Griz home games at WGS. September 4th is the most popular home date in the history of Washington Grizzly Stadium and also the date back in 1993 when Monte made his debut.
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Chris Walterskirchen has been an observer of Montana sports for nearly half a century. A Kalispell native, Chris has worked in various capacities for professional and college sports organization of at various times: ranging from announcing and statistical work to the concessions and even a stint as a costumed mascot.
Chris has academic degrees in communications and elementary education. His style of sports trivia involves more than just who won and who lost, but also focuses on the obscure or human side of sports. In this blog you will learn things like the Grizzly football team has won 210 games over the 19 seasons since they have had Monte as their mascot or that UNLV is the only school that both the Griz and Lady Griz have both faced in the NCAA basketball tournament
When not following sports Chris enjoys taking care of animals of all kinds (a peacock rescue?) and reading to pre-schoolers.