When snow flurries briefly fell on Friday, it created a home-team dream tableau, the white flakes dusting buildings bathed in blue light as if the town had ordered up the weather, along with pep rallies and towering banners, to cheer on the Colts in today's AFC championship game.
It's a long way from when coach Tony Dungy first arrived in Indianapolis in 2002 and found himself in a basketball town.
The Pacers and the Hoosiers dominated the landscape, and former Colts coach Jim Mora's "Playoffs?!" rant played on a continuous loop as background music.
PHOTO: AP
Mora's meltdown has been revived in a beer commercial and it seems taken from so long ago that the Colts may as well still call Baltimore home. Women having lunch at a suburban Chili's this week all wore blue and white Peyton Manning jerseys. A "Go Colts" banner hung high on the skyline's tallest building.
There were pep rallies with former Colts players signing autographs at a local mall. Civic leaders were hoping to link this enthusiasm with a bid to host a future Super Bowl in the stadium that is under construction.
Even with such excitement, the gallows humor that cushions losing has not completely given way. This opponent is no laughing matter, though, not after what the New England Patriots have put the Indianapolis Colts through in past playoff games.
Even last season, when the Colts were the AFC's top-seeded team but lost their first game to the Pittsburgh Steelers, does not seem to sting as much as the two playoff losses to the Patriots, particularly the AFC championship game of the 2003 season.
If playing the Patriots again is not their worst nightmare, then the Colts could probably have come up with a long list of preferred opponents.
"It wouldn't have totally bothered me if we were playing Oakland," Peyton Manning joked on Friday at a news conference.
As for New England, he said: "It makes for a good story, with the past history. I, like most players, assumed the Patriots would beat the Jets. Then you look at going to San Diego and I'm thinking, `They'll beat the Chargers.' I had a pretty good idea they'd be in this game."
Manning and most professional athletes are adept at compartmentalizing the past, sticking it in a mental box for review after retirement. It is their way of avoiding the paralysis that would come from giving too much weight to trends and statistics. Mention the previous Patriots victories and members of the Colts are quick to dismiss history, conveniently forgetting that the four most important people in the game -- the coaches and quarterbacks -- are exactly the same.
In a way, of course, the Colts are right. The Chargers crushed the Patriots when they last played in the 2005 regular season, but that didn't help them last Sunday. Still, the Patriots seem to have a special hold on the Colts, disproportionate to the frequency of their games or the margin of their victories.
With the colossus again directly in the Colts' path to the Super Bowl, the public's trepidation has begun to set in even if, as Manning pointed out, the only game that might bear review is the one in November, which the Colts won. That, at least, offered a look at exactly the same roster, coached by exactly the same staff.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to