Impressive streaks, past and present
To heck with Peyton Manning - he has a chance to come back and win another Super Bowl next year, and many more after that.
What bummed me even more than the Colts losing to the Saints on Sunday was learning a day later that "M*A*S*H," my favorite TV series of all time, had been eclipsed by Sunday's Super Bowl XLIV as the most-watched show of all time in the U.S.
Overnight Nielsen ratings said the Super Bowl was watched by 106.5 million people. "M*A*S*H" was watched by 105.9 million in 1983.
True, by its 11th and final season, the wartime "sitcom" had lost some of its luster. Hawkeye and Hot Lips and Klinger and Father Mulcahy were still around, but Henry Blake and Trapper John and Frank Burns and even Radar O'Reilly were long gone, taking much of the madcap humor with them. But for 27 years, "M*A*S*H" was still No. 1 all time, and that was something for fans to brag about.
Of course, in 1983 there were 83.3 million homes with TVs in the U.S, and now there's almost 115 million homes with TVs, and there's lots more eyeballs these days to watch TV, so I can still take some solace in the fact "M*A*S*H" still drew a bigger share of its audience at the time.
That takes some of the sting out of the loss. As for the loss on the football field ...
n Speaking of long runs, one of the better ones in the area came to an end Tuesday night when the Lakeland High girls basketball team lost at Moscow in the championship game of the 4A Region 1 tournament. The loss ended a streak of 10 straight appearances at state for the Hawks.
Perhaps just as impressive was the Hawks moved up a classification during the middle of that run and didn't miss a beat, qualifying for five straight state 3A tournaments, then moving up and qualifying for five straight 4A tourneys.
Also just as impressively, Lakeland played for a trophy in eight of those 10 trips. All told, during that run, Lakeland won two state 3A titles, finished third, fifth and sixth in 3A, and had three fifth-place finishes in 4A, and were oh-so-close to playing for the state title in 2009 before a heartbreaking overtime loss to eventual champion Bonneville of Idaho Falls in the semifinals.
Nice run, coach Steve Seymour and the Hawks.
n Coeur d'Alene (18-4) and Lake City (15-7) will play for the fourth time this season in girls basketball on Friday night -- and this one will be the most important of the four.
The teams will square off a 7 p.m. at Coeur d'Alene High for the region's second berth to the state 5A tournament. The season is over for the loser.
Coeur d'Alene won the first three meetings by margins of 14, 10 and 10 points -- the most recent a 48-38 victory in the first round of the regional tournament last Friday in Lewiston.
Coeur d'Alene has made it to state five straight seasons, played for the state title the last four years, winning the last two.
Lake City is coming off a 48-40 victory over Post Falls in a loser-out game on Tuesday night. And Coeur d'Alene coach Dale Poffenroth said his team played tight in a 53-41 loss at Lewiston in the regional title game that night.
"Any time you play somebody four times, anything can happen," Poffenroth said. "He (Lake City coach Royce Johnston) has got nothing to lose ... and if we wind ourselves up again, we're in trouble."
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached by phone at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or by e-mail at mnelke@cdapress.com.