In the Huddle with JD

By Jason Dixon

Spokane, WA – Here is my notebook from my first 12 hours in Spokane for ArenaBowl XXIII.

Getting there is the hardest part…

Even in this day of modern air travel, getting an entire football team across the country can be a little difficult, especially when your destination is not a major metropolitan area.

The Storm traveling party was split up onto several flights. Some members of the ownership group headed west on Tuesday. Equipment manager Juan Valdez and a portion of the equipment arrived here Wednesday morning. Myself, along with football operations assistant Monte Bussey and media relations assistant Evan Vladem  jumped on a plane in Tampa with hopes of being in Spokane by noon. A mechanical problem delayed the flight and caused us to miss a connection. We were re-routed with an extra stop that saw us go from Tampa to Minneapolis to Portland to Spokane. We arrived at 6:30 PM Spokane Time.

Fortunately the players had no such problem. The football staff moved their flight to an evening flight in order to be able to practice at the Forum on Wednesday. They hopped on two separate planes and arrived here in Spokane at 10:30 PM on Wednesday.

Busy day on Thursday…

Both the Storm and Shock have a full itinerary for Thursday. Both teams will participate in a luncheon late Thursday morning. There will then be a media availability for both teams. Following the media availability the Storm will do their walk through at the arena. They will be followed by the Shock who will do their walk through. Then both teams will participate in The Commissioner’s Reception this evening in downtown Spokane.

World Cup atmosphere…

With the game being played in Spokane, the Shock are trying to do whatever they can to increase their home field advantage by selling vuvuzelas. For those not in the know, vuvuzelas are obnoxious horns that are all the rage in South Africa at soccer matches. The horns made the soccer events almost unwatchable.

Distributing the horns is tip toeing on a gray area in the rules. The AFL does not allow mechanical noise makers. There is debate whether or not the vuvuzelas fall in that category.

Sell out…

ArenaBowl XXIII is a sell out. I was told by a league official Wednesday that 11 thousand tickets have been sold for Friday’s game. The official capacity for the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena is 10,800. The league was able to find a place to put an additional 200 seats. They put those seats on sale Wednesday and they were snatched up in minutes.

Back to the steel city…

Multiple media reports out of Pittsburgh have said that the Arena League is returning to the steel city. A press conference is scheduled for Friday to make the announcement that a team from Pittsburgh will join the AFL in 2011. Reportedly Steeler great Lynn Swann will be a part of the ownership group. Pittsburgh has a history with the AFL. The city was home to one of the league’s original franchises in the Pittsburgh Gladiators The Gladiators then moved south to Tampa Bay to become the Storm.

Thoughts on the game…

My superstitions prevent me from getting anywhere near predicting a game involving the Storm, especially when we are talking about an ArenaBowl. However, I will give you a few keys to look at.

How will the Storm battle Spokane’s “Tall Ball?” The Shock’s bread and butter all season long has been getting the ball up to their gigantic wide receivers. The Storm secondary does not have the size to match the Shock, so it will have to go to a couple of other tools in their repertoire Daryon Brutley, Erick McIntosh and Brandon Hefflin have not been shy about playing the physical card all season long. They will need to get physical with the Shock receivers early.

A key to every Storm game is their pass rush. Spokane is primarily a three step team. That will make getting to Kyle Rowley difficult. You need to remember that with pass rush in the AFL it is not all about sacks. It is about pressures and hurries. If you can throw off the timing of the quarterback, that is just as good as a sack. We have seen games where the Storm pass rush has been “on.” When Jermaine Smith, Kelvin Kinney, Tim McGill and Cliff Dukes are going, they are game changers. Conversely the Shock have done a great job keeping Rowley upright. The battle on the line of scrimmage will dictate the flow of this game.

Rowley and Brett Dietz are two of the most efficient quarterbacks to ever face one another in an ArenaBowl. Never has the title game featured quarterbacks that each had more than 100 scoring passes. The quarterback rating for both guys is through the roof. This is may sound like oversimplifying things, but it is a fact. The team with the quarterback that plays better will win. If Brett Dietz plays like he did in Tulsa, Tampa Bay could roll to its sixth world title. If Dietz throws a couple to the wrong jersey, Spokane will be celebrating.

On the air…

The Storm Report will originate from Spokane Thursday night at 6 PM. We’ll hear from players and coaches on both sides of ArenaBowl XXIII and we’ll break down the match up.

Friday night at 7 PM Jack Harris and myself will have the call of ArenaBowl XXIII on 1250 WHNZ.

The game will be televised on NFL Network with Paul Burmeister, Kurt Warner, Anthony Herron and Ari Wolfe calling the action.

The Storm’s official watch party will be at Rock N Sports Bar and Bistro in Centro Ybor. Rock N Sports is located on the second floor of Centro Ybor right across the street from the movie theater. Complete details on the watch party are available on www.TampaBayStorm.com

Online…

If you are not near a television or radio Friday night, but can manage to get to your computer, we have your hookup. We’ll provide scoring updates of the game on the Storm’s Face Book page at www.FaceBook.com/TampaBayStorm and on my Twitter page at www.Twitter.com/TBStormRadio.

Check out both of those pages throughout the weekend for updates from Spokane and ArenaBowl XXIII.