But there is the Super Bowl, signaling the end of the football season, National Signing Day, which signals yet another season of college football to look forward to when it comes to your favorite school, and the start of spring training for baseball.

While I will be sad to see another NFL season come and go, the major-league baseball fan in me hopes my beloved Cleveland Indians will solve their first baseman problems long-term or find another nugget of talent in the farm system to round out their roster.

I’m also hoping the Ohio State football team can put their scandal-ridden past behind them once and for all and that new coach Urban Meyer restores a sense of responsibility and pride in the squad. It’s been exciting to follow the large number of verbal commitments he has secured so far, but nothing is guaranteed until recruits sign a national letter of intent.

Of course, on both fronts, “potential” will be the watch-word until the teams actually take the field. But it will be fun to follow the off-season action, as it always leads to an actual season which could prove to be an exciting one—much like last year, when the Tribe hit the ground running with a great record, then lost steam as injuries took their toll.

It’s just fun to be a fan, period.

Over time, I came to realize this was the biggest honor in my life.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted to spread the message of unity. This encompasses not just the black community. It goes beyond that. It means a tremendous deal to me that the city chose me to help represent and spread this message. I mean, seriously, they could’ve gone several different routes on this. They didn’t necessarily need to choose some TV guy.

I already knew this was a serious deal because the city flew in the Curator of the African-American Civil War Museum in Washington, DC, Mr. Hari Jones, to be the keynote speaker. So I knew this was going to be amazing.

But last night’s dress rehearsal was the first time I saw some of the performances firsthand. They simply blew me away. The power of the performances was off the charts. The singing from an adult choir, then later from the Toledo Youth Choir, and the performances by some of the fine young talent this city has to offer were just so uplifting.

I found myself smiling from cheek to cheek with my eyes WIIIIDE open as the performances seriously lifted my soul.

And then today? With Hari Jones speaking? Please put the POW in POWerful!!!

Yes, today was fun. It was fulfilling.

It was something I will never forget.

Definitely not a tough transition at all, but in thinking back, there are plenty of memories.

First off, this happened when I was in the 6th grade, the last year for elementary school in Calgary, but in Houston, it was the first year in middle school. The difference? Making the instant adjustment from having one home classroom to having seven classrooms to go to, to having lockers, to having gym locker rooms, separate clothes for PE… it was kind of weird.

I remember the Dulles Middle School counselor asking me what level of classes I thought I should take. There were three options: Advanced (the top), Academic (in between), or Foundation. I wasn’t sure if Advanced would be too advanced for me, so I settled for Academic, just in case. Found out quickly that Advanced was probably better suited for me (they didn’t have honors classes until high school), but it was a cool year in those Academic classes. Met a lot of good people.

Outside of school, it was kind of a culture shock. I was coming from a country where hockey was a religion, where street hockey was played by every kid. Hockey was covered in the sports pages about four pages a day. In Houston, hockey had a small portion on one page where it was just a few NHL recaps and that was it. I remember on my first day in our new house, before I went to the bus stop, I got out the hockey stick and was shooting the tennis ball against the garage door. I also remember a kid walking by staring at me like I was from Mars or something because of it. Most kids in Houston are more accustomed to seeing basketball being played in the driveway, not hockey. So it was kind of funny.

Moving to Houston was a great move for a sports fan like myself. I moved there when the Houston Oilers were magnificent and the Run ‘n Shoot was in full glory. Jeff Bagwell had just finished his rookie season with the Astros. Hakeem Olajuwon was still wearing goggles. The Rockets were a few years away from winning two straight NBA titles. It was a good time to move there as a sports fan.

And oh yeah, the weather. Coming from Canadian winters to Houston winters? BLISS!!!!

20 years later, as I’m now in Toledo, it’s crazy to realize that all that time has flown by, but it has. And it means I’ve had a crazy good time in those 20 years for them to go by as quickly as they have.

Here’s to continuing those good times in 2012!!!

That’s right, our main anchor is bidding farewell, as she shares in her most recent blog:

http://blogs.foxtoledo.com/2011/12/21/preparing-to-say-farewell-to-toledo-and-hello-to-paducah/

For those who only knew her for her on-air work, Laura was the woman who never freaked out. She was the voice of reason, the voice of peace if there ever needed to be one.

She was someone who stayed out of drama.

There’s that saying that you won’t appreciate something until you no longer have it.

Laura hasn’t even left yet and I already know it’ll be hard without her.

That’s how much she’ll be missed.

But if he didn’t take it, I’d have to question his sanity.

Let’s all take a step back and analyze the situation.

SALARY at Toledo: $400,000
SALARY at Illinois: almost $2 million a year.

That’s more than a 400% raise. Most people are lucky if they get a 3% raise.

Then you wonder about the chance of advancement because that’s what any ordinary human being looks at in determining whether or not to take a job. Beckman may not have accomplished all his goals at Toledo, but one can certainly argue he had the Rockets trending on the path towards a MAC title. It’s certainly no debate he leaves the program in better shape now than what it was before he started three years ago, when Toledo won three games.

Many Toledo fans may base their anti-Illinois sentiments on how the future is so bright in the Glass City, how Beckman could maybe get a better job if he waited a bit longer. That’s a big maybe. Maybe these Toledo fans are right. But maybe they’re not.

Illinois is not the type of job to pass up for the sake of a maybe/maybe not better job down the road.

Illinois is right in the middle of prime recruiting territory – territory that Beckman is familiar with in his Toledo, BGSU, and Ohio State experiences. The Illini have proven to bring in big-time talent that has made it to the next level. The depth at an Illinois is just that much better than the typical MAC school.

Fact. O. Life.

Not every Big Ten school would be worth the jump though. Indiana? No way. Beckman could do better. Minnesota? A little better, but no thanks.

But Illinois? Proven talent that’s just waiting for the potential to be turned into results? It’s a pretty good scenario for a hot coach to walk in and look like the hero.

If Beckman gets Illinois to surprise a few teams in a few years and builds them into a top-20 program, I would deem that a success. College football would deem that a success.

The potential after that for Beckman would be through the roof.

Not that he’s concerned with that right now, but still, it’s worth saying for the sake of argument. From a career perspective, it’s not quite realistic to envision somebody making a jump from Toledo to a top-10 program. It’s less realistic to have envisioned Beckman staying here forever.

Feelings are hurt. I get that. I understand loyalty. I also understand looking at it from Beckman’s perspective.

BCS conference? Almost two million bucks a year while living near Chicago? I’ll take that supposed dead-end job any day of the week.

Rocket nation, if you look deep inside yourselves, you would probably do so too.

All that cash to play a game. And the Occupy movement is torqued off about the salaries of business executives?!?

The Miami Marlins and Los Angeles Angels apparently got into a bidding war for the services of Pujols, a free-agent first baseman. The contract is the second-largest in major-league baseball history, just behind behind Alex Rodriguez’s 10-year, $275 million deal.

That contract raised eyebrows, too, and led to nearly a decade of somewhat-more-normal economic considerations in professional sports. Until now.

I’m a big sports fan, but no one player deserves that much cash. In fact, it reduces the competitiveness of smaller-market teams such as my beloved Cleveland Indians. There’s no way the Tribe could even consider a contract that size.

In fact, one year’s salary for Pujols is equal to the paychecks of half the Indians entire roster last season. The team’s entire 2010 payroll was about $49 million.

The Indians as a team shocked baseball last year with the best record in the major leagues, that is, until injuries and misfortune wrecked one of those magical seasons that fans live to see.

For that kind of cash, Pujols better be projected to hit 100 home runs, 500 runs batted in, and steal 150 bases. Of course, those are ridiculous figures. But so is his contract.

Maybe the Occupy folks should be camping out at home plate at a big-city baseball stadium.

Along came Tressel from Youngstown State. A squeaky-clean image, solid recruiter, and a master motivator. The Buckeye faithful loved the guy most because he was a Wolverine beater—and anyone who can beat Michigan reaches god-like status in Columbus.

That’s why the fall from grace was so heavy and hard on scarlet-and-gray backers. All of a sudden, we were just like Michigan, not better than them. All of the jokes about scandal and snide comments about a dirty program had to be taken back—or worse yet, words eaten. Just like Wolverine fans had suffered from lean years and an uncertain future, so were OSU faithful facing the same prospect.

Buckeye Nation is searching for good news, any scrap of positive vibes from this season.

The unofficial dance between OSU athletic officials and Urban Meyer notwithstanding, football fans who bleed scarlet-and-gray are looking for the next Tressel—a proven winner who can run a squeaky-clean program and still contend for a national championship. Most of all, someone with a riverboat gambler’s mentality who can beat Michigan into submission, year-in, year-out.

Here’s hoping Urban Meyer is that guy. I’ve liked him since he cut his coaching teeth at Bowling Green. It’s been painful to be a Buckeye alumnus this year, and even tougher to be a football fan.

That got me thinking to how all this started.

Back in 2005, after I had just gotten the job at FOX Toledo, my predecessor and former classmate, Adam Kuperstein, suggested I room with a friend of his named Matt Mullan. Considering that I had been extremely poor while living in Zanesville, when I heard what the rent was going to be if I roomed with Matt, I was pretty much sold on the place even without looking at it. It would basically have to be rat-infested for me to say no.

So I drove up from Zanesville with all my stuff straight to the location. Needless to say, and I found this out later, Matt was not exactly expecting his future roommate to move in THAT DAY of checking things out. We still chuckle about it now.

In any case, that was the beginning of a big-time bromance, if you will. I will confidently say that, the day I get married, I will insist on having Matt as one of my groomsmen. The relationship is that tight. We shared moments as two single men in Toledo that are unforgettable, whether it be going out on the town, having epic Mario Kart battles (I begrudgingly admit his dominance), having goofy inside jokes, or having chats late into the night where I sat in the doorway of his room as he was trying his best to sleep. I think what made this work was that Matt is an open-minded intellectual with plenty of goofiness to go along with a gynormous heart. He appreciated my dorkiness. I liked to call him the B.C.O.T. That stood for the Best Catch of Toledo.

Of course, Best Catches eventually get caught sometime, and that he was. And the girl who captured his heart, Emily Mullan, is so sweet that it really can’t be explained except that she’s pretty enthusiastically awesome. Naturally, their two kids are amazingly cute and I love hanging around them whenever I see them.

Yup, that bro love that I have for Matt Mullan is also spread for his entire family.

And not just Emily and the kids.

Here’s to the entire Mullan clan.

I am so honored to be joining them for Thanksgiving dinner.

If your team is fading fast, your attitude may be ‘Well, there’s always next season.’ But if you’re still in the hunt for the FFB playoffs, every yard gained, every TD scored, and every interception is cause for concern.

Thankfully, I now have the best record in my league at 8-2. I have played in this FFB league for nearly 15 years now, so the other people who are franchise owners are no slouches. But I tried a new draft strategy this year that seems to be working.

First, I loaded up on all the Green Bay Packers players I could. There are a number of reasons for this. They’re an offensive juggernaut. Those players also will all have the same bye week.

Doesn’t make sense? Think about it this way: I play in a “keeper” league, where we’re allowed to retain the services of two NFL players each season. Hanging onto Aaron Rodgers was a no-brainer. The guy throws for big yards and mucho touchdowns. So I drafted some of the guys he’d be throwing to: Jordy Nelson and Jermichael Finley. That way I score double on some of Rodgers’ TD passes. I also grabbed the Packers kicker.

The other strategy involved is to write off one week as a loss by loading the roster full of guys with the same bye week. That way, you’re not biting nails week-by-week through the byes, where you might be missing two or three guys on a weekly basis.

With that same philosophy in mind, I also loaded up on three members of the Philadelphia Eagles. The team isn’t having the greatest season, but the offense is piling up the yards and TD’s.

Here’s the bonus: I never expected to win the two weeks the Eagles and Packers had bye weeks. But the rest of my lineup had career games, and I won both games unexpectedly.

Some leagues put the most stock in drafting running backs. I don’t, since in our league, we start two quarterbacks each week. Drafting the right QB’s, then, is king in my league.

But I have a different philosophy in drafting RB’s. Production matters—but not just rushing yards and TD’s. I try to focus on players who also are good receivers, to hedge my bets against a bad week or a good rushing defense. So I grabbed Ray Rice and LeSean McCoy and it’s paying big dividends this season.

So, the Orlando Breakers are having a breakout season—with the MFFL’s best record and #1 seed—at least for now.

That drafting strategy came through a lot of trial and error. Forget all the stuff the so-called FFB “experts” write each year on draft strategy. You have to find what works within the rules of your league.

By the way, the team name is a bit of TV trivia. Not only were the Breakers a USFL franchise way back when, but it was the fictional professional football team coached by “Coach”—actor Craig T. Nelson. You know, the old TV series where the Minnesota State coach earned a pro coaching gig.

During my senior year of college, ESPN had a random trivia question as I was walking out of a classroom which had a few TV’s on. The question was, “Who before Teemu Selanne held the rookie goal-scoring record for a season?” The answer? Mike Bossy. My classmate (former FOX Toledo sports anchor Adam Kuperstein) was utterly shocked that I knew the answer right off the bat.

Here was my secret: I had gotten into NHL hockey a few years earlier, but my brain was starting to process things a little more during Nieuwendyk’s rookie season of 1987-’88. In that season, Nieuwendyk scored 51 goals. The media hype was tremendous about whether or not he would break Bossy’s record of 53. He obviously didn’t break that record, but he had done more than enough to win the Calder Trophy that year. Perhaps his most remarkable stat from that year – 31 power play goals.

Nieuwendyk played on a line with Hakan Loob and Gary Roberts, both tremendous players. That year, in 1988, Loob became the 1st Swede to ever score 50 goals. You might not have heard of Loob and the only reason this is the case is that Loob chose family over the NHL and moved back to Sweden after the Flames won the Cup the next season in 1989.

Before the 1989 season began, the Flames acquired Doug Gilmour in a move where they gave up Mike Bullard, who in 1988 had almost joined Nieuwendyk and Loob in the 50-goal club. As a kid, I knew Gilmour was good. After all, he was a part of an absolutely stacked Canadian team that had just won the 1987 Canada Cup over the Red Army – probably my 2nd favorite hockey moment after the 1989 Cup victory. Trust me – check the roster. STACKED.

Gilmour’s reputation, and this goes back to his junior hockey days with Cornwall, was that he was an offensive dynamo. He had a solid regular season in 1989 for Calgary playing on a line with Joey Mullen (currently in the HOF and scored 50+ that year) and Colin Patterson, who was a standout defensive forward and solid candidate for the Selke Trophy given to the league’s best defensive forward. Gilmour himself was a great defensive forward. He also had a reputation as a strong playoff performer. HOWEVER, most people forget that Gilmour was actually fairly quiet in the 1st-round series against Vancouver and through most of Game 1 in the second round against the LA Kings. THEN he scored in overtime to give the Flames the win. This was a Kings team in their first year with Wayne Gretzky, who had really helped Bernie Nicholls put up some serious offensive numbers. So there was a lot of intrigue in the hockey world with this series, especially since the Kings had just knocked off Gretzky’s former team, the defending champion Edmonton Oilers, who I absolutely hated. However, after that Gilmour goal, it felt like all the momentum swung the Flames’ way and Calgary swept LA in four. He would play a HUGE role with several huge goals the rest of the way as the Flames went all the way.

I also remember Gilmour for being part of a highly traumatic part of my childhood. Theoren Fleury (yes, I know he has off-ice issues) was always one of my favorites, being such a great player for the size that he was (I’m the opposite of tall myself), and as the years went by and Mullen moved on to Pittsburgh, Fleury played on the same line as Gilmour. They were a magical combo. Fleury broke the 50-goal mark in 1991. Gilmour had 61 assists. They were awesome.

Unfortunately, a contract squabble involving Gilmour came the following year, so the day that I moved to Houston, THAT DAY, I noticed that the Flames had made a huge trade with the Maple Leafs. Keep in mind, Cliff Fletcher (the guy who had assembled those championship Flames), had just recently taken the Toronto job. Fletcher absolutely FLEECED his successor, Doug Risebrough. The Flames traded Gilmour, solid backup goalie Rick Wamsley, very quality stay-at-home defensemen Jamie Macoun and Ric Nattress, and top prospect Kent Manderville. In return, they received a Gary Leeman who scored 50+ a few seasons earlier, but was coming off a down year. Michel Petit was a solid defenseman. Alexander Godynyuk was viewed as a solid prospect of a defender. Jeff Reese was a solid backup, but not in Wamsley’s neighborhood. And Craig Berube was an enforcer.

Essentially, this trade was about Gilmour and it was about Leeman. Leeman was so bad that he was traded to Montreal a few years later for Brian Skrudland. Skrudland was a solid defensive forward, but think about it: essentially, Gilmour for Skrudland. Not good for any Flames fan to think about.

And then Gilmour goes off and has a beastly Maple Leafs career that includes several more memorable playoff performances.

Nieuwendyk was traded a few years later for a young prospect named Jarome Iginla, but even though Nieuwy went on to win two more Cups and obviously still had plenty left in the tank, Flames fans could be happy for him because at least the Flames got Iginla out of it. Not Brian Skrudland.

Watching some of the speeches tonight, it just brought back a ton of memories. Nieuwendyk talking about the lessons taught to him by his dad and how his mother was the ultimate hockey mom. Gilmour taking a moment to remember the late Pat Burns.

It was, and I’m using Gilmour’s nickname here, just a “Killer” evening for any hockey fan, and meant that much more to me as a Flames fan.