Pirates Need To Keep Emotions In Check In Cincy Rematch
Steve Robinson
Tuesday July 15, 2003
During last Saturday’s 54-39 Swarm victory over the league champion Pirates at Carver Arena, three Cincinnati players and one Pirates player were tossed from the game by the officials.
Peoria Pirates assistant coach Tony Johnson admitted that there was some joking among Pirates players that Peoria may have to bring some extra security with them when the two sides square off this week.
“Frustration sets in, so (because) there is so much talking and so much pushing going on (that) both sides are guilty of it,” the fifth-year assistant coach said.
Johnson said head coach Bruce Cowdrey and his assistants caution players repeatedly to keep emotions in check when an opponent tries to provoke them into a confrontation which could easily become a situation ending in a foul against them. “We tell the guys all the time that (referees) don’t usually see the first shove or punch,” Johnson said. “That’s the problem. There are a lot of these little punches and pushes and shoves. Nobody sees them until somebody reacts. “The game shouldn’t be played like that,” Johnson admitted.
Cincinnati head coach Chris McKeown, understandably, has a different take on the subject since it was his players who felt victimized. “(Last week in Peoria), I had three guys thrown out because they retaliated (but) someone has to have started (an altercation).
McKeown agreed with Johnson that referees always see the retaliating blow. “They never see the first guy. Anyone who has ever followed sports knows that.” McKeown’s closing thought about Saturday’s second game between these two teams got said twice by the first-season coach: “It’s going to be a wild one next week.”
“We’ll just have to be ready and try to play,” Cowdrey said of Saturday’s 6:30p.m rematch at US Bank Arena here. “I thought we played pretty well in the second half (last week).”
Queen (Bee) City?: Sitting on the Ohio River, Cincinnati is known as the “Queen City.” Some of its sports teams may have used the connection to gain nicknames. And while Swarm is an original, it is the third pro team to keep bees buzzing. In 1974-75, the Cincinnati Stingers, using a bee logo, debuted as members of the World Hockey Association, a temporary lesser rival to NHL. They were around for one year. In 1979-80, the Stingers, bee logo and all, resurfaced as members of the Central Hockey League, also dying out after one season. All had been quiet until the Swarm brought the bees theme back to Cincinnati. Winning a team-sponsored “Name The Team” contest was all the inspiration needed to conjure up a Swarm.
Deliberately Can’t Hear It: Fans wanting to listen to Saturday’s game will be hard pressed to find a radio station covering the game. The home team Swarm purposely does not have radio coverage of its home games. Aaron Roof, the Swarm’s public relations manager, said only his team’s away games get radio coverage. He said home games are deliberately not broadcast as a means of drawing more fans into a game. However, he said, Cincinnati, like a number of af2 teams, does have webcasts of its games. Peoria has not had radio coverage all season because the team’s owners, Orlando Predators Entertainment, and JMK Radio, owners of WWFS Radio 1290, could not agree to terms for broadcast of Pirates games before the season started. Peoria is not alone in this situation. Green Bay, Norfolk, and the Hawaiian Islanders started a short list of teams whose games were not being broadcast. Eric Pestola, public relations director for the Norfolk Nighthawks, said that team’s fans have not been too distressed over not hearing their favorite team over the airwaves because their attendance is higher than it was last year. “Some of our more loyal fans were very upset that there were no broadcasts, but we’ve made up for it by using e-mail and our website,” Pestola said. It took their third home game against Bakersfield in May before the Hawaiian Islanders landed a radio outlet for their games, explained Islanders public relations director Thomas Yoshida.
Steve Robinson, a freelance writer since 1984, has written about the Peoria Pirates since the Pirates were members of Indoor Football League, beginning in 1999. He covers the Pirates currently for the Bloomington IL Pantagraph.
