As you might have heard, the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois will be transformed into the Ice system of Hoth the next two days. And it’s throwing a massive crimp into the plans of the college basketball game between the Illini and Penn State. According to the PSU SID:
Due to a large winter storm that began hitting the Midwest on Monday, Penn State’s flight to Champaign was unable to land in Champaign or nearby Indianapolis and was diverted to Evansville, Ind. late Monday night. The Nittany Lions stayed the night there and will attempt to bus the three hours north to Champaign in the morning.
How big is this storm? Well big enough to stop Talor Battle, PSU’s leading in minutes, points, assists, rebounds and steals last season; and also current Big Ten Player of the Week. Illinois’ defense has had loads of trouble stopping him, but this blizzard might be able to. Given the way PSU has played versus Illinois during his era, I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow redirects the weather out of his way with his left hand while driving the bus with his right.
I’ve never seen the little Weather Channel icon in my desktop light up red before, but it’s on fire today.
According to them, this is what we have to look forward to:
A multi-day, multi-region potentially historic and destructive winter storm will unleash its fury beginning Monday and will last through Wednesday.
When everything is said and done, the storm may very well impact a third of the population of the United States; approximately 100 million people.
They’re talking a 2,200 mile stretch of the U.S. could be hit with more than a foot of snow. This is really “The Day After Tomorrow” type stuff. Check out the local forecast for Champaign-Urbana; then poke around the site at some of the articles about this blizzard.
Best of luck to PSU, in navigating the Interstate to Assembly Hall.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net , a Midwest webzine. He’s also a regular contributor to the Tribune’s Chicago Now network, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank
He also does a regular guest spot each week for Chicagoland Sports Radio.com