Best of the Area List came out this weekend - To be eclipsed by the tremendous Iowa Hawkeyes

Best of the Area List came out this weekend - But the only talking point today is college football and the Iowa Hawkeyes!

Iowa City was not lacking in excitement the past weekend. The Hawks made headlines when they beat, crushed Penn State, making them heroes in our town. Not only did they have their biggest road victory in 19 years beating a top 5 opponent, they also did it on National Television for everyone to see! Andy Hamilton does a magnificent job of giving you a feel for the passion in that game in his article in the Press Citizen. For photos and video hawkeyesports.com is the place to visit.
 
I live in a house where statistics are king. My son is a huge sports fan and by default that means I am too! I listen to him spouting information day in and day out and have gained enormous amounts of knowledge on a variety of sports related subjects. (Lucky me.:-)

That's my explanation as to why, as unlikely as it seems for me as a European, I have some insight on your national favorite sport. So what interesting stats do I have for you about the Hawkeyes this weekend? They have won 6 out of the last 7 games against Penn State. The Iowa Hawkeyes have now risen from unranked to spot 13 in the AP and ESPN rankings for college football and Penn State has dropped to #15. Perhaps even more notable, Iowa has won the last 8 games in a row and only Florida can beat that. If you're into college football and don't have Iowa on your radar, now might be a good time to take a second look...Cool, it looks like I've managed to embed a youtube video with no hitches!



Now my intent when I started this post was to write about the Best in the Area list that came out in the Press Citizen this weekend. Clearly current events made it impossible for me to launch into telling you what residents voted to be the best aspects of living in the Greater Iowa City and Coralville area before giving praise to our local heroes. I actually have a seamless transition too as on that very same list Kirk Ferentz, the Iowa Hawkeye Football Coach was voted most influential person in the area... I guess there was no surprise there - My son guessed that in a heartbeat when I asked him if he knew who the most influential person was (!)

So now to the list. It includes 60+ categories ranging from restaurants and food to shopping and services, entertainment venues, kid stuff and activities for seniors. I figure this list has already been eclipsed by the Hawkeyes tremendous performance at the weekend, so I'm going to give it it's own space and list some of my favorites in my next post. For now here's a link to the Best of the Area List  posted in the Press Citizen.