Iz it Oliveria or Oliveira?

Vinicius Oliveira may not have a household name, but he's sure to be more famous in the Seattle area after winning the Seattle Sounders Search to add a player to the final team roster slot. Our favorite, Chase Mikkelsen, finished in the top four. Not bad a finish for being one of several hundred who tried out.

Vinicius is 20, born in Brazil and living in Bellevue. He gets to board a plane today and head to Los Angeles to begin practice with the team which opens with it first-ever game March 19.

I understand that Chase has other options, which do include soccer, and I know he's going to be a success. We love our friend Chase, and we're very proud of him.

I'm sure my friend Dave Oliveria will be happy to see that an almost namesake made the team. It took me several lame attempts before I finally had the correct spelling of Dave's last name firmly implanted in my brain. Dave and I talk spelling from time to time, and I know that he has "inauguration" firmly implanted in his brain after I sent him a little primer a while back.

Yesterday was, indeed, a big sports day, both in discussion, couch potatoing and practice. We have a family dilemma this month. My sisters and I mulled over the possibilities of what we're going to do about the two Gonzaga Saturday games this month which air on ESPN-U, which neither of us have at our household.

Last year, the Lovestead broke down and ordered the channel, which is part of the Sports Package, which costs an extra $12.50 per month. One of last year's Gonzaga games on the channel came before Christmas, and knowing that Willie would be here over Christmas, I figured it was a good deal and figured I'd cancel at the end of the basketball season.

All worked out well and according to plan----except for one minor techno problem. During the never-ending winter, some of our dogs needed to find ways to entertain themselves. One dog, in particular, a young pup at the time, chewed things---lots of them, including the cable that carries the message for us to have channels like ESPN-U.

We discovered that in late winter when our telephone wouldn't work right. The telephone repairman told me I could get one of those long clear plastic cables, used for jacks, and maybe get my outside Direct TV feeds fed into the television through that method. I haven't worked myself up to going through all that rigamarole just yet.

Besides, I've figuring if I hold out long enough, my sisters will get desperate and order the channel. Heck, I'll even pay admission if they let me come and watch on their fancy new TV.

Anyway, that discussion is still a work in progress.

I also went snow shoeing yesterday because I knew I'd have to work off some calories before downing some calories at Bill and my annual Super Bowl party. We do it up big. Usually, he orders a pizza from Pizza Hut, and we top it off with some chip grazing throughout the game. We drink one beer, and that's pretty much the extent of the party. It's been our tradition for years.

This year, however, we added a new twist, or maybe I should say, pizza to the mix. Bill has fallen in love with those brick oven pizzas at the Loading Dock on Bridge Street in downtown. So, Pizza Hut got passed aside in favor to two regular sized pies from the Loading Dock---one Hawaiian, the other, meat

We both loved yesterday's Super Bowl, mildly pulling for Arizona because, as Bill says, the Steelers won with the referees' help when they played Seattle a few years ago. Bill remembers things like that. I don't. I just thought, like my friend Vance Ekwortzell said to me while we visited in Yoke's yesterday, that we oughta pull for a West Coast team. So, I did.

I thought yesterday's game ranked among the top three in best all-time Super Bowls. It had a lot of unusual stuff, like the safety and the 100-yard run, and it turned into a nail biter during the second half. Last year's was a good one too, and years ago, I remember a wonderful 49-er victory when they were one of my favorite teams.

All in all, it was a pretty good day for sports yesterday. We would have liked some outcomes to be different, but that's to be expected at times.

In the meantime, it's Dave O-L-I-V-E-R-I-A who's the quarterback for the Huckleberries Online blog, and it will be Vinicius O-L-I-V-E-I-R-A racing around the soccer field for the Seattle Sounders. I'll bet they'll call him Vini for short.