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What I am thankful for

Adam Hainsfurther

Welcome back everyone. If your break was anything like mine, you can't wait for finals to be over and to get home again. Last week's festivities got me thinking, though. I have a lot to be thankful for, especially right now.

For starters, I'm thankful for Thanksgiving football. Everyone has his or her own Thanksgiving traditions, but the best hands down is the Turkey Bowl. Many people have their own games they play in every year.

Thanksgiving football is as important to the day as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. There's nothing quite like getting out on the field with your friends and pretending you know what you're doing as you throw yourself up and down the field trying to take down your best friends and family members.

I'm also thankful for my favorite NFL team. I can honestly say I never would have pegged my Chicago Bears to be on top of the NFC North this late in the season, let alone the second best team in the NFC. It just goes to show that anything can happen in the NFL.

Between the Bears' surprise run, the St. Louis Rams being tied for their division lead just a season after going 1-15 and having the first pick in the NFL draft and the Colts not playing like the best team in football (let alone their division), this NFL season is easily the most unpredictable one in years, and I like it.

I'm also thankful for hockey. The RedHawks may not be undefeated, but they are the best team east of the Great Lakes and the season is just gearing up.

With University of Notre Dame coming up this weekend and dates against The Ohio State University and University of Michigan still ahead, the best part of the hockey season is still coming up.

Not only that, but NHL season is in full swing. With the NHL in non-Olympic years comes an All-Star Game that follows in the great NHL tradition of changing the format. For the third time in 10 games, the NHL has changed the way the teams for the All-Star Game are chosen.

Having dabbled in North America versus the world and the traditional East-West showdowns, the NHL took a page out of the pond hockey playbooks and decided to have the two team captains pick teams just like they do in gym class.

Fans vote for six players to get the first six roster spots. Then, the league will name the other 36 players for the game, ensuring that each team has 12 forwards, six defensemen and three goalies after the draft.

The pool of 42 players will choose a team captain and two alternate captains for each side. Jan. 28, the team captains will draft their squads live on television with order determined by a coin toss.

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Most of all, I'm thankful for Head Coach Mike Haywood and the RedHawk football team.

Last year, sitting in my apartment early Sunday morning, the sun shining down into my kitchen overlooking beautiful Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Sea, I couldn't help but be depressed as most of those Sunday mornings included a harsh reminder of how bad the program had gotten.

After that rough first season, Haywood and company have really turned things around. With Miami's first bowl berth since 2004 just a few weeks away and the chance to take home the first MAC championship since the days of a certain Pittsburgh Steeler coming up on Friday, everything's coming up RedHawks, err, roses.

Love and Honor!