Make Plans for a Parade (Maybe): Soul Win ArenaBowl
While you were out drinking on Friday night, a Philadelphia sports team won a championship!
That’s right: As our Victor Fiorillo noted could happen last week, the Philadelphia Soul have brought a championship to this city. It’s the first title since the Philadelphia Spinners won the Major League Ultimate title last month. Wow, what a summer for Philly sports!
The Soul, playing in Glendale against the Arizona Rattlers, jumped out to a 21-0 lead just seven minutes into the game on a Dan Raudabaugh touchdown pass, a Dwayne Hollis 49-yard fumble return and a “net recovery off the kickoff.” Arizona came back to tie it at 42 early in the fourth quarter, but ArenaBowl XXIX MVP Shaun Kauleinamoku caught a pair of touchdown passes in the fourth quarter to provide the final 56-42 margin. The Soul had lost to the Rattlers in the championship game in 2013 and 2012.
Kauleinamoku had 8 catches for 110 yards and the Soul’s final three scores. As the official Arena Football website notes, he is the “only Hawaiian ever to win MVP and the longest last name of any ArenaBowl MVP.”
To give you a sense of where Arena Football is on the American Sports Pecking Order, the Rattlers were bumped from their usual Phoenix home by a WNBA game. (ESPN, which was broadcasting the ArenaBowl, wouldn’t move the game time.) Rattlers fans were angry at the move, as Arizona went undefeated at its usual home arena in Phoenix this season.
It wouldn’t be a Philadelphia sports title without a little controversy. But think what it could portend: The last time the Philadelphia Soul won a championship in 2008, the Phillies won the World Series just a few months later! Also, the global economy collapsed, but perhaps that would have happened anyway.
The Eagles said they’d work out two players from the Soul, wide receiver Darius Reynolds and defensive lineman Jake Metz, this week.
So will there be a parade? The Soul got a small parade for their title last time, from Independence Hall to City Hall. Yes, the team had more star power when it was co-owned by Jon Bon Jovi, but who cares? Give them their parade! We might not even have to move cars off the Broad Street median for it.
Follow @dhm on Twitter.
