NFL
How loud is a whistle? Behaviorists supposedly have deterministic metrics to gauge humans’ reactions to indicators of punishment. However, people are still people—beings with free choices.
How Chicago chooses to respond to a frustrating Saturday loss will more clearly reflect the team’s character than any cynical Oz operating in society’s back halls.
Thus, although the season is but six games young, the Sky need early contemplation after Minnesota rudely tarnished a could-be perfect noon gameday.
Lynx Prowl to Lead
Minnesota showed early grit, demonstrating a mature franchise. The Lynx dominated the mysterious, yet clearly observable, hustle that decides close games.
Minnesota was faster to follow up on misses and jump on opportunities. Natasha Howard, especially, displayed impressive marksmanship, scoring 22 of the Lynx’s startling 52 opening-half points. Chicago’s 2025 olé defense returned Saturday afternoon. Too often, Minnesota found less difficult paths to the basket.
Schemes can be tweaked, however, and rosters eventually bolstered. What this season’s Sky must do to compete is, more importantly, maintain dignity when: tweet! Unfavorable calls arrive.
Eyes to Our Skye, not the Ground
One could see even the usually affable Skye the Lioness, on an unfavorably timed foul, express exasperation at unpleasing second-half officiating.
Oh, the conductors on the Sky Express know the feeling! On the grand expanse of right versus wrong’s horizon, the meter tilted decidedly to Minneapolis’s west in the final 10 minutes.
This disadvantage proved a decisive factor against Chicago’s late comeback attempt. However, it need not be a defining aspect of this season’s story.
Several Sky players, most obviously Skylar Diggins and an eye-rolling Natasha Cloud, were observed exhibiting frustration in the final minutes. It was a contest reminiscent of a still greater, and far more unjust, grievance from the 2021 season.
In that contest, also a loss at Wintrust to Minnesota, more tweets could be heard than on the most active day on the then-named Twitter platform. Unfortunate fans expressed intense outrage as the Sky’s veteran players grew increasingly bewildered by the orange suits’ illogical favoritism.
However, that year’s experienced group refused to lose hope. When Dallas flew to Chicago several weeks later in a single-elimination playoff, the Sky played a brilliant game in a convincing rout. Suddenly, one could hear the Finals chirping as Chicago’s defeatism set in.
Chicago’s Crossroad
Today’s Sky faces a similar collective choice, although it will not be made instantaneously. Every franchise will have forgettable days on the court. Goodness knows, Minnesota has been a victim of wrongs, too! And that observation is not made out of an empty attempt at diplomacy. Instead, injustice can, and for Chicago, must be seen as an inevitable aspect of a game that too quickly evolved out of James Naismith’s YMCA.
While the Sky regroups after a lost afternoon, they will eventually face a crossroad.
Behind one path is the risk that factors outside the team’s control will destroy its character. To treat a wrong as an affront on one’s character, instead of, more likely, a mere mistake.
The other is to, when that decisive day inevitably arrives at an unknown moment, steel Chicago’s pride and remember what a previous post-defeat contemplation accomplished.
A parade path’s loud, triumphant exclamations as slights receded into the infinite past. A history where the only whistles are those of determined hecklers, pretending not to notice the prideful pennants waved by undeterred Skyriders.
