contest at Xcel Energy Center in two weeks.W

CHICAGO -- Matt Ridley climbed his ladder, scrawled a tribute to his deceased loved ones and high fived his mom when his feet hit the sidewalk.The Cubs winning it all still seemed a bit surreal to him. Yet, there he was writing Ridley Nation high on the brick bleacher wall along Waveland Avenue in honor of his brother, father and uncle.Every time I hear the call of the last out, it almost sounds like its not real -- like its a joke, Ridley said Monday.No joke, the Chicago Cubs at long last won the World Series when they beat the Cleveland Indians last week. And their first championship in 108 years stirred all sorts of emotions.Fans who werent sure they would ever see it happen have been thinking about loved ones who never got to witness it. Theyve been flowing to Wrigley Field in a steady stream, turning the walls and sidewalks outside the famed ballpark into one gigantic chalkboard.The bricks beyond the ivy are jammed with names and notes to family members. There are messages encouraging the team, and drawings, too.It was all in chalk, and it was all about to go away.The Cubs announced Monday they need to remove the messages and artwork due to offseason construction. Fans had until 5 p.m. CST Tuesday, though some were still adding to the walls sidewalks after the deadline. The team also said final photographs will be taken and displayed publicly at a later date.Fans started writing encouraging messages to the team in chalk on the walls outside the bleachers during the run to the Cubs first championship since 1908, and they have continued in such a steady stream there is little room left anywhere outside the ballpark, be it outside the bleachers or near the marquee.Along Sheffield Avenue, beyond right field, Kathleen and Bob Dove of Evanston found a spot a few feet up the wall to pay tribute to her mother. They colored a brick in light blue chalk and wrote Dorothy McGuire in white.The whole time I grew up, it revolved around the Cubs game -- meals, Kathleen Dove said. She knew all the players every year. She would tell me all the statistics, this will be the year. She was a very typical diehard, I mean just brutally diehard, Cubs fan. She would be really amazed at this.Bob Dove, a retired sound technician for Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW, recalled working on a documentary about Bill Veeck Jr. during the last year of his life. And he has little doubt Veeck would have loved the scene playing out along the streets outside Wrigley.We have all of this angst about immigrants and racial animus and all that stuff, Bob Dove said. The Cubs victory is the greatest thing to happen in Chicago right now because everything else thats going on right now is so negative. Veeck would love this wall because its representative of his philosophy of being a team for everyone. And he was the person that integrated the American League.Bill Veeck went to work for the Cubs when his father Bill Sr. was team president and was responsible for the ivy being planted in 1937. He also integrated the American League as owner of the Cleveland Indians when he signed Larry Doby and frequently hung out in the Wrigley Field bleachers after selling the White Sox to Jerry Reinsdorf in 1981.Kim Bresnahan of Evanston was on the phone with her friend Nana Sedor in Homer, Alaska, as she looked for space on the wall along Sheffield. Bresnahan was there to pay tribute to her ex-husbands father as well as her friends brother Chris, a loyal fan who died at 16.This victory was for every underdog in the world, Nana Sedor said.The two friends have been following the Cubs for decades, going back to the black cat and the collapse against the New York Mets in 1969. They recalled ditching school to go to Wrigley Field as teenagers and cheer on those Lovable Losers. In some ways, this championship run was like a shock to the system -- a glorious shock to the system.In our lives, we dont have a lot of hope, Bresnahan said. Theres a lot of bad stuff going on. And its like, `Oh my God, if the Cubs can do it in 108 years, we can do anything. Right?Lifelong Cubs fan Becky Ellous cried when the championship drought ended and thought about her grandfather Frank Sokol, who died five years ago at age 87. To him, the Cubs were bozos, yet he would watch every game no matter how bad they were.This would have made him so happy, Ellous said. He would have loved every single minute of it.Along Waveland Avenue, Ridley said he started bawling listening to Eddie Vedders Someday Well Go All The Way heading to the ballpark on Monday.He came with his 12-year-old son Matthew Jr., and his mom Nancy Ridley, who grew up on Addison a few blocks from the famed marquee. She was in the bleachers for Game 6 of the NLCS when then the Cubs beat the Dodgers for their first pennant since 1945. And she was blunt when asked if she thought she would see a moment like this.No, she said. I really didnt. Cheap Salomon Shoes Free Shipping .J. Jefferson has been charged with assaulting his girlfriend. Cheap Salomon Shoes . Reigning world champion Eve Muirhead of Scotland opened with a 12-2 rout of Winnipegs Jennifer Jones in a battle of teams bound for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. http://www.salomoncheap.com/ . The Barrie Colts defenceman, who impressed many with his play for Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championship, is the top-ranked skater in the February rankings. He has 19 goals and 24 assists for 43 points in 45 games with the Colts this season. Wholesale Salomon Shoes . - NASCAR announced a 33-race schedule for the 2014 Nationwide Series with virtually no changes from this years slate. Salomon Shoes Outlet .S District Court against Major League Baseball, the Office of the Commissioner and his own union, the MLBPA. ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Chad Johnson withstood an early barrage by Minnesota and stayed steady all night for Calgary in the net.Johnny Gaudreau took some hard hits and left the game twice after scoring the only goal.Troy Brouwer found two teeth in his mouthguard.Thats the kind of gritty game this was. Thats the kind of grinding victory the Flames badly needed.Gaudreaus goal early in the first period held up and Johnson stopped 27 shots for Calgarys first shutout of the season, fueling a 1-0 victory for the Flames over the Wild that ended their four-game losing streak on Tuesday.Its almost more confidence-building for us than like a 7-5 game or something, Brouwer said. To be able to hold the lead all the way to the end, get Johnny a shutout, those are huge things that guys really take pride in. So tonight the way we won is just as important as the win itself.Outscored 17-4 over the skid, with two of those goals from Gaudreau, Johnson and the Flames gave their NHL-worst goals against average a big boost. Their scoring differential, now at minus-19, is last in the league. Flames goalie Brian Elliott, formerly of the St. Louis Blues, has an 8-2 record with a 2.18 goals against average in 12 career games against the Wild, but Johnson got the call from coach Glen Gulutzan instead.We got better as a group as the game went on, and everybody was more confident defensively, Johnson said. They had a little bit of pressure and we weathered the storm, and you could see that we didnt get rattled with them coming hard at us.Devan Dubnyk made 26 saves and has given up only nine goals in his last eight games, stopping 245 of 254 shots, but the Wild played an undisciplined game and took eight penalties for a total of 19 minutes.The guys are exerting all their energy to kill penalties, not to be able to score goals, coach Bruce Boudreau said. Not making excuses for us not scoring, but thats a byproduct of that.The Wild brought the NHLs fifth-best penalty kill at 88.1 percent into the game, but Gaudreau tallied the sixth power play goal against them this season just 6:05 into the game. Johnny Hockey made a slick move worthy of his intrepid nickname, snagging a lead pass from Mark Giordano and skating across the front of the goal mouth to get Dubnyk to go with him before tucking in a backhander for the lead.dddddddddddd.That came just seconds after Mikko Koivu misfired on a breakaway shot. Jason Zucker and Mike Reilly each hit posts later in the game for the Wild, whose stretch of 10 games in 17 days didnt start smoothly.This is how were going to have to win, Gulutzan said.The game devolved into a slog of penalties and scuffles throughout the second period, spilling over into the third, and the Wild werent able to knock any shots past Johnson despite myriad scoring opportunities. Theyve allowed an NHL-low 29 goals in 15 games.The Flames, who didnt specify Gaudreaus injury, took issue with some slashing of their young left wing that went on, though Brouwer acknowledged thats the same way he and his teammates play against stars on other teams. Both teams had complaints about the officiating.We killed the whole second period, center Eric Staal said. It just kills the flow.The Wild fell to 4-2 at home after their first contest at Xcel Energy Center in two weeks.Weve got to as a group ask ourselves, `Did we really do enough to give ourselves a chance to create offense, to sustain offense, to get scoring chances?, and I dont think we did, left wing Zach Parise said.Game notes Johnsons last shutout was Dec. 17, 2015, against Anaheim. ... The Wild made rookie Joel Eriksson Ek a healthy scratch for the second straight game. Eriksson Ek, who has two goals and three assists in nine games, could be sent back to his native Sweden for more playing time toward his development. ... The Wild got Parise back in the lineup after a six-game absence due to a lower-body injury. He played on the third line with Erik Haula and Jason Pominville ... For the Flames, LW Matthew Tkachuk returned from a wrist injury that kept him out for the last two games and joined Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik on the second line.UP NEXTCalgary returns home to face Arizona on Wednesday night.Minnesota hosts Boston on Thursday night. ' ' '