While watching the World Junior Hockey Championship in Buffalo, I saw an advertisement for the WWE Raw show that will take place there on February 28th. I quickly checked the Sabres and Bandits schedules but they weren't conducive to a 3-day sports weekend. Not that I'd be able to attend but I thought my friend Sharpy might be interested. Alas, no go.When I got back to Japan though, I had a look at neighboring teams in Rochester and Syracuse. It turned out that a simple 4-day road trip was possible once you included those cities. That got me to...
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Monday, 24 January 2011
I've been meaning to do a post detailing a typical morning where I try to watch a full slate of games on the NHL's online package known as GameCenter Live (GCL). Lately I've been working at my part-time translating job so I haven't been following the games closely, but today promised 4 interesting tilts out of the 6 on the schedule, including my Stanley Cup prediction of Boston vs Los Angeles, so I'm going to try to live blog it.There are only two...
A couple of weeks ago I posted the NHL mid-season standings and used the results of the season series to date to predict that the LA Kings would defeat the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final. It was a bit of a joke as LA have been crap since then, but it also shows you just how tight the playoff races are in the NHL.That's not the case in the NBA, which has just passed its halfway point. Here, the conference leaders are just so much better that there is little point in doing this sort of predictive analysis; the top teams almost never lose...
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Yeah, yeah, I said I wasn't going to post for every game I go to. But last night's bj League contest between the Tokyo Apache and the Takamatsu Five Arrows was interesting in a number of different ways, so I figure I'll indulge myself just this once.New OwnersThe Apache were purchased by L.A.-based Evolution Capital Management during the off-season and I was interested to see what changes they would make to the product. One of the most important...
Friday, 14 January 2011
I'm taking a few months off from road tripping to relax. Last year was a bit crazy with five trips to North America, two to Asia and one to Europe. I spent nearly five months of the year outside of Tokyo and it shows in my pocketbook. So I'll be spending the next 3 months here to take it easy and save some money for the rest of the year. I'll still go to Japanese sports on occasion and update the schedule, but I won't be adding posts for every game I go to as there is no useful info to impart.The long term plan is to see more of the stadiums I've...
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
The NHL has passed the halfway point and so it's time to check how each team is faring after exactly 41 games. The standings below show each squad's record at the midway mark. Naturally some teams have played games since then so the current standings are slightly different, but from the table below, we can set up the playoffs at the halfway pole.East GP W L O PtsPhil 41 26 10 5 57TB 41 24 12 5 53Bos 41 22 12 7 51Pitt 41 26 12 3 55Was 41 23 12 6 52NYR 41 23 15 3 49Mtl 41 22 16 3 47Car 41 20 15 6 46------------------Atl 41 20 15 6 46Buff...
Thursday, 6 January 2011
After a 5-hour drive from Cleveland to Toronto, Sharpy and I found ourselves in front of the Air Canada Centre, home to our childhood heroes, the Toronto Maple Leafs. We had seen the Leafs on the road in ten different cities over the years (3-6-1) but never at home, so this would be a symbolic way to end the trip.Air Canada CentreInitially begun as a project for the Toronto Raptors of the NBA, the ACC was bought by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment...
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
The original plan for this day was to return to Buffalo to watch the WJHC finals. I had expected the final to be between Canada and the US but when Canada lost to Sweden in the round robin, it changed everything. Fortunately, Sharpy and I witnessed Canada beating the Yanks in the semi-final, which was enough for us. So we decided to forgo the ridiculous ticket prices and stay in Cleveland to watch the Raptors take on the Cavaliers in a battle of...
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
When I originally planned this trip, I needed to find an event close to Buffalo for Tuesday, the day between the WJHC semi-finals and finals. Turned out that the AHL has a team in Cleveland, the Lake Erie Monsters, and they had a game that evening. Cleveland is just 3 hours from Buffalo, so I decided to add another rink to my roadtrip resume. Quicken Loans ArenaLocated in downtown Cleveland next to Progressive Field, the Q is the home of the Cleveland...
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