BASKETBALL – Jan 26th – NBA Denver Nuggets v Sacremento Kings

Most of the colosseums of sport in the USA are pretty generic, especially for indoor sports. What makes them special is their history, their capacity and of course the team’s status. In a way Denver’s stadium, The Pepsi Center, is no different from Chicago’s United Center. The differences being Chicago’s 6 championships, Michael Jordan, as well as numerous Blackhawk Ice Hockey championships and champions, whereas Denver has essentially been bereft of these in both basketball and ice hockey.

However, where Chicago’s stadium (and teams) have an aura about them, the atmosphere come gametime inside was pretty dour. What surprised me in Denver was how the crowd responded and got right into the game and created an atmosphere that was greatly enjoyable and one you wanted to come back to.

I was originally sitting in the cheapest, roof type seats, but on your seat was a flyer that allowed you to log into their website and buy an instant upgrade for your ticket. For another $ 30 I was able to buy a seat literally 6 rows back from the benches and court. I’m not sure whether this is commonplace in the US, but what a great idea. Its definitely $ 30 more in their pockets than they would have got out of me, so it must be a good thing, and it adds to the experience of the game too.

 

The game itself was another blow-out, basically all over in the first quarter. What came as a complete surprise to me though was that two of Denver’s star players were tall, white and European –a Greek and an Italian!!! I knew Sacremento were going to be rubbish when I realised that their two star players were named Evans and Thomas – Wales is definitely not renown for their basketball stock!!! (They were not Welsh by the way, they were vaguely talented!)

It was unfortunate that both teams kind of went through the motions for the remainder of the game, but all the same the crowd kept up their enthusiasm, due to an active mascot – Rocky, some sort of cat or mountain lion! And again the crowd went a bit mental for free tacos if the Nuggets scored 110 points – and they duly did – as well as the now familiar computer car races for free donuts!!!

I think at the end of the day, to make a comparison, if I lived in Denver I would go regularly, if I lived in Chicago, I probably wouldn’t!

NBA

DENVER NUGGETS         121

SACREMENTO KINGS    93

Number of Events	TBC
Number of Sports	TBC
Gigs (Bands: Headlines + Support)	TBC

SNOW SCULPTING – Jan 26th – Chicago Snow Days Festival

Well, this was a turn up for the books. Not quite thrill a minute and action packed, as it takes 2 days to build these things.

15 professional teams of competitors, including teams from Russia, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain and Mexico – do they have snow in Mexico??? The rest were from USA, mainly Illinois and Michigan. There was also a school competition too.

I got to area at about 8 am or so and it had already climbed to -8C. There were a few teams already digging, polishing, filing and essentially perfecting their sculptures.

Each team also has a sketch to work to, as to make sure artistic license doesn’t take over half way through – that’s code for “in case someone f**ks up!

I have no idea who won, but I never knew it existed on a competitive scale in the first place. All I can say was that the creations were unbelievably awesome and a credit to those people that work in sub zero temperatures just for it to melt a few days later.

CHICAGO SNOW DAYS SNOW SCULPTURES – WINNER (FROM WISCONSIN, USA)

Number of Events	TBC
Number of Sports	TBC
Gigs (Bands: Headlines + Support)	TBC

FLAG FOOTBALL – Jan 26th – Chicago’s Margate Park

The temperature was -6C and the grounds were still covered in snow, so what a surprise to see a couple of games of the flag version of American Football being played in a local park. I used to play a bit of American Football, as well as the flag version so I kind of knew what was going on. All credit to the teams that were there playing in freezing weather, getting dirty and enjoying some healthy competition on a Saturday morning.

Well, Flag Football is not full contact, but not as zero contact as touch rugby. Each player wears a belt with 3 tags or flags that hang down. When you have the ball, the defensive team rip a “flag” off the belt to tackle you. Quite simple really. The only issue is the plethora of rules that have to be abided by from the full contact game! Now if you dont know much about the NFL, the rulebook is thicker than the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Flag football is 7 vs 7, and instead of trying to move 10 yards in 4 tries (or downs) you have to move 25 yards instead. Its actually quite a fast paced game and entails more forward passing than running.

After the game, one team even broke out an esky full of steaming hot soup, reminding me of when I used to play football for the Broadfield pub on frozen Sunday mornings in Sheffield – essentially the only reason I dragged myself out of bed from my hungover state in sub zero temperatures! The team wearing black managed to win a close game after they scored this touchdown – luckily I managed to film it for them, but I daresay no-one on either team will ever find it.

CHICAGO SNOW BOWL III SERIES – score to be confirmed…..

Number of Events	TBC
Number of Sports	TBC
Gigs (Bands: Headlines + Support)	TBC

BASKETBALL – Jan 25th – NBA Chicago Bulls v Golden State Warriors

I arrived in Chicago in a T-shirt, and it was -2 degrees! They just had 1 1/2 inches of snow overnight, and the snow was, what we used to call in Wales, “settling”.

I got to the United Center fairly early, as I managed to find somewhere to park up quite close for some reason – I am thinking and hoping it was down to the weather, as the Bulls have a history of being well supported and enjoying a plethora of success through the Michael Jordan years. It is an awesome arena, but the experience itself left me a bit cold – pardon the pun!!!! I was also interested in seeing some International flavour, with the Aussies and Brits being represented tonight. But guess what, as luck would have it, both Andrew Bogut and Luol Deng were no shows through injury!

Unfortunately the game was over within 7 minutes of it beginning. The Bulls went up by loads and at one stage in the 2nd quarter lead by 26 points. The Warriors came back to get within 12 at one stage but that was as close as it got unfortunately. This probably did contribute to the lack of atmosphere as the game was over before it really began. You do need close games to keep the crowd interested, but there was little in the game to keep them interested.

 The atmosphere was totally underwhelming to be honest and the biggest cheers of the night from the crowd was when three cartoon trucks raced around a track on the big screens and then later on a donut, a bagel and a cup of coffee did the same. This was only rivalled by the fans frantically urging the Bulls on, as McDonalds generously give every fan a free Big Mac if the Bulls score 100 points and win. The cheers rung out “We want Big Macs” continuously when the Bulls had scored 97, and when Kirk Hinrich duly nailed another 3 pointer (his 6th of the game) to seal the burgers fate, the fans relief was palpable.

The Americans do things very differently to everyone else. The official capacity of the United Center is 22,000 for basketball (they also do ice hockey, concerts, boxing etc, and capacities vary accordingly). The official attendance for the game was 21,756. I would suggest that there was around 6000 empty seats, but as the tickets had been sold they are counted as being there!!!

At the end of the game, a Bulls player was interviewed and made special comment about how awesome the crowd was, getting behind the team. Well, if you were promised free Big Macs, free water and free donuts you would go a bit OTT too – oh, and your team won easily…….

NBA

CHICAGO BULLS    103

GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS    87

Number of Events	TBC
Number of Sports	TBC
Gigs (Bands: Headlines + Support)	TBC