If you are a sports fan or if you live with a sports fan then your weekly schedule becomes inextricably linked with what sporting events are on at what times during each week. The conflict between missing a sporting event for a poorly committed to social event and missing an appealing social event to watch a game is an important balancing act in any kind of romantic, familial, or business relationship between a sports fan and a non-sports fan. To help facilitate this complicated advanced mathematics, Dear Sports Fan has put together a table showing the most important sporting events of the upcoming week. Print it out, put it on your fridge, and go through it with your scheduling partner.
For full coverage of all the NHL and NBA games, see our NHL forecast and NBA forecast.
Download a full-size copy here.
Monday: It’s a hard choice between watching the always dramatic Pittsburgh Penguins play against the always solid St. Louis Blues or a rematch of last year’s NBA finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors. I think the scale tips towards basketball, or at least it would if I wasn’t a little sportsed our from the long weekend of football.
Tuesday: It’s the best men’s college basketball night of the week with a triple-header of games involving two top 25 teams and/or the likely number one draft pick in next year’s NBA draft.
Wednesday: Sports’ longest season starts with tennis’ Australian Open. Tennis players play for about 11 months of the year, but most fans only care about the four major tournaments. This is one of them, so pay attention! Later on, there are two solid mid-season NBA and NHL games to choose from.
Thursday: More tennis, more NBA basketball, more NHL hockey, although arguably each game today is better than its counter-part was yesterday.
Friday: Date night! If your date is out of town, it wouldn’t be too bad to stay in and watch the hottest hockey team in the league, the Washington Capitals, play against their old coach’s new team, the Anaheim Ducks.
Saturday: Without any NFL playoffs football today, the sports scene dims but only slightly. The top options of the day are a great men’s college basketball game between two of the top three teams this year, the Maryland Terrapins and Michigan State Spartans, and a friendly match between Ireland and the United States in women’s international soccer. Not too shabby!
Sunday: There are only three NFL football games left this year and two of them are today. Don’t miss them! If you want to make a day of it, you can catch a game and a half of British soccer and most of a great hockey game before the football starts.
Caveat — This forecast is optimized for the general sports fan, not a particular sports fan. As such, your mileage may vary. For instance, you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of a particular team, then a regular season MLB baseball game or MLS soccer game may be more important on a particular day than anything on the forecast above. Use the calendar as a way to facilitate conversation about scheduling, not as the last word on when there are sports to watch.