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: Duke and North Carolina are two of the biggest names in college basketball. We’ve got both of them tonight, but not playing each other and not in the same gendered competition. At six, you can catch the Duke women taking on the #3 ranked team, Notre Dame. An hour later, the North Carolina men’s team plays against the Louisville Cardinals.
Tuesday: The British Premier League schedule remains mysterious to me, but I’m happy to take great day-time soccer whenever it appears. This game between Liverpool and the shocking first place Leicester City is worth sneaking out of work to watch. At night, you have a choice between an NHL game between the top two teams in the Eastern conference and a matchup of top 25 men’s college basketball teams.
Wednesday: More soccer, just not quite as good as yesterday, and more hockey, just not quite as good as yesterday. If you can stay up to watch it, the young and exciting Minnesota Timberwolves have a rare appearance on national television.
Thursday: All’s quiet on the sports front. At least it is until a late-night clash of southern Californian hockey teams. The game between the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks will be plenty noisy.
Friday: Date night! Schedule early or late depending on if you want to catch some hockey, basketball, or international men’s soccer. Also, make sure you think about whether your date will want to watch with you!
Saturday: It’s the day before the Super Bowl. This means, that it’s a pretty good day to take a brief vacation from sports if you live with non-sports fans. If you’re in a all-sports-fan household, then you do have a large number of options. Leicester City vs. Manchester City is a massive breakfast soccer game and the Golden State Warriors vs. Oklahoma City Thunder is a fantastic dessert basketball game.
Sunday: It’s Super Bowl Sunday!! Everything else pales in comparison. Note that I somehow switched the NHL and NBA games on the calendar — the Washington Capitals play the Philadelphia Flyers before the Los Angeles Clippers take on the Miami Heat. You’ll be cooking in preparation for your Super Bowl party either way, but at least now you’re fully informed.
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.