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: The New York Rangers will be debuting their new toy, former long-time captain of the Carolina Hurricanes who they traded for this weekend.
Tuesday: The Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby and Washington Capitals Alexander Ovechkin have been rivals for a decade now. This year, Ovechkin is the leader of the by far the best team during the regular season so far. Still, when he looks in his trophy cabinet, he’s missing the two biggest prizes, the Stanley Cup and Olympic Gold, both of which Crosby has. Every time these teams meet, it’s worth watching.
Wednesday: It’s time to start scouting men’s college basketball teams for March Madness. Keep an eye on Miami, who could make or break your bracket. Watch them play against Notre Dame tonight.
Thursday: Around this time of the year, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team is usually in Portugal playing in the Algarve Cup. This year, taking advantage of the attention from last year’s World Cup, the U.S. team organized a new exhibition/tournament in the United States with three of the other top five teams in the world: France, Germany, and tonight’s opponent, England.
Friday: Date night! Spice up your ordinary Friday night date with some Rugby Sevens — the fastest sport (played with an oblong ball) on two feet!
Saturday: Duke and North Carolina is the greatest men’s college basketball rivalry and they just played a doozy of a game a few weeks ago. Expect the rematch to be twice as intense and hope for it to be half as close.
Sunday: Major League Soccer begins its 2016 schedule today but it’s women sports that are going to steal the day. Two championship games in college basketball and another USWNT game should draw more eyes than anything else today.
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.