Sports Forecast for Friday, June 12, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

Sports Forecast for Thursday, June 11, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

Sports Forecast for Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

How to plan for the week of June 8-15, 2015

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.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team starts their World Cup campaign with a game against Australia.

Tuesday: Four World Cup soccer games, including regional rivalries, France vs. England and Mexico vs. Colombia complement Game Three of the NBA finals in the evening. Both of the first two NBA Finals games have gone to overtime, so Game Three will either push this series into legendary status or be a totally boring blowout.

Wednesday: Women’s soccer takes the day off and men’s soccer comes through the door to fill our soccer needs for the day. The U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team plays a friendly game against Germany. At night, the decidedly unfriendly Stanley Cup Finals continue. The series is 2-1 in favor of the Lightning heading into Game Four.

Thursday: Germany and Norway have combined to win half of the World Cups in women’s soccer history. Surprising, right? This time around, Germany is the favorite but Norway might still have some tricks up their sleeve. Both teams come off big wins in their first match: Germany 10-0 over Ivory Coast and Norway 4-0 over Thailand. The NBA Finals are on at night — Game Four of the series. As of now, we don’t know which team will be up two games to one, but that team will be looking to get a stranglehold over the series and the other will be looking to even it up.

Friday: Date night! Celebrate this week by watching the U.S. Women’s National team play against Sweden and their former coach, Pia Sundhage at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.

Saturday: The college baseball World Series begins and Miami vs. Florida seems like it should be a heated matchup. Not as heated as the Stanley Cup Finals Game 5 which will either be the first elimination game for the Blackhawks to fight off or a game to see which team can go up three games to two. The best game of the Women’s World Cup schedule is probably Brazil vs. Spain.

Sunday: Tune into normal Sunday sporting events: Golf and NASCAR car racing. Or stick with seasonal events like the College World Series and Game Five of the NBA Finals.

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.

Sports Forecast for Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

Sports Forecast for Monday, June 8, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

Sports Forecast for Thursday, June 4, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

Sports Forecast for Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

How to plan for the week of June 1-7, 2015

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Free day! Oh sure, Uzbekistan is playing against Honduras at noon in the Under-20 Men’s World Cup, but… if you want to go see Mad Max or boycott Pitch Perfect 2, you should have time for that.

Tuesday: The French Open quarterfinals begin although the really titanic match-ups are more likely to happen on Wednesday.

Wednesday: If all goes as expected in the bracket and the weather, we should get a premature Djokovic vs. Nadal match in the French Open. Plus, the Stanley Cup finals begin in Tampa Bay. Nothing better than June hockey in Florida. All jokes aside, there really isn’t anything better than the Stanley Cup Finals.

Thursday: The French Open continues in the morning with the women’s semifinals. At night, after more than a week off, the NBA finals begin with LeBron and the other guys on the Cleveland Cavaliers in California to play the Golden State Warriors.

Friday: Date night! This week, the Sports Gods smile on your traditional date night by not scheduling anything too appealing on Friday night.

Saturday: For all the fanfare that that Saturday a month ago got for being a great sports Saturday, it’s hard to beat this one. Club soccer’s biggest tournament, the UEFA Champions League has its final, the Women’s World Cup begins with two games, one featuring host nation, Canada. Throw in the French Open Women’s finals and Game Two of the Stanley Cup Finals, and you’d have an amazing sports day even without the cherry on top. The cherry in this case is the running of the Belmont Stakes, a horse race whose profile goes through the roof on years when there’s a horse that’s won both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. This year, that horse is American Pharaoh, and if it can win the Belmont, it would become the first triple crown winner since 1978’s Affirmed.

Sunday: Roll out of bed and watch the French Open Men’s final, spend a happy afternoon watching the Women’s World Cup, and finish your day off with Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

Need to Know Sports: May 7, 2015

I’m introducing a new thing this week. It’s called Need to Know Sports and its a daily email that answers the question, “What do I need to know about sports today?” Whether you’re someone who needs to know everything about sports to feel alive or someone who views sports as being strictly on a need to know basis, this is a good way to start your day.

Sign up to receive Need to Know Sports

Here’s a preview of today’s edition.

Subject: Need to know sports: May 7, 2015

Dear Sports Fan,
What do I need to know about sports today?

Today’s Top Stories

DEFLATEGATE RETURNS: Remember that big bruh-ha-ha before the Super Bowl about how the New England Patriots may or may not have (but probably did) illegally deflate the footballs they were playing offense with in their AFC Championship game against the New England Colts? Well the official NFL investigation finally published their findings yesterday. After three months and 243 pages, the NFL’s conclusion is pretty much what we started out with. The Patriots, quarterback Tom Brady in particular, “more probably than not” broke the rules by intentionally deflating footballs. While some of the reaction to this release has been a condemnation of Brady and the Patriots as cheaters, even more of it has been making fun of the NFL for being the type of overly officious organization that needs a 243 page report created over three months to confirm the obvious. The next step will be the NFL deciding how to punish Brady and the team. That will generate another big offseason football story soon. If you want to read the whole report (and apparently there are some very funny txt message conversations in it) you can find its full text here.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – Things evened up in the NBA Playoffs last night. The Cleveland Cavaliers, who had lost Game One of their series against the Chicago Bulls, beat the Bulls 106-91 to even up the series 1-1. The Houston Rockets had the same scenario against the Los Angeles Clippers and came away with the same result, winning 115-109. This sends both series to the lower seeded home court for Games Three and Four with the series tied 1-1.

National Hockey League – The Montreal Canadiens 2-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning are now up 3-0 in the series and are only one win away from advancing. The Canadiens are one loss away from being swept. Hockey is the one sport where coming back in the playoffs from down 3-0 is actually somewhat common — maybe it happens once every two years — but it still seems like the Canadiens would need a miracle to stay alive. In the other Eastern Conference series, the Washington Capitals took a three games to one lead against the New York Rangers after beating them 2-1 in a game that featured a rare playoff fight.

MLB Baseball – It’s a mixed bag for the New York Yankees this year. They’re in first place, which most people did not expect to happen, but one of their important pitchers, C.C. Sabathia has yet to win a game. He’ll have to wait another week or so after pitching last night against the Toronto Blue Jays and taking the loss in a 5-1 game.

Champions League Soccer – The dream matchup between Barcelona and Bayern Munich lived up to expectations in some ways and not in others. It was an exciting game, full of incredible skill. Where it fell down was in creating a suspenseful second game between the two teams — after Barcelona scored three goals in the last 25 minutes of the game, to win the game 3-0, there seems to be almost no doubt about which team will advance to the finals this year.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

Montreal Canadiens at Tampa Bay Lightning, 7 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: There’s no rest for these teams who just played last night. It’s hard to tell who that will help. Will the Lightning, up 3-0, benefit from Montreal not having time to regroup? Or will the Canadiens use the strength desperation gives them to overcome a fatigued Lightning?

Chicago Blackhawks at Minnesota Wild, 9:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: The Wild are also facing elimination tonight, down 3-0 to the Blackhawks. Losing in four straight games to the hated Blackhawks would be a sorry way for the Wild to end their year. I’m hoping they can pull out a victory tonight for their fans at home.

NBA Basketball

No playoff action tonight. Weird. The NBA does sneaky stuff with their playoff schedule to get their best games on during the weekend.

MLB Baseball

Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals, 1:45 p.m. ET on regional cable: Believe it or not, despite their being 11 games on the MLB schedule today, this is the only one between two winning teams. It’s a traditional rivalry too, although it’s hard to have a real rivalry when one team (the Cardinals) has a history of success and the other (the Cubs) hasn’t won a world series in over 100 years. Cubs fans had high hopes this Spring that this would be the team to break the streak of losing and it still could be, but not if the Cardinals, who have a league leading 20 wins, continue to play so well.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

It’s hard to believe the story of Mike Burke who went from college football player to soldier to spy to hollywood consultant, back to spy, to the circus (really) to television before finally becoming the president of the New York Yankees. Read this editorial written by a Rutgers senior, Joe Rivera, who argues for the return of the college’s crew program to Varsity status. Barry Bonds became one of the biggest villains in sports by taking performance enhancing drugs and annoying teammates and journalists alike with his arrogance but this is actually a pretty nice post-career profile about his newfound passion of cycling and the support he gives to a women’s professional team.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo by Sponchia.