Tag: weekly forecast

How to plan for the week of Mar 14 – 20, 2016

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.

Tuesday: The hockey game between the Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers is not single elimination, like the play in games to the men’s NCAA Championship is, but it’s almost as big. These two teams are fighting for the last playoff spot in the east with only a dozen games remaining.

Wednesday: Soccer in the afternoon, basketball at night. What more could you want? Oh, right, silly question given what’s coming tomorrow…

Thursday: THE FIRST DAY OF MARCH MADNESS IS ONE OF THE BEST SPORTS DAYS OF THE YEAR!! FIND A WAY TO GET OFF OF WORK! OR STREAM THERE.

Friday: Date night! Which you will, of course, spend watching the second 16 games of March Madness. Some years, these are even better than the first. Sip wine as your bracket gets totally busted.

Saturday: You’ve seen all the teams once, now you get to watch the winners from the first two days play each other. Some of your favorites will be eliminated. Sad times. Some of your favorites will move on, fun times!

Sunday: Mix a little bit of Manchester vs. Manchester soccer and Crosby vs. Ovechkin hockey into the last day of the first weekend of March Madness, and you’ve got a superlative Sunday of sports.

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.

How to plan for the week of Mar 7 – 13, 2016

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: As is the trend this week, the majority of our sports action today is in college basketball, both men’s and women’s. Two minor men’s conference championship games and two major women’s championship games lead the way.

Tuesday: Sticking its nose into the college basketball party is Champions League soccer. Real Madrid come into their game against Roma knowing that the only thing that can eliminate them is a loss by two or more goals. This could lead to a boring, defensive game from some teams, but Real Madrid seems constitutionally unable to resist putting on a show. Back at home, there are a few more college basketball championship games, including the women’s Big East finals.

Wednesday: The two Champions League matches on TV today are less star-studded than yesterday’s but significantly closer. Chelsea hosts PSG knowing that a 1-0 win is enough to advance. A similar situation holds in Russia for the Zenit vs. Benfica match where Benfica holds a 1-0 aggregate lead. Of more interest, perhaps, to many American soccer fans is a friendly match between the U.S. women’s national team and Germany in the SheBelieves Cup. This is a rematch of the 2015 World Cup semifinals which the U.S. won 2-0.

Thursday: The Europa League doesn’t have the cache of the Champions League but when giant English teams like Liverpool and Manchester United are involved, it still feels like a big deal. Closer to home, the Los Angeles Lakers don’t have any cache anymore, which is why I’ve been holding their games off the sports calendar for most of the year. But you know what? The week after they became only the sixth team all season to beat the Golden State Warriors, they deserve to be here.

Friday: Date night! Are you in a college basketball relationship? If so, you’re in luck. If not, maybe bank some good favor and have a non-sports related date tonight. March Madness is coming soon…

Saturday: There are a flurry of men’s college basketball conference championships today. All of them are worth watching but counter-intuitively, it’s sometimes the ones from the smaller leagues that are the most fun. Leagues that only get one or two spots in the overall NCAA tournament, really raise the stakes of their championship games.

Sunday: Sunday is always a great sporting day, but it does feel a little like we’re just killing time here, waiting for the next big thing to start happening.

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.

How to plan for the week of Feb 29 – March 6, 2016

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.

How to plan for the week of Feb 22 – 28, 2016

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.

Tuesday: All hail the Champions League. No, really, if you enjoy soccer, you’ll want to watch the game today. Barcelona is the world’s most fun offensive soccer team and Arsenal should pose just enough of a challenge to them to make them sweat a little. Columbus, Ohio is the closest NHL city to Detroit, so the Red Wings and Blue Jackets should eventually have a pretty good rivalry. Tonight could be the day it starts developing. In men’s college basketball, the second best team in the country, the Kansas Jayhawks, travel to Baylor to play the 19th ranked Bears.

Wednesday: Here’s a tiny piece of trivia that I find endlessly interesting: the common Eastern European soccer club name, “Dynamo” is left over from when government agencies sponsored the teams and refers to a team sponsored by the secret police. Dynamo Kiev takes on Manchester City in the Champions league. In men’s college basketball, number 1 ranked Villanova plays at number five ranked Xavier in what, by the numbers, should be the best game of the week. There’s also a double-header of NHL games on NBCSN with the first game a doozy between two teams who think of themselves as championship contenders but are struggling to make the playoffs, the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins.

Thursday: The Nashville Predators fans feel their team is consistently one piece away from winning a Stanley Cup. Usually, it’s the Chicago Blackhawks who have that piece. As such, games between these teams get heated. In the NBA, there’s an excellent double-header on TNT. The first game in particular, pits three of the most elementally great basketball players in the league against each other.

Friday: Date night! If you’re a brainy couple, you might be interested in Harvard vs. Yale’s men’s college basketball game. If you’re hockeyish, you might enjoy the men’s college hockey game between Notre Dame and Boston University. If you’re date-less, settle down to watch an NBA double-header because there’s really no reason to plan a date around a mid-season NBA game.

Saturday: Soccer and basketball, basketball and soccer. If I had to choose one game in each sport to watch, I’d pick the battle of Madrid in soccer and Oklahoma City vs. Golden State in basketball. Plan accordingly.

Sunday: The NHL game today is a great one. The Washington Capitals are having the best regular season in memory. The Chicago Blackhawks are as close to a dynasty as we get in the modern NHL era. It’s regular season greatness vs. proven playoff ability and the game probably means a lot to both teams.

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.

How to plan for the week of Feb 15 – 21, 2016

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: How could you celebrate Presidents’ day without watching some sports? After all, a lot of them have been athletes themselves. Have a late lunch and watch some hockey and then get ready to get your women’s sports on. Admittedly, the U.S. soccer game is more likely to be 10-0 than it is 1-0, but it’s still a good excuse for a party.

Tuesday: The Champions League is back! It’s generally thought of as the best club soccer tournament in the world. Today’s highest profile match is Chelsea vs. Paris SG. Chelsea is having a nightmare of a domestic season but this is a chance for them to shine on another stage. The rest of the day gives us excellent games in hockey and men’s college basketball.

Wednesday: See Tuesday. Same sports, same excellent games. If sports weren’t ideal reality television, this might get boring. As it is, it’s just more fun.

Thursday: Did I fool you by stretching out the events on the calendar? See all that orange and grey space? There aren’t as many events in the sports world today as there are some other days, but what there is is good. It’s been years since the Penguins and Red Wings played in two straight Stanley Cup Finals but you can bet the teams and there fans haven’t forgotten. In the NBA, the Cavs and Bulls almost always play contentious games and no one likes the Clippers except for Clippers fans.

Friday: Date night! Although the finals of the Women’s Olympic soccer qualifying tournament in CONCACAF, the Central American, North American, and Caribbean region, are on Sunday, because the top two teams qualify, it’s tonight’s games that actually matter. The United States would have to suffer an incredible disaster not to qualify but the other slot is more interesting. Canada will face either Mexico or Costa Rica, either of which could create an upset.

Saturday: March Madness is looming. Scout six top 25 men’s teams today and get a leg up on your company’s bracket competition.

Sunday: As we explained in Friday’s update, the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying final tonight is close to an exhibition, because both teams will get to go to Rio. Still, if it’s between the U.S. and Canada, it should be lots of fun. Canada is perennially trying to catch up to the U.S. in women’s soccer and they’re not afraid to throw some elbows to get there. The biggest profile event of the day by far is the famous Daytona 500. If you want to get a feel for NASCAR, this is the race to tune into.

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.

How to plan for the week of Feb 8 – 14, 2016

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: Whoops, didn’t get this posted in time. I guess there must not have been any sports today, right?!

Tuesday: The FA Cup starts to get real when teams you’ve actually heard of start playing each other. Liverpool is having a disappointing year in the EPL, so they’ll be wanting to take a run at winning this tournament. Talking about tournaments, now that the Super Bowl is over, the next giant event on the sports calendar is March Madness. Get a preview of four good men’s teams tonight on ESPN and ESPN2.

Wednesday: The biggest story, really the only story of the day is HOW THE HECK THE WORLD CHAMPION U.S. WOMEN’S NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM’S OLYMPIC QUALIFYING GAME AGAINST COSTA RICA IS NOT ON NORMAL TELEVISION.

Thursday: Get your fill of a couple of winter sports with the luge world championships and snowboarding from historic Fenway Park. Then watch the last competitive NBA game for more than a week.

Friday: Date night! Set yourself up for a good Valentine’s Day weekend and give sports a miss. Nothing much to see here anyway, unless you’re an obsessive NBA fan.

Saturday: Even more ridiculous than not televising the USWNT on Wednesday against Costa Rica is missing their Olympic Qualifying game against Mexico today. It’s really wretched. Luckily, there are other fun things to watch, including a great men’s college basketball game, the U.S. Olympic men’s and women’s marathon qualifying race, and the NBA skills competition including the underrated three-point competition and the over-rated dunk competition.

Sunday: No more football until the late summer. Shucks. Make do with some golf (although, error alert, not the golf that’s listed,) soccer, competitive college basketball and exhibition professional basketball, and NHL Hockey.

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.

How to plan for the week of Feb 1 – 7, 2016

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.

How to plan for the week of Jan 25 – 31, 2016

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 good day for living on the west coast or being a vampire. The best of today’s sports start at 9 p.m. with the Australian Open, which continues through to around six in the morning, and 10:30 p.m. with a matchup of the best two teams in the NBA, the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs.

Tuesday: A relatively uneventful day of sports, to be honest.

Wednesday: Today has the same format as yesterday: soccer, hockey, tennis, but each one is slightly more compelling than Tuesday’s version. I’m particularly looking forward to a chance to see by far the best team in hockey right now, the Washington Capitals, try to deal with a physical and desperate Philadelphia Flyers. In tennis, the Australian Open semifinals begin.

Thursday: I just want to register a complaint to the sports gods. With all of the national sports channels, how can it be that no one is televising the NCAA men’s basketball game between Iowa and Maryland, two top 25 teams. Pah.

Friday: Date night! One of the joys of the FA Cup soccer tournament in England is that you get to pull for true Davids like Derby County in games against insane Goliaths like Manchester United. Come on Derby!

Saturday: If you wake up early or are having trouble sleeping, turn on the Australian Open and catch the women’s finals. If you don’t get much sleep, don’t worry, you can spend the rest of the day blearily and happily in front of the TV, watching excellent basketball games between Louisville and Virginia and Kentucky and Kansas in men’s college basketball, and between the San Antonio Spurs and soap-operatic Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA.

Sunday: Sports fans everywhere mourn the first Sunday in 20 weeks without a single real NFL football game. Instead, we get the men’s Australian Open finals in tennis, a sub-par nationally televised NBA game, a nice men’s international soccer friendly between the U.S. and surprisingly dominant Iceland, and a couple of all-star games. I’m actually interested in watching the hockey one, because they’ve gone to an all three-on-three format which should truly showcase the talent on-hand.

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.

How to plan for the week of Jan 11 – 17, 2016

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.

How to plan for the week of Jan 11 – 17, 2016

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 detail on the all-popular, all-powerful NFL, which groups most of its games on Sunday afternoons, see our NFL Forecast. You can also get daily updates from our NHL forecast and NBA forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: The big ticket event of the day is the national championship game in college football. There’s a big portion of the sports watching population that’s more into college than professional football, and for them, this is a big day.

Tuesday: Soccer in the morning and basketball in the evening. It’s not a bad way to go, which is good, because if you wanted to, you could spend four days this week so occupied. If it’s a close game, the best of the day will be the basketball game between the number one ranked Kansas Jayhawks and the West Virginia Mountaineers.

Wednesday: Liverpool vs. Arsenal is a heck of a mid-week soccer game. If you can find a way to sneak out of work at 3 p.m., do so, you won’t be sorry. In the evening, you can take your choice of a college basketball game involving the likely number one pick in this year’s NBA draft and an NBA game featuring a bunch of players who were high picks themselves.

Thursday: If I had my pick of the games today, I think I’d watch the hockey game between the current dynasty in the NHL, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the most storied team in hockey history, the Montreal Canadians. There’s a not dissimilar game in the NBA as well, the dynastic San Antonio Spurs against the team with the consensus best player in the world, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Friday: Date night! There’s nothing you can’t miss today. Go out!

Saturday: The second weekend of the NFL playoffs is even more compelling than the first and in many ways, it’s better than the next two as well. The four best teams in the league this season face the winners of last weekend’s playoff games after having a week off. Don’t mess around this weekend, if you’re gonna watch sports, watch the football.

Sunday: The same goes for today, if you’re going to watch sports, watch football! If you’re going to watch other sports, there are definitely some good options, including men’s and women’s college basketball, British soccer, and NHL hockey.

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.