Browsing Tag: sports

    Miscellany

    My First Flyers Game

    October 18, 2024

    50+ years old, lifelong sports fan and lifelong Philadelphia Flyers fan, and I FINALLY saw my first NHL game in person last night in Seattle — with Sean, who loves the Kraken.

    My team lost and his team won, but it was a total blast and makes me kick myself for not going to any NHL games sooner!!!

    Seriously gonna try to see more live NHL games — preferably the Flyers, which will be tough since they play most of their games on the other side of the country. But even if the chance to see another Kraken game comes up, I think I’d still have a fun night.

    Go Flyers!!!

    Miscellany

    Where to watch NFL games on Hawaii’s Big Island

    November 12, 2018

    We found our tribe of Seahawks fans (12s!) at a neat sports bar in Kailua-Kona!

    If you’re a big football fan who’s traveling to Hawaii during NFL season, you might reach a point during your trip planning where you wonder … Where am I gonna watch the football game on Sunday?

    My wife and I have been to different Hawaiian islands probably 2-3 times during NFL season, and each time we’ve managed to find some good places that open up early Sunday for tourists to catch their favorite team’s game. Our most recent trip was last month when we visited the Big Island (Hawaii) with friends. But we were the only ones who wanted to find a place to watch NFL games — preferably with other Seattle Seahawks fans! — so the planning was all on our own.

    Good news: There are three sports bars nestled closely together in Kailua-Kona and each one opens early on Sunday mornings for NFL fans!

    My wife and I ended up at Oceans Sports Bar, which is just off Ali’i Road, the street that runs along the coast. As we were walking there, we passed by two other sports bars that were also open early and had TVs on for people to watch the games — Bongo Ben’s and Laverne’s. There are a few other bar/restaurant-type places in that same area that may have also been open, but we didn’t walk to them.

    (By the way … we’re talking 7:00 AM in Hawaii. That’s when the early games kickoff, at least before the mainland changes its clocks. If it’s after the clock change, kickoff will be at 8:00 AM Hawaiian time.)

    Oceans has a pretty big bar area with a bunch of TVs above showing the games, and then several more TVs placed throughout the dining areas.

    My wife and I arrived just as the game began and picked a table in the first dining area, where about 10-15 Seahawks fans had already gathered. It’s always fun to watch a game with other 12s, and this was no exception.

    The crowd grew as the game went along, and there were eventually about 25-30 Seahawks fans spread across two dining areas. There were also some Broncos fans, Chiefs fans and a few other teams represented … but Oceans Sports Bar seems to be the place for Seahawks fans to gather.

    Service was excellent. Our waitress was quick to bring my wife a mimosa and kept me filled with various tropical juices all morning. For breakfast, they offer a buffet that runs $14 per person, as I recall, which is pretty much a bargain for Hawaii. It was fairly standard stuff — scrambled eggs, bacon, home fried potatoes (to die for! OMG), biscuits and gravy, fried rice and some fresh fruit options. I think they had the fixins for a loco moco, too. As part of the buffet, you can also order a Belgian waffle — it looked delicious, but we were too full to try it.

    All in all, we had a great morning. The food was good. The service was good. The atmosphere was really fun. And we got to watch the Seahawks beat Detroit alongside a big group of fellow football fans. If you’re an NFL fan looking to watch the games on Hawaii’s Big Island, you can’t go wrong with Oceans Sports Bar — especially if you’re a Seahawks fan!

    Miscellany

    In Praise of Vin Scully

    September 22, 2016

    vin-scully-avenue

    I knew from a young age that I wanted to be some kind of sportscaster. I wanted to be on TV or doing play-by-play — didn’t matter the sport, I wanted to do it all.

    This was in the late ’70s and early ’80s, long before the internet and — more importantly — long before the era of every game being shown on TV where, if you had cable TV, you could watch a baseball, basketball or hockey game from somewhere every night of the week. Back then, major league baseball had one game per week shown on national TV. The NFL didn’t have Sunday Ticket or anything like that. The NBA couldn’t even get a major network to air their championship series live; CBS showed them on delay at 11:30 pm after the late local news.

    It was a different time to say the least. If there was a sporting event on national TV, it was a big deal. And, growing up in Philadelphia, these national broadcasts were the only way I ever got to hear the incredible Vin Scully.

    He was the LA Dodgers baseball play-by-play man, but also did a number of national broadcasts — both baseball and football. Vin was the play-by-play guy for that famous NFL game between the Cowboys and 49ers in 1982, with “The Catch” … Joe Montana to Dwight Clark.

    It never occurred to me at the time, but my decision to go to Pepperdine University meant that I’d get to listen to Vin Scully on Los Angeles radio or TV pretty much whenever I wanted. While at Pepperdine, I was active in the TV/radio broadcasting department — it was my chosen major, after all. I did TV sportscasts on the campus cable station, and did basketball play-by-play on the campus radio station. Many of my college friends were fellow sportscasting wannabes, and we all knew and loved Vin Scully.

    Fast forward to tonight … September 22, 2016. I’m sitting at home in my office and, thanks to the magic of the internet, I’m able to dial up the MLB.tv platform and stream Vin’s play-by-play of the Dodgers/Rockies game while I type this sentence. I’m doing this because this is Vin’s last year doing Dodgers games. He’s retiring after an astonishing 67 years behind the microphone. 67 years.

    I just finished reading the best piece of online content I’ve come across in 2016. It’s from ESPN.com — an oral history of Vin Scully as told by 20 of his colleagues and friends called The Man. The Voice. The Stories. I give it my highest recommendation.

    Vin has also been doing a bunch of TV and radio interviews in recent weeks, as the sports world tries to capture his story and mark the end of his incredible career. This one from Rich Eisen’s show is really good, and well worth 15 minutes of your time to listen and learn more about this amazing sportscaster and amazing man.

    You’ll be missed, Vin Scully. Not only by your Dodgers’ faithful, but also by regular sports fans — and former sportscaster wannabes like me — all over the country and world. Godspeed to you.

    Postscript, October 2: Vin just finished broadcasting his final game and I just had to amend this post to include the wonderful goodbye message he recorded to his listeners — and to baseball fans everywhere, really — that the Dodgers just tweeted a few moments ago. So beautiful and perfect. Just like Vin.

    (Photo by Eric Garcetti, used via Creative Commons license.)

    Miscellany

    The Legend of Richard Sherman Grows

    January 26, 2014

    richard-shermanI was on the phone with my mom today when she mentioned how cold it is in the Philly area. I said I was watching NFL Network as the teams arrived in Jersey for the Super Bowl and that it was cold and snowy there. The rest of the conversation went like this (she’s 80 years old, by the way):

    Mom: “You must be excited for the game next week.”

    Me: “You have no idea. Can’t wait.”

    Mom: “Who’s the guy on your team that talks a lot??”

    Me: “Richard Sherman?”

    Mom: “Yes. I like him!!!!”

    (At this point, I start giggling because the thought of having a discussion about Richard Sherman with my mom was pretty much the last thing I would’ve guessed happening.)

    Mom: “He’s very intelligent.”

    Me: “Yeah, he had a 4.2 GPA in high school in Compton –”

    Mom: “– and he graduated from Stanford with a degree in…” (she couldn’t remember)

    Me: “In Communications. Yep. He’s going for his Masters, too. And he’s only 25.”

    Mom: “He’s very well-spoken. And he tells it like it is. He doesn’t suffer fools easily.”

    I love her so much.

    The Legend Of Sherman grows and grows.

    Miscellany

    The Greatest Football Comeback Ever?

    December 10, 2013

    chiawana

    There were 90 seconds left in the game and Chiawana, one of our local high schools, was losing 26-13 in the Class 4A (the biggest schools) state championship game.

    Not only were they losing by two touchdowns, but Camas had the ball. Since the game was over, I turned off the television and went into my office to catch up on email, work on some @U2 stuff, etc.

    A couple hours later, I checked out what was happening on Facebook and saw a couple messages from local friends saying “Congratulations Chiawana” and “Amazing season” and stuff like that. I still wasn’t sure if they’d somehow won the game, so I went to Twitter and saw the tweets.

    Chiawana had won the game 27-26 after being down 26-13 with 90 seconds left and the other team having the ball.

    The full game is online, but just start at about the 2:54:00 mark to see what happens. That’s where Camas has the ball on a 4th and 3 play….