a sneaky super sunday

The SuperBowl, Championship Sunday, the beginning of March Madness, opening day for the MLB. These are all days that, as an avid sports fan, I get amped up for weeks in advance. We throw watch parties for these days, skip work for these days, and enter in office pools to up the ante just that much more. These are the days that fans simply cannot wait for and that's what made Sunday such a special day. It was completely unexpected. Confused? If you're not the biggest sports fan in the world you probably are and that's ok. What I want to do now though is break down just how fantastic of a sports day you may have missed. In fact, if you planned this out right and had enough food and drink, you could've managed to never leave your lay-z-boy from noon until midnight.

12:00 pm (Eastern standard): BASKETBALL: Ohio State AT Michigan State. CBS. Huge Big Ten implications. Two stars destined for the NBA. Oh and not to mention the fact that both teams are vying for a possible 1 seed.

1:00 pm BASKETBALL: Cleveland Cavaliers AT Orlando Magic. ABC. Taking away the fact that I'm a gigantic Cleveland fan this game is one any NBA fan would want to see. Rematch from the playoffs last year. Lebron. Superman V. Superman. New pieces trying to mesh. So many great story lines. The only problem is that the Van Gundy announcing team was doing the game for ABC.

I spent from 1:00 until just after 4:00 flipping between these two games and then focusing on the Cavs. Yes they lost and the Bucks won but this isn't about my teams, it's about the day. So far, so good.

Around 4:00 pm (HOCKEY) Russia V Czech Republic. USA network. Ok, so maybe your not a basketball fan. Hell, I'm not really a hockey fan but the Olympics bring something a little special. We watch sports we wouldn't normal and learn to love them (Looking at you, Curling) and hockey has become one of those sports for me. Combine the pageantry of the Olympics with two traditional hockey powers, not to mention one of the two players any one's actually heard of (OVEY) and you've got the makings of some thrilling television. Russia takes it. Go rusky go.

Roughly 4:30 pm (BASKETBALL) Boston Celtics at Denver Nuggets. ABC. Two more title contenders. Some of the biggest names in the sport. A Denver team who is quietly under the radar. Very compelling game. The Nuggets gave up a 20 point lead only to hold on for the victory.

7:45 pm (HOCKEY) U.S.A. AT Canada. MSNBC. In my eyes the absolute main event of the day. They sold the whole 30 years since the Miracle on Ice so well that everyone in our bar had chills watching the promos. Huge underdog USA team, insanely talented Canadian team, IN CANADA... can we get some magic? Yes we can. Amazing game and, as you're probably aware, USA pulled off a gigantic upset.

A lot of people have complained that the game wasn't on NBC but they couldn't be more wrong. Ice dancing was on NBC and while males will be annoyed with this, women run households and they love them some skating. It drew a 16 share...which is insane. The hockey game being on MSNBC meant no commercials, a pre and post game show and no interruptions from other sport updates. People were going nuts. It was great.


Had the day ended here I would've been content; but it didn't. Around 10:30 pm ESPN showed the Portland Trail Blazers hosting the Utah Jazz in what ended up being a very good game as well. Also, around midnight Sweden played their rivals Finland in more Olympic Hockey. If you add all this into a full day of Olympic coverage of Alpine (Bode Miller American hero?) you've got one amazing day.

I woke up knowing I'd be watching the Cavs and America. The far less expected team won but I'm certainly not complaining. I had no idea that the entire day would be magical. If you're a fan at all I truly hope you were near a television yesterday, because if not you missed something super.