A Blast from the Past

While it might be hard to believe based on the relative lack of coverage it receives on Caught Looking, while growing up I went to more hockey games than baseball or basketball games. Last season, I only went to two hockey games - one at HP Pavilion in San Jose and one at the RBC Center in Raleigh - but as kids my friends and I went to Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York to see the Islanders play multiple times each hockey season.  On Friday, I made my return to the Coliseum after a multiple-season absence to watch the Islanders play host to the New Jersey Devils.
   

Even back in the late 1990s the Nassau Coliseum was considered one of the worst venues in professional sports, and it doesn't seem like any real capital improvements have been made on the arena in the last decade.  As always, from the outside the Coliseum looked like a drab ball of concrete, although now most of the signage for the now-defunct New York Dragons of the Arena Football League has been replaced with cheesy ads for Optimum cable internet and television.  The concourses were still simultaneously barren and crowded (there was a surprisingly respectable crowd at the game, probably because a lot of people were in town for Thanksgiving).  The sponsors whose ads lined the boards of the hockey rink were far from the marquee national advertisers that you'd find at a New York Rangers or San Jose Sharks game - companies like New York Community Bank and CompressionStockings.com (whatever that is) even had their logos embedded into the ice itself (see below).

 NYCB and CompressionStockings.com are low budget on-ice sponsors.

I was, however, pretty impressed with the fans who came out for the game.  Even though the team gave the crowd absolutely nothing to cheer about (and a whole lot to boo about), the fans were relatively energetic and loud.  There was the usual suite of anti-Rangers chants, which happen during every Islanders game regardless of opponent, which always puts a smile on my face.  It was great to see the Islanders only "super fan" - an overweight Long Islander who sits in the first row behind one of the nets and wears a gold wig under an Isles hat - retaining his usual seat and working tirelessly to pump up the crowd.  The game proved that, despite what you might read in the local papers, there will be plenty of angry people if the team does ever move to Kansas City or Canada as is constantly rumored. 

Despite the extreme crappiness of the Nassau Coliseum (it rivals the Oakland Coliseum and Candlestick Park as the worst venues that I've visited in recent memory) and the even worse performance of the team itself (the Isles lost 1-0 to a weak New Jersey team and blew a golden opportunity to tie the game with a penalty shot in the third period), I still had a great time.  Isles games take me back to a time in my youth when the Nassau Coliseum was the only venue that my friends and I were allowed to visit without our parents, since Uniondale was a lot closer and less intimidating for a group of young teenagers than the Bronx or midtown Manhattan.  For that reason, the Coliseum and the Islanders will always hold a special place in my heart, no matter how incredibly dilapidated the Islanders or their home arena get. 

NBA, I Wish I Knew How To Quit You

With the 2011-12 NBA season potentially over, I've been trying to block everything related to professional basketball out of my mind.  As much as I'd love to see the NBA and NBPA come to an agreement over the Thanksgiving break and get the season started by Christmas, it seems less and less likely to happen every day.  Rather than get myself worked up over the loss of what could have been an exciting Knicks season, I've been telling myself to forget about the NBA and focus on bigger and better things - college football bowls, the second half of the NFL season, college hoops and maybe even a little NHL hockey.

It's been harder than I expected to stay away from NBA-related conversation over the last few weeks, however.  For one, perhaps not surprisingly, every person I come across wants to talk about the NBA lockout.  People are constantly asking me for my thoughts or trying to draw some inside information out of me (which I honestly don't have); it's happened so often over the past month that I pretty much have a scripted response memorized ("I haven't heard anything specific, but based on what I've been reading from public sources I don't feel optimistic.  It's really a shame, especially after the fantastic finish to last season and considering all of the great young talent in the league blah blah blah").

There are other little reminders of the NBA's absense that I'm also forced to deal with everyday, though.  ESPN's Scorecenter app for Android phones still lists basketball games among the upcoming events; on the "My Teams" tab, I have each previously-scheduled Knicks game staring me in the face, with a giant "CANCELLED" written where the start time would normally be.  The other day I was watching a college basketball game being played at Madison Square Garden (and I'll be watching more from there this week when Stanford heads to the Big Apple to take part in the pre-season NIT semifinals starting on Wednesday) and noticed that the NBA three point line is still prominently painted on the hardwood.  Every channel I turn to is either running a T-Mobile ad starring Dwyane Wade, an Adidas spot featuring Derrick Rose or the new (and amusing) Call of Duty commercial with the Dwight Howard cameo at the end.

Yes, there's a lot of sports to watch right now, even with the NBA on hiatus.  But that doesn't mean it's been easy to forget about the NBA altogether.  Whether it's the constant questioning from family and friends, the ESPN app, college basketball at MSG or seemingly every ad on TV, reminders of all the great professional basketball that we're missing right now are everywhere.  Here's hoping that the two sides come to an agreement soon, before the 2011-12 season is lost forever and all we're left with is the (fitting) image of Dwight Howard firing a machine gun.

Crumbling Candlestick Park

Note: Based on reader input, some additional detail has been added (in italics) to the third paragraph.

Despite having lived in the Bay Area for over a year now, I didn't know much about Candlestick Park - home of the San Francisco 49ers - until this weekend.  I had heard that the stadium was known for being shockingly windy and cold, and that the team has been trying to build a new facility either in Santa Clara or near AT&T Park for years.  I also recently attended a panel featuring some 49ers executives during which one of the team's senior marketing executives claimed that her job was to make sure the team was associated with the word "class."  It was with this limited information that I made my way up to South San Francisco on Sunday to see the New York Giants battle the Niners at Candlestick Park.

While San Francisco isn't New York, it's still a large city where a lot of people regularly use public transportation.  The city has both Caltrain, a commuter rail network, and BART, a metro system, but shockingly neither have a station anywhere near Candlestick.  The Caltrain website recommends taking the Caltrain, BART and a bus to get to the stadium from Palo Alto, but after some research I discovered that the stadium is a fifteen minute walk through a quasi-shady San Francisco neighborhood from the nearest Caltrain stop.  We took the 50 minute Caltrain ride from Stanford and then walked down streets, through parking lots and up unpaved hills to get to the field - hardly convenient.  And we were far from the only ones doing it - we followed hundreds of other 49er jersey-clad fans who showed us the way.  How the city of San Francisco hasn't developed a better public transportation alternative for reaching the stadium from the South Bay is beyond me.

Can you see the video board?  Neither could we from our seats in Section 61.

Things didn't get much better once we reached the stadium, either.  Once we got inside the Candlestick grounds, it was immediately obvious why the team is trying so desperately trying to construct a new facility.  The stadium, like many other 1960s-era football stadiums (such as RFK Stadium in Washington, DC), is generic, concrete and ugly.  The concourses are drab, narrow and empty, with extremely limited concessions and bathroom facilities.  Also, because Candlestick was once a mixed-use venue (it housed the San Francisco Giants until AT&T Park opened), there is a section of temporary seating (removable for baseball games) which is improperly angled towards the sideline, so the rows and the yard lines aren't perpendicular and some views are obstructed - you can even sort of see it in the photo below.  Perhaps most surprising, though, was the terrible quality of Candlestick's in-stadium technology.  There were two tiny video boards that were nearly impossible to see, and the PA announcer was barely audible through the stadium's dilapidated stereo system.  Ironically, Silicon Valley's team might have the least technologically sophisticated venue in the NFL.

The 49ers fans were passionate, in a sloppy sort of way.

As for the team's mission of "staying classy," as Ron Burgundy would say, I would say the 49ers are coming up short.  While the team's fans were passionate and relatively loud (it's hard not to be when your team is 8-1), they were far from "professional."  Overall, I would rate my first Candlestick Park experience as mediocre at best.  At least the weather was fantastic - we were all way overdressed, having prepared for a freezing, windy afternoon.  It's definitely time for the team to break ground on a new Santa Clara-based facility ASAP.

Gameday at the Oval

For years, I've flipped the TV to ESPN on Saturday mornings and caught parts of College Gameday, the network's premiere weekly college football preview show.  Given that Gameday is filmed each week on location at the site of the big, nationally-televised Saturday night game and is typically hosted at one of college football's iconic locales, I always figured that the odds of me ever attending a broadcast were almost negligible; not only would I have to be living near a Gameday location, but I'd also have to care enough about the game to get up early enough to attend the taping.  As luck would have it, though, everything came together yesterday when Gameday made its first ever visit to Palo Alto for the Stanford game versus Oregon.

Even on the East Coast, Gameday involves getting up very early.  The broadcast begins at 9 AM eastern, and fans begin jockeying for position behind the stage hours in advance.  In California everything is of course three hours earlier, so fans were arriving at Stanford's Oval - a grassy area in front of the main campus - at 4 AM.  While I wasn't quite that dedicated, I did drag myself out of my room in time to arrive at the Oval by 7, and by that time, hundreds of fans were sprawled across the grass in the dark of early morning, many carrying Gameday's traditional clever signs.  I took a picture of some of my favorites (see below), and also particularly enjoyed other signs that read:

• Tebow - God + Talent = Andrew Luck
• Erin Andrews, will you be my non-technical co-founder?
• I hate LeBron

As predicted, Stanford fans came up with some clever Gameday signs.

After getting over the initial shock of how many (mostly) Stanford fans showed up before 7 AM to watch Gameday, I realized that seeing the show live isn't all that exciting.  While it's kind of cool while the ESPN crew is talking - and especially while they're talking about Oregon and Stanford - there's a ton of down time while the show is either airing other pre-taped segments or, worse yet, in a commercial break where people are just standing around, somewhat tired and cold, waiting for a camera to pass by and give them a reason to cheer.  While it's really not super-exciting, I'm certainly glad I got to see it once and can now cross it off my sports fan bucket list.

The Red Zone - the Stanford student section - was loud, energetic and surprisingly supportive.

The Gameday turnout was impressive - especially by Stanford standards - and was a reflection of the day as a whole.  The Cardinal faithful (and, admittedly, a ton of Ducks fans) showed up for some excellent tailgating, entered the stadium early and were loud and supportive throughout.  After time ran out on Stanford in their 53-30 loss, I honestly wasn't even that disappointed.  On the field, Oregon was a vastly superior team that deserved the big victory.  Off the field, I was proud of the Stanford fan support and hope that it continues even though the team's National Championship dreams are over - starting with Saturday's Big Game.

The Power of Football

I went to the Stanford men's basketball game tonight against Central Arkansas, and there were less than 1,000 people in the stands.  Every section was flooded with tons of empty red seats, and the bleacher seats up top were almost completely vacant.  There was, however, one section that was moderately full, moderately loud and moderately energetic - amazingly, it was the 6th Man section, home of the Stanford students.  You may recall that, last year, I criticized Stanford basketball fans for being apathetic and weak.  At first blush, it seemed as if a new crop of students brought some life to Maples in time for the start of the 2011-2012 college hoops season.

This, however, wasn't true.  In fact, the only reason students showed up to watch Stanford basketball was because of Stanford football.  Tonight's obscure hoops match against Central Arkansas, you see, is worth one Red Zone (loyalty) point to next weekend's Big Game showdown with rival Cal, which is always a big game and this year is shaping up to be especially so.  If Stanford can hold off Oregon tomorrow (plenty of coverage and pictures from that game and the festivities surrounding it - including ESPN's College Gameday broadcast live from the Oval tomorrow morning - to come), next Saturday's Cal game will be for a lot more than pride; it'll be to clinch the Pac-12 North division and a spot in the first Pac-12 Championship game, as well as a potential berth to the National Championship.  If anything can get Stanford students to a non-conference basketball game, that'll do it.

The fact that the 6th Man section was somewhat crowded for tonight's game shows the power of a dominant football program.  While a great basketball team can't drive success on the gridiron (as Duke painfully discovers year after year), big time football can generate enthusiasm for basketball.  The question will be can Stanford build on the buzz around the football program, use it (and the loyalty points program) to push fans to basketball games, and maintain excitement in Maples after Andrew Luck is gone and the the days of National Championship contention are over?  Even if not, it's smart for the Stanford athletic department to do anything they can to leverage the football team's success for other sports while it lasts.

But why stop at offering one loyalty point for this season's Big Game?  Why not have a number of this season's basketball games earn Red Zone points for games next season?  While such a program wouldn't appeal to people graduating (myself included), and even though next year's football team won't be nearly as good as the 2011 version, it couldn't hurt to try to use the allure of tickets to next season's USC game, for example, to get people to show up to big basketball games against UCLA or Arizona (which last year were empty).  Tonight proved that football can drive traffic to other sports.  It would be wise for Stanford athetics to ride the football team's tidal wave for as long as possible.

Helmet-to-Helmet Hits: A Catch-22

Every week I watch a lot of NCAA and NFL football, and every week I cringe when I see players taking brutal shots to the head.  As both the NCAA and NFL have acknowledged, a player's helmet can indeed be used as a weapon, and many (primarily) defensive backs have gotten into the habit of leading with their heads in an attempt to, at best, disconnect the offensive player from the ball or, at worst, inflict as much pain as humanly possible.  Most often, it's Stanford wide receiver Chris Owusu that I see taking the dangerous blows to the head.  But what I've come to realize, particularly after watching this past Saturday's Stanford game versus Oregon State, is that there's a very thin line between intentionally dirty play and well-intentioned, clean hits that result in head injuries.

On Saturday, Owusu caught a pass from Andrew Luck, ducked down in anticipation of contact, and was immediately hit by Oregon State safety Jordan Poyer (check out the video above).  While replays did show that Poyer's helmet and shoulder pads made direct contact with Owusu's head, to me it was immediately obvious that Poyer wasn't looking to hurt the Cardinal receiver.  On the contrary, Poyer was only trying to make a big play for his team and got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.  While the penalty levied against Oregon State was appropriate according to the NCAA's rules - any direct contact to an opposing player's head, initiated by either the helmet, shoulder pads or arms, is grounds for a personal foul penalty - the play showed that not all seemingly vicious helmet-to-helmet hits are created equal.  While some players celebrate after dealing a blow to the head, Poyer was remorseful:

Conversely, the Oregon State player who put the hit on Owusu, Jordan Poyer, apologized to head coach David Shaw when he came on to the field to check on his wide receiver.  “He came up to me and apologized and I put my arm around him and said ‘Hey, don’t worry about, just play. Play hard, man,’” Shaw said. “It happens in this game. It’s hard. It’s a split-second decision between ducking your head and just barely missing his head or getting helmet-to-helmet. I’m not going to say it’s easy. It’s hard. But when it’s close, the officials have told us they have to call it.”

While it's difficult to watch an athlete, particularly one you root for on a weekly basis, go down in a heap after taking a direct shot to the helmet, I feel bad for Poyer in this situation.  Here we have an overmatched defensive player trying his best to make plays against a juggernaut offense - he's going full speed, doing everything he can to keep his team in the game (and, down just 14-7 at the time, Oregon State was doing a good job for the first half of the game), and playing hard.  Can we really expect a player like Poyer to pull up and avoid contact every time there's even a remote risk of helmet-to-helmet contact?  Certainly not.

If we can discourage defensive backs from intentionally leaving their feet on tackles and trying to make contact above the shoulders, we'll go a long way towards reducing traumatic hits to the head in both college and professional football.  But at the same time, we have to acknowledge that, as Coach David Shaw said, football is a rough and ruthless game, and sometimes unfortunate incidents are bound to happen.  While I'd never wish a concussion on anyone (let alone three, like Owusu has reportedly had already this season), we can't be naive and act like rule changes and fines are going to rid football of them entirely.  I just hope that Chris Owusu fully recovers from this latest head injury, and that Jordan Poyer doesn't feel too bad about being unfairly labelled as a bad guy.

An Angry Stanford Fan Rants

Last night, I had already written half of a blog post that I was intending to add this morning when I heard about this week's BCS standings.  As you've likely heard by now, Stanford still trails undefeated LSU and Oklahoma State, as well as one-loss Alabama, in the BCS rankings.  Despite watching Alabama lose on Saturday at home in a game in which they could barely complete a pass or kick a field goal, the BCS has determined that the Crimson Tide is superior to a Stanford squad that has yet to lose a game and has had only one team come within 25 points of beating them (USC last weekend).  While I usually try not to post emotion-filled rants about why things suck (and, believe me, with the BCS that's often very difficult), I need to get a few thoughts down before this coming weekend when this all likely becomes moot because a) Stanford beats Oregon and jumps Alabama or b) Stanford loses to Oregon and falls out of the National Championship picture altogether.

First, I'll address the obvious: In sports, a team that doesn't lose a game should win its league.  Stanford is not only part of the NCAA and FBS football, but it's also a BCS conference school.  All of the (in my mind ridiculous) arguments that have been used against undefeated schools in the past, including Boise State, TCU and Utah in recent years, shouldn't apply to the Cardinal.  While Stanford's schedule admittedly isn't as rigorous as that of an SEC team like Alabama, they're still playing solid, major conference competition on a weekly basis.  And, not only are they playing them, they're destroying them.  Saturday's game against Oregon State might have been the Cardinal's sloppiest performance of the 2011 season, and they still won by 25.  They passed a very difficult road test at USC, winning in overtime, and manhandled a previously ranked Washington team at home.  It's not Stanford's fault that the Pac-12 isn't stellar this year.  If LSU and OKST run the table as well and Stanford gets left out as the third wheel, I could live with that.  But the Cardinal getting bumped out by a one-loss Alabama team would, in my mind, eliminate any shred of credibility that the BCS has left.

Next, there's the absurd notion that because the LSU-Alabama game was close, the two SEC titans must be the two best teams in the country.  In response, I'll first point out that the two worst teams in the country would probably play a close game, so the fact that Alabama only lost by three to mighty LSU suggests that LSU might not be as dominant as people think as much as it suggests that Alabama still might be the second best team in the nation.  Before the game, commentators were talking about how, if LSU and Alabama played a classic game, the loser would still very much remain in the National Championship picture.  Well, Saturday night's game was close, but it was far from a classic.  The contest was marked by sloppy play on both sides, inconsistent offense and pathetic special teams.  Based on Saturday night, it appears that both LSU and Alabama are far from complete teams primed to roll over any challenger in the National Championship game.  Why must we assume that a 9-6 overtime game proves that these teams are the country's top two?  Isn't it at least possible that Oklahoma State and Stanford are not only better than Alabama, but better than both of them?

Last, the argument that really drives me crazy is one I heard this morning from a friend who suggested that if Stanford played Alabama or LSU, they might put up a couple touchdowns but they'd probably allow 40+ points.  What about Saturday night's SEC showdown suggests that either of these teams could score 40+ on Stanford?  I understand that both team's have top defenses, but you don't need a team of future NFL stars to make most of the plays that the LSU and Alabama defenses were making on the opposing offenses.  LSU couldn't complete a pass down field (other than the two that Tigers quarterback Jarrett Lee threw directly at the Alabama secondary), and Alabama's offense tried to get way too cute with an option pass that was intercepted.  Why couldn't Stanford load up against the run, force these inconsistent quarterbacks to throw and make a few big defensive plays?  It might not be likely, but by placing Alabama ahead of Stanford the BCS is unjustly taking it out of the realm of possibilities.

DVR Danger, or How I Missed "The Helmet Catch"

This Sunday will mark the first time that my New York Giants have played against the New England Patriots (not counting preseason) since the Giants pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Super Bowl history less than four years ago.  While New York won the game on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress, the play from that game that has burned itself into the minds of sports fans is Manning's desperate heave to backup receiver David Tyree, now known (affectionately in New York and disgustedly in Boston) as "The Helmet Catch."

Every Giants (and Pats) fan can tell you exactly where he was when Tyree made his improbable grab, and can describe exactly how he felt while watching it live.  Every Giants fan, that is, except for me.  As much as it pains me to admit it, I didn't catch (no pun intended) Tyree's grab live.  Instead, I fell victim to the dangers of DVR and, with the Giants once again set to take on New England in an important (but admittedly much less significant) match-up this Sunday, I want to issue a few words of warning to NFL followers everywhere.  While DVR seems to provide us with great opportunities to pause live action, re-watch critical plays and subsequently blow through commercial breaks, Digital Video Recorders are far from all fun and games.

I watched the Giants-Pats Super Bowl with some coworkers at a house in Beverly Hills.  Periodically while watching, we'd pause the action to let someone go grab another beer and some food or to let someone use the bathroom, or we'd rewind to take another look at a nice catch or a big hit.  The Super Bowl was scheduled to run for four hours (including pregame and halftime), but any NFL fans knows that the Superbowl always runs long - unfortunately, Adelphia Cable wasn't aware of this seemingly obvious fact.  By the time the fourth quarter rolled around and Manning was preparing to launch his wobbly pass towards Tyree, the scheduled run time for the Super Bowl was set to expire, and in fact did so just as Manning released the pass.

Or so we thought.  You see, when our DVR'ed broadcast reached the moment just before "The Helmet Catch," we were probably 30 seconds or so behind the live broadcast.  What happens when you reach the end of a scheduled broadcast on some DVRs?  The TV jumps immediately to live programming - in our case, 30 seconds ahead to what was scheduled as the Super Bowl post game show, but what turned out to be the moment immediately following Tyree's grab.  All we saw while watching was Manning spin and fire the ball - then a weird break as the TV jumped to live programming - and then the Giants celebrating down field and the announcers going crazy.  Or course, shortly thereafter we saw dozens of replays of the catch (and I've seen it hundreds of times since), but the truth is that I never saw it live.

I've seen "The Helmet Catch" from every vantage point but one: The live video broadcast.

The message here is that the next time you choose to watch a live sporting event on delay using your DVR, be careful.  As much as we wish it wasn't so, the DVR doesn't know you're watching one of the most significant sporting events of your lifetime at the most significant time.  All it knows is that when a program is scheduled to end, it's time to jump to the start of the next show, regardless of what David Tyree might be doing at the time.  

The Not-So-Big Even-Less-East

Not long ago, I criticized the NCAA for allowing its once notorious and powerful conferences to destroy themselves in the names of nationalization and profitability.  At the time, I figured the post would cover the issue for awhile and that I wouldn't have to revisit conference realignment issues until something major happened to really shake up the college sports landscape.  Well, while it might have come earlier than I anticipated, today is that day.  In an effort to recover from the losses of Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the ACC and West Virginia and (recently-added) TCU to the Big XII, the Big East is expected to extend invitations to six schools for football, three of which would become Big East members in all sports.

The first thing a rational person notices when looking at the list of new Big East schools is that most of them are located nowhere near the East Coast.  Some of them - Boise State and Air Force - are nowhere near the eastern half of the country, and another two - SMU and Houston - are right smack in the middle.  Only two of the six additions - Navy and Central Florida - are on the East Coast, and even those are located in traditional ACC territory as opposed to Big East turf.  But let's look past the geography for a minute - after all, the notion of location-agnostic Super Conferences has been thrown around for a while, so maybe it's no surprise that the Big "East" is looking well outside of New England for new members.

Aside from geography, the next thing you might notice are that these six schools aren't all that big, either - at least by college sports standards.  While some of the Big East additions boast huge enrollments, they are far from college sports powerhouses.  Unlike the SEC and Big XII, which have been poaching schools from other BCS-caliber conferences, most people don't associate schools like Houston, Navy and Central Florida with the NCAA's cream of the crop.  Even Boise State - the crown jewel of these six because of it's perennially powerful football program - won't become an all-sports member of the Big East, and it remains to be seen how six-plus east coast trips a year will impact the school's football team and its ability to recruit local talent.  In short, not one of these six schools is Big and East, and half of them aren't even either one.

These facts make these invitations extremely disappointing to those of us who grew up in Big East territory.  In recent years, it became clear that the conference was much more concerned with getting bigger than it was getting better and, despite some excellent suggestions on how to improve the conference, the league's grasp over its members was always tenuous at best.  The Big East was always willing to sacrifice either the Big (Cincinnati) or the East (TCU), but now the flood gates have completely opened.  And while a name change and a re-branding will help some - the notion of a conference being called the Big East while including Air Force, SMU and Houston is laughable - the conference also needs to take a hard look at itself and figure out what it wants its identity to be.  If the Big East doesn't do something, it may soon become known as the conference that used to receive an automatic BCS bowl bid.