The 2026 Sports Year Is Upon Us

  It’s been a big sports week so far. With much more in the offing. For those who chose to celebrate the holidays, I hope you left time for watching some games. I certainly did. 

Not all of them have been scintillating. That’s par for the course. 

Now we have some clarity in college football. We also have some painful injury news in the NBA which will impact the season as we begin the New Year. 

And it’s the final weekend of the NFL regular season. There are games on Saturday and Sunday night that will determine the final playoff slate.

Poor baseball. Not much happening on that front. But with Spring Training on the horizon, expect that baseball news regarding free agents and trades will heat up faster than coming in from the frigid cold weather gripping the Northeast.

So let me begin with last Saturday night. My wife and I went to Newark to see the New Jersey Devils host the Washington Capitals. 

This was the same day that a storm had dumped about 6” of snow in our area. The roadways and sidewalks were fairly clear and we encountered little difficulty getting to the Prudential Center (other than a balky card reader outside of the Union, New Jersey train station which kept rejecting my credit card for paying the $4.00 parking fee until I switched readers and all was fine).

The Raritan Valley Line train was a little late and filled with a vast number of people clad in Devils gear and a few more hardy souls in Caps paraphernalia. Getting a seat wasn’t easy. 

Then again, it was only a 12 minute ride to Newark Penn Station which cost us $10. 20 round trip including parking; the lots near the arena were charging $20-$40 and the traffic was a mess. A good, cost effective choice by us. 

I was amazed how much Devils gear was worn by the attendees. Merchandising to the hockey crowd in terms of loyalty is big. Then again, I had on a Devils t shirt and a red sweater to fit in with the crowd. 

While the preponderance of attendees were under 40 years of age, we didn’t feel out of place although we are in our 70’s. Of course, it is sometimes hard to determine another’s age in winter clothing. 

Waiting outside the arena can be a bit tedious—the line moved slowly. Once my wife cleared the metal detector with her new hips, we snaked our way through the arena to our seats high up in the second tier, positioned by the goal which Washington would first defend. 

The game itself was fairly uneventful. Washington scored a goal with under :05 left in the first period, the result of sloppy play by the Devils on the ice and a poor read by the goalie. 

New Jersey tied the contest in the second period on a power play. Only to have the caps forge ahead later in the second stanza. 

NJD forward Jesper Bratt scored his second goal to tie the score in the third period. Thirty-two seconds later, Cody Glass snapped a shot past the Washington net minder and the Devils were ahead. 

Except that there was this presence on ice—always lurking and very dangerous in crush time. Every person there was watching and waiting for him to do something. 

Who am I talking about? Alex Ovechkin, the Russian super star forward who is the all-time leading goal scorer in NHL history. Number 8 in white if you couldn’t pick out his big, hulking frame awaiting a miscue by the opponent to give him his chance to score. 

And that is exactly what happened. Less than two minutes after Glass shot the puck into the net, Ovechkin tallied off of a miss by a teammate to knot the score at 3. You knew it was going to happen. Just when and how were the missing ingredients. 

There were a number of scoring attempts and the goalies came up big repeatedly. Which led to overtime. 

New Jersey dominated the control of the puck for the majority of the OT period. The players on ice simply could not generate true scoring opportunities to end the contest. 

I remarked to my wife as time in the five minute period began to dwindle and a shoot out might be next, Washington hadn’t had a shot on goal in OT. I said to her that is a dangerous thing. 

Having seen this scenario play out before, the first shot on goal after one team dominates the play and fails to score is ominous. Unfortunately, I was right. 

With under a minute left, Jakob Chycrun’s shot found the back of the net. Game over. A good Washington team picked up two points on the road. NJD came away with a vital point in their chase up the standings. 

It was a fine hockey game. On this night, Washington was the better team—even if the Devils outshot the Caps by a 35-29 margin. 

In filing out of the arena and heading back to the train station, a couple of things stayed with me. First, the Devils fans were into interactive games. No more so than the Mike’s Amazing Mustard Hot Dog toss in the stands. Some handed out, but a few were shot through those t-shirt cannons. Did anybody think this promotion through?

And New Jersey Devils fans have one chip on their shoulder. That would be the New York Rangers. Periodically, vitriolic chants demeaning the Rangers would erupt from the crowd—with more impact than a “Let’s Go Devils” cheer. Even on the train back, I overheard a conversation that the participants were more satisfied that NYR had lost their game to the New York Islanders than with the OT loss and the point their own team had earned. I bet those surly Devils fans are not happy with the Rangers getting international TV exposure, playing in the annual NHL Winter Classic outdoors in Miami’s Loan Depot Park on Friday night. 

We were home in plenty of time to see the end of the Green Bay Packers loss to Baltimore. This win by the Ravens, in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Steelers clunker last Sunday in Cleveland, set up a winner-take-all affair on this Sunday night. Baltimore QB Lamar Jackson will return from injury to match skills with aging Aaron Rodgers. NBC has to be thrilled.

Meanwhile, will Tampa Bay recover enough to thwart Carolina and take the NFC South playoff berth? Whatever has happened to Baker Mayfield? He was an early favorite for M.V.P. and now his team is facing elimination in the early Saturday game. 

Saturday night’s prime time matchup features two NFC West teams playing for the top spot in the NFC as well as for the division crown. Sam Darnold and the resilient Seattle Seahawks travel to the Bay Area to meet San Francisco which has played above expectations with the loss of its top defensive stalwarts. A win on Saturday for the Niners paves the way for them to remain home through the Super Bowl, which is being played in their stadium. 

Just some notes in passing—pun intended. The Los Angeles Rams have stumbled mightily the last couple of weeks, going from leading the NFC West to a lower Wild Card seed for the upcoming playoffs. In the process, Matthew Stafford seemingly has damaged his status as the front runner for league M.V.P.  

That accolade seems to have shifted to young Drake Maye of New England, who along with his head coach, Mike Vrabel, should be accumulating a ton of awards this off season. It is just a question of how good the Patriots really are—beating up on the woeful New York Jets last weekend is not exactly a great indicator of how well the Pats will fare in the playoffs. 

Besides, Houston, Jacksonville and Denver all could be better than New England right now. Each team is playing to their potential, which could make for a riveting AFC playoffs. 

And in the category of bad teams, the New York Giants downed the Las Vegas Raiders in the desert. This assures the Raiders the top draft pick if they choose to keep it. 

Do I think they will use it on the Heisman Trophy—winning QB from Indiana, Fernando Mendoza? It would defy logic if they didn’t. Indiana looked impressive in pounding Alabama in the Rose Bowl. They have a rematch with Oregon, a game which could easily provide the winner of the College Football Playoffs. 

Now I never thought much of Texas Tech, which Oregon manhandled. As to Alabama, it was a nice win over Oklahoma the week before. Any expectation that this team was going to be like the powerhouses Nick Saban produced was foolish. It didn’t happen after Bear Bryant left Tuscaloosa and it is not going to turn around that soon. 

Miami defeating Ohio State and Mississippi downing Georgia in the other quarterfinal games comes with some explanation. With an assist to the format causing the outcomes. In the current twelve team format for the past two seasons, the teams with byes have lost 7 of the 8 quarterfinal games; only Indiana has won. 

Tweak the playoffs to 16 teams and this won’t happen. Then again, is the allure of underdogs winning like in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament why so many people watch that event?

Miami was a pre-season favorite which showed true in its early season win over a very good Notre Dame team. Then there were two unexpected stumbles, bringing their legitimacy into question. Question their strength no more. The ‘Canes are legit. 

Meanwhile, ‘Ole Miss has thus far survived the turmoil from Lane Kiffin’s departure to LSU. The contest versus Georgia was outstanding. It was played with passion and intensity. The talent level demonstrated was off the charts—even down to the kickers and punters. Coach by default Pete Golding has managed to get his troops lined up and not be distracted by the Kiffin departure. 

However, no one expected the Rebels to advance this far. The former Mississippi coaches on loan from LSU, who previously worked at Mississippi with Kiffin, may be barred from proceeding further as the process of recruiting heads to the forefront in January.  The LSU administrators have contracts which they can enforce, preventing the temporary coaches from further participation on the Mississippi sidelines. Let’s see how this plays out—it has been bad enough from the get go with Kiffin always looking at greener pastures in Baton Rouge. 

No more exciting a player in the playoffs is one Trinidad Chambliss. A former Division II champion at Ferris State in Michigan, he wowed the staff at Mississippi and eventually took over at quarterback. His exploits against Georgia were legendary and he will have his nane mentioned forever with the Mannings—father Archie and son Eli—the top QB’s ever to play in Oxford. 

I did watch Franklin and Marshall College thrash CCNY then survive neighbor Lancaster Bible’s press with a three pointer at the buzzer to win its own tournament. This is a very good Diplomats team but not necessarily a Centennial Conference champion like last season. Then again, I harbored the same thoughts about the team last year at this time. Which resulted in a CC championship and a trip to the Division III Tournament.

In NBA notes, injuries to key players seem to be mounting up. Denver’s Nikola Jokic hurt his knee. He’s out for a while. Victor Wembanyama hyperextended his knee in a win over the Knicks; he claims to be okay. LA Lakers’ emerging star Austin Reaves has a calf injury—always a concern with the way they progress into Achilles tendon issues—that will sideline him for an extended period. 

What was the most fun was finally seeing Steph Curry return to Charlotte and face the Hornets. Somehow, he seems to miss that game due to injury. This year he didn’t. 

With his father Dell doing color commentary for the home team and mixing up calling him Steph and Curry, Golden State won the New Year’s Eve special afternoon game. Before a record crowd at the Spectrum Center. Steph hit for 26 points. 

He had a great time while back in town—he and wife Ayesha went to his alma mater, Davidson College, to watch the Wildcats. The exit off Interstate 77 was renamed for him. As it should be. It is Exit 30—the number he wore in college and with the Warriors. That’s unreal—his number matched the exit and they named it after him while he’s still playing. Then again, he’s freakin’ Steph Curry—the best shooter of all time. How else do you honor a legend?

I hope that you had a great 2025. The start of the 2026 sports year is upon us and is shaping up to be a doozy. Go to a game if you can or sit by your TV or computer for some can’t miss entertainment.

Memories

  Christmas Day and the NBA have special meaning for me. Not just the TV games. For I actually attended an NBA game on Christmas Day. 

While I was born in Albany, Georgia as my father was stationed there as part of his Air Force residency after attending the Temple University School of Dentistry, I grew up in the New York Metropolitan Area. Central Jersey was a great place to grow up in, while still maintaining strong family ties to Brooklyn and Manhattan. 

We were strongly influenced by the local New Brunswick media—The Home News and WCTC am radio. That’s how my affinity with Rutgers sports grew. It didn’t hurt that I could bike or even walk to Rutgers Stadium to see the Scarlet Knights take on foes such as Lehigh, Lafayette, Columbia and Colgate. 

From my backyard, raking leaves on an autumn Saturday, I could actually hear when the cannon located inside the stadium went off after RU scored a touchdown. I still have a stainless steel water bucket handed to me by a wild fan after the Knights defeated Colgate in the early 1960’s and the crowd tore down the wooden goal posts. My father gave me hell but he kept the bucket and ladle—they were high quality items. 

My affinity for Rutgers sports grew as I attended more events. Lacrosse was on an open field in Piscataway now energized as a soccer stadium—I saw RU take on powers such as Johns Hopkins and Princeton. 

The baseball field was located nearby the stadium—it had to be relocated to a different place when the football program expanded to big time status. I spent many a day watching RU play or, since it was open, shagging fly balls and practicing my throws back to the infield. 

Then there was basketball. RU became really good in the mid-1960’s. So good that it was hard to get a seat inside the tiny and cramped Rutgers Gym—I went twice while in high school and my high school team actually played a state tournament game on the hallowed hard wood (I would later play pick up basketball there against the likes of some RU players and high school legend John Somogyi, who became the all-time leading scorer in NJ scholastic history—what a gunner!)

What made me the fan that I am today was television. Back in the late 1950’s and into the 1960’s, TV sports was not anything like what we have today. Nobody could have predicted the plethora of cable stations like ESPN, the Big Ten Network, MSG Network and YES, or even the streaming platforms of Netflix and Amazon which gave us Thursday’s NFL games.

Local baseball was the prime attraction. I was just too young to remember the Dodgers and Giants playing in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I recall watching one game on WOR Channel 9, which appeared to be a Dodgers’ away game in Philadelphia. 

Then they up and left for the West Coast, leaving me and my eyes to watch New York Yankees baseball on WPIX Channel 11 (the Giants had been on that station until they abandoned New York). That began a happy marriage for me with the likes of Mel Allen, Phil Rizzuto and all the announcers who followed in their footsteps to the present-day lineup of Michael Kay, Paul O’Neill, Joe Girardi and David Cone, who handle the broadcasts on cable for the Yes Network.

Understand that I do not hate the New York Mets. I became fascinated with the Mets largely from reading the New York papers. Dick Young was an avid National League fan (he was very angry at how the Giants and Dodgers bolted town to what would become richer pastures) and his columns in the New York Daily News brought the fledgling Mets to life. So, too, did WOR, which took over as the Mets broadcaster. I found Lindsay Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner entrancing—even as the Mets soared to record-setting losses in 1962. 

If there wasn’t a Yankees game on, then I watched the Mets. I rooted hard for the Mets in 1969 to a) win the NL East; b) survive the playoffs against the Atlanta Braves; and c) take down the favored Baltimore Orioles in 1969. 

The only time I rooted against the Mets was when they played the Yankees—in the regular season Subway Series contests (I saw one game in person at Yankee Stadium) and of course in the 2000 World Series. Right now I am too addicted to Aaron Judge (like I was to Derek Jeter) so I watch very few Mets games. 

For the record—this baseball-addicted young man delighted in watching out-of-market cable telecasts of Philadelphia Phillies games on WPHL Channel 17 and subsequently seeing the Atlanta Braves play on WTBS—the brainchild of Ted Turner. Baseball heaven indeed. 

When I was growing up, the NFL was too. The Giants were the team. They left the Polo Grounds in 1957 to play in the larger Yankee Stadium, perhaps because the baseball Giants had left and nobody quite knew what would happen to the stadium in Upper Manhattan. 

Except the Giants were not seen on local TV for the home games. The NFL had a blackout rule in effect to promote fan attendance (I had a small, small part in drafting a companion bill to end the local blackouts while I was a Congressional intern in 1971; the bill died then but eventually the NFL dropped its ban on televising home games in the local markets). So what we saw were the away games from places like Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field or Pitt Stadium; Philadelphia’s Franklin Field; and the humongous Cleveland Municipal Stadium, home of the Browns. 

A big event was the annual exhibition game between the Giants and Philadelphia Eagles at Palmer Stadium, the home of the Princeton Tigers. I remember going twice and coming back roasted from the August sun (nobody had lights back then except in the baseball ballparks) but sated. 

Then the American Football League was born. Teams in New York, Boston, Buffalo and Houston formed the East Division; Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles and Oakland comprised the West. If it wasn’t for NBC with Curt Gowdy at the mike for play-by-play with Paul Christman covering the color, the AFL was not going to survive and ultimately challenge the NFL to the point that they forced a merger on the haughty NFL owners. I was reminded of the AFL roots on the Christmas Day broadcast of Denver at Kansas City when Al Michaels alluded to the fact that this was the 113th meeting between the two rivals (Dallas-KC leads by a wide margin even with the Broncos’ win). 

It wasn’t until the New York Titans became the New York Jets under the ownership of David Abraham “Sonny” Werblin, a well-known entertainment and sports impresario who moved the team to a gleaming new Shea Stadium in Queens and then drafted quarterbacks John Huarte from Notre Dame and one Joe Willie Namath out of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and the University of Alabama. NYC and I took a liking to the team and the games on TV. 

So, Giants fans, I don’t root against your team—except when they meet. I was happy for the Super Bowl wins—especially over hated New England and Tom Brady. For the record, NYG leads the series-8 to 7. 

Hockey became my sport of choice for Saturday afternoons on CBS and Saturday nights when the New York Rangers invariably traveled to Canada to meet the Montreal Canadiens or Toronto Maple Leafs. I knew everybody who played on the Original Six teams, which also included Boston, Chicago and Detroit. Win Elliot was the first voice I heard on WOR as he called the Rangers games. 

My love of that team led to my 10 year affair with the Rangers as a season ticket holder at Madison Square Garden. I don’t hate the Rangers—I just fell in love with the New Jersey Devils after the franchise relocated to the Meadowlands from Colorado. (My daughter and I are going to Newark after the snowstorm to see the Devils take on Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals on Saturday night).

Plus I was enamored with the expansion team called the New York Islanders. Big losers like the Mets in the formative years, they were still fun to watch. I enjoyed the times I went to see a game at the Nassau Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale. Watching their games on TV was the reason behind my liking the Isles (It didn’t hurt that they were a dynasty in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s with the likes of Denis Potvin, Mike Bossy and Billy Smith in the nets). 

So let’s circle back to pro basketball. I remember watching the Knicks games on WRCA, the forerunner to WNBC, the NBC network flagship station in NYC. Marty Glickman, a legend as a track star from Syracuse in the 1936 Olympics and a Brooklyn native, called the games like he did the football Giants and Knicks games on radio. 

I can recall watching broadcasts from Syracuse, where the Nationals, led by Hal Greer and Larry Costello, played in old War Memorial Arena before becoming the Philadelphia 76’ers; Rochester then became Cincinnati for the Royals with Jack Twyman and Oscar Robertson leading the way (now they are called the Sacramento Kings); Fort Wayne and then Detroit for Pistons’ games with George Yardley and Walter Dukes and a bunch of no names; the Civic Center for Philadelphia Warriors contests involving Wilt Chamberlain, Al Attles and Guy Rodgers; Kiel Auditorium, home of the St. Lous Hawks, where Bob Petit and Cliff Hagan roamed; and the old Boston Garden, home of the Celtics, where Red Auerbach and Bill Russell resided. It was rare that a Knicks home game was televised, although I can visualize a couple of times the Knicks, the lesser tenant at the old Madison Square Garden, had to play at the 69th Regiment Armory on Manhattan’s East Side. 

The Knicks were bad in my childhood. Not until Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere and head coach Red Holtzman showed up did we have anything to cheer about. Titles in 1968-69 and 1972-73 were glorious years, especially listening to a very young Marv Albert call the games on the radio (Marv also did Rangers games). 

Not until the American Basketball Association came together to challenge the NBA like the AFL did to the NFL was thee a second team in the area. The Nets began in New Jersey, then migrated to the Nassau Coliseum. The team even won a title with Roselle Park’s Rick Barry leading the team. They even had one Julius Erving, a local kid from Roosevelt, until owner Roy Boe had financial problems and sold his hot player to the Sixers. 

The rest is history. And the NBA absorbed the franchises from New York, Indiana, Denver and San Antonio. The Nets were lured to New Jersey by the promise of playing in a new arena in the Meadowlands; a stop at a new Rutgers Athletic Center didn’t hurt my rooting for them. Which has lessened now that they play in Brooklyn. 

About that Christmas Day game? It was in 1980. Cold as heck—zero degrees and my friends and I froze on the train platforms in Elizabeth and New York as we made our way to MSG, which still sits atop Penn Station. Christmas Day games on national TV were just coming into vogue (Unlike the 5 games on ABC/ESPN on Thursday: the Knicks won in a close contest; San Antonio downed Oklahoma City for the third time this season—that’s over 50% of the Thunder’s losses; Golden State handled rookie sensation Cooper Flagg and Dallas; Houston romped over an unemotional LA Lakers team; and it took OT for Denver to win against Minnesota).

But for over two hours, we warmed up watching Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics trounce the Knicks whose shooting was as frigid as the weather. It was a great and memorable experience despite the freezing temperatures. The rhapsody of sound reverberating from the multi-colored roof was intoxicating. This was New York coming together as one. For their Knicks. In the spirit of the holiday.

All this nostalgia was borne from my love of New York sports. Which is now augmented by so much sports on TV, cable and streaming services. Maybe too much so. 

I hope you had a great Christmas Day. Watching the Knicks beat Cleveland brought back memories.