Schedule day is always a big one for the Ultimate Sports Road Trip.

By now we know the routine… the NFL releases their schedule in mid April with big fanfare; ditto for the NHL, which usually is released right around the baseball All Star Break. The NBA comes out with theirs two weeks later, and then the AHL piggybacks on them. As for MLB, the teams each release their respective schedules in dribs and drabs… some teams announce the following year as soon as the regular season is over, while others (i.e. Mets, Yankees, Braves and Red Sox) are exasperatingly late in announcing.

As for NCAA college football… the big aggravation there is that many teams don’t release start times until 12 days before the games are played, and that makes it tough to plan, say, a Saturday college doubleheader, or calculating driving times.

Even now, we’re going to be in Bloomington. Indiana on Saturday, October 11 for the Indiana/Iowa football game, as a prelude to our visit at Lucas Oil Field the following day. What time is that game? Who knows! Why does it matter? Well, the Sabres season opener is Friday night October 10. If the kickoff in Bloomington is 12 noon, we have to hit the road Friday and will miss the hockey game. If it’s a night game, we can depart after the Sabres, catch some zzzz’s in Cleveland, and continue on Saturday.

Anyways, we got very little help in terms of “alignment of the planets” from the NHL schedule gods (a Sabres at Leafs game 12/6 in Toronto the night before the Bills/Dolphins game would have been awesome, for example).

These past few days, we sliced and diced the schedule, and since Artvoice gives us a small travel budget for us to cover road games, that certainly helps out, so we decided on these hockey games:

Thur 1/1 Buffalo at Toronto

Mon 1/19 Buffalo at Florida

Wed1/21 Buffalo at Tampa

Sat 2/28 Buffalo at New York Islanders

We’ve added a couple more OHL games (including the soon to be shuttered Windsor Arena, home of the Spitfires and former venue for the NHL Detroit Red Wings, we’re stopping there on Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving as we make our way back from Indy). We also are filling out a roadie the second weekend of September, which may yet change depending on college football start times.

We’ve got the last weekend in October open as well, and right now we’re thinking AHL venues in the midwest which remain on our “to do” list. Or we might just stay home.

Here is the USRT schedule. Lotsa cool adventures await!

(By the way, we’ve also updated the roster of “new venues” on our web site. Construction is currently underway on seven new venues in the four major sports. Here is the lineup.)

It’s coming down.

For old farts like me, the site of one of my childhood’s biggest heartbreaks - watching The Dead Fat Woman lumber out on the ice to croak out her song, then seeing her ‘Bullies roll over my beloved Buffalo Sabres in the ‘75 Cup Finals.

The Flyers organization, primarily through their AHL affiliate Philadelphia Phantoms, will have a season long celebration commemorating this building and its rich history. A possible regular season Flyers and 76ers game in the old venue is one of the ideas under consideration.

Here is a web site outlining all the plans for the final season, and even a place for fans to post their good thoughts and memories.

I’ll be nice and hold my tongue.

-Andrew Kulyk

Seems like people are all aflutter about Sully’s recent column bemoaning the corporate stadia/arena naming craze. Knowing the rest of the Buffalo sports blogosphere as I do, the reasons had to be because of the article’s content and not its author. Right???

(snickering heavily)

Got me thinking though. Just how good is the average sports fans’ knowledge of stadium names in today’s day and age? The venue building boom of the last decade or so has left many a fan’s head spinning concerning the amount of names one has to remember, and that’s not including venues that have had multiple names thanks to corporations being bought out and reemerging under new titles.

With that in mind and being that sports venue gurus that we are, I throw out a little trivia quiz of “Name That Venue”. I’ll name fifteen or so venues, and it’s your job to figure out where they are located(and preferrably who is the main tenant’s’). Email me with the answers(at right).

One rule: stay the hell off our USRT site/blog for answers! Work for this one, pleeeeeeeze.

Prizes…. knowing that you’ve got a better memory than Sully. Isn’t that enough????

Note - The venues listed below are located in metro areas that currently hosts at least one of the four major pro sports leagues. One is home to a college team. One is in a former major league city, and another is located in a city that may soon join that club. Have fun with it:-).

A. Energy Solutions Arena
B. MTS Centre
C. American Airlines Center
D. AT + T Park
E. Comcast Center
F. McAfee Coliseum
G. FedEx Forum
H. LP Field
I. Ford Center
J. Sprint Center
K. Jobing.com Arena
L. Miller Park
M. Quicken Loans Arena
N. Rexall Place
O. Target Center

Bonus - What was the first corporate name of Gilette Stadium(Foxborough)?

-Peter Farrell

The WNYMedia boys take Washington by storm! (Andrew, Mark and Peter)

Whenever the USRT hits Washington, DC, we always try to check out something new about this amazing city where there is so much to see and experience.

So this afternoon, we took the subway into downtown (really the only way to do it right the trains here are awesome), and connected with Mark Byrnes, who runs one our sister sites at WNYMedia, All Things Buffalo. Mark is pursuing his degree in urban planning at UB, and is home with his family for the summer.

Mark was kind enough to take us on a walking tour of some of DC’s cool spots, and we checked it all out - the museums, the government buildings, Union Station, the cool architecture. It was a kickass time!

Later on we stopped at a little bistro in the train station and ordered up a round of drafts - then bid Mark goodbye as we headed back on the subway and towards the Navy Yard station and Nationals Park for a 7:10 PM first pitch. A brand new USRT frontier awaits!

A really cool and unique feature about the Verizon Center - the main marquee is in English and Chinese

Cool historical buildings blend in with newer office towers and condos

The “Newseum” is an interactive museum dedicated to the newspaper publishing industry. Notice that the building looks like a stack of papers

Union Station here in DC is an incredible building from both inside and outside

Driving through downtown Hartford on the way to New Britain, we decided to check out the Hartford Civic Center XL Center, a former NHL venue which once was home to the Hartford Whalers, and is now the home for the AHL Hartford Wolf Pack as well as the UConn Huskies.

When we visited here in 2005, the adjacent shopping mall was being demolished, to be replaced by a “mixed use” development of retail and a high rise condominium. The whole street and facade was one big construction mess.

Well, it’s all done, and the place looks pretty nice, although still lots of leasable space available for retail use. Inside the main lobby is a nice pictorial tribute to Hartford Hockey. We took a few snaps to share, and then continued on towards New Britain Stadium for a 1:35 PM start.

Reunion Arena has been losing money for years - basically the American Airlines Center gets all the marquee bookings and events, relegating the old arena for event castoffs. Now the Dallas News reports that their city council might shutter the venue and demolish it.

The arena is the former home of the NHL Dallas Stars and the NBA Dallas Mavericks.

The Ultimate Sports Road Trip visited Reunion Arena way back in June of 1999. Our entire odyssey was then a new and unfolding project, and we landed on their doorstep for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Buffalo Sabres and the Dallas Stars.

For us it was an amazing day, as we did all sorts of interviews for radio stations outside the arena, were feted by Dallas fans who made us feel welcome even while we wore the Sabres colors, we sat in the nosebleeds amongst people with Sabres connections, such as former Sabres goalie John Blue and Wayne Primeau’s parents, and a late goal by Brett Hull gave the Stars their win and sent us into the hot Dallas night sad and dejected. Little did we know on that night that an even bigger heartbreak awaited us later in the series.

All in all our trip to Reunion Arena stands out as one of our most memorable and epic USRT adventures.

-Andrew Kulyk

I just caught this article out of New York about some logistical problems holding up a potential “Ice Bowl” sequel at Yankee Stadium.

The last paragraph just floors me: “There’s some concern that there would be water damage to the Stadium if the pipes burst, with use in the winter,” Trost said. “But we don’t believe that’s a legitimate danger.”

Ummm…..the joint is being blown up shortly thereafter…does it really matter if pipes burst and such???

Chicago’s Wrigley Field(or Stadium if your name is Jeff Gordon) is the alternate site if things don’t come off in New York.

-Peter Farrell

Critics panned the design for the Pittsburgh Penguins’ new arena, now under construction in downtown Pittsburgh, as “too cold and uninviting”. So the team and their architects, HOK Sport, came back with a revised exterior look which will feature a more inviting, brightly lit exterior. The plans received approval from the Pittsburgh City Planning Commission this week.

The arena is scheduled to open for the 2010-11 season.

Here are some renderings of the new design -

We are proud to unveil our venue profile and thumbnailed photo array for the Prudential Center, the new home of the NHL New Jersey Devils. You can read our entire report here.

We gave “The Rock” a total score of 64 points out of 100, good enough for 10th place in our NHL venue rankings. Here is the breakdown for each category:

Architecture 8
Concessions/Team Store 7
Scoreboard/Electronics 6
Ushers 8
Fan Support 2.5
Location/Neighborhood 3
Banners/History 8.5
In Game Entertainment 7
Concourses/Fan Comfort 9
Bonus: 5

We welcome your input and critique.

And once again, we claim bragging rights: we have attended a home game of each of the 122 teams in the four major sports in their current and active venues!

Yankee Stadium’s final game might not be a baseball game after all, as the NHL is seriously considering repeating it’s highly successful “Winter Classic” outdoor game at Yankee Stadium next season.

Today’s New York Daily News reports that the New York Rangers are interested, and the New York Islanders want in as well. Apparently the Yankees organization is fine with all this and has even had talks with the NHL about logistics and planning.

I got home around 9PM tonight and I’m just now watching the Sabs/Devils game on DVR delay from the new Prudential Center. The USRT visit to that arena takes place when the Sabres return there in 11 days.

I open my email box, and our friend and colleague Mike Harrington from the Buffalo News, who is in Newark tonight covering the game, already has some of the poop about the building and what we can expect when we make our visit.

I won’t share the details of his report to us, but he did post a story on Sabres Edge to give you a taste.

Loved the smack at the end of his email though…

“Pretty cool for me. I beat all the News NHL beat writers here — and the USRT mavens!!! Yeah me!”

Heh heh. Hope you’re having fun Mike… see you at The Ralph!

Thanks to the folks at the Weather Channel and their ten day forecast we can now begin paying close attention to what conditions will be like on New Year’s Day.

For today’s look at the forecast for Orchard Park, NY click here.

The Wheels Come Off in SoCal.

Have a looksee!

Well, we’re at it again folks! The USRT is off on a weeklong visit to the West Coast to catch some college football, Sabres hockey, and NBA hoops, some of which has its roots back in WNY. Ostensibly I’m heading out to see my sister/husband and newborn nephew but c’mon….who the heck are we kidding!

Posting this now while we’re in the Vegas International Airport being delayed(no shock) while laying over on the way to San Diego.

Schedule lines up as follows:

Sat 12/1: 4:30 UCLA/USC @ LA Coliseum
Sun 12/2: 3:30 Pacers/Clippers
9:30 Magic/Lakers….both @ Staples Center
Wed 12/5 10:00 Ducks/Sabres @ Honda Center
Thu 12/6 10:30 Kings/Sabres @ Staples Center

Check back for daily updates and then some as we enjoy kinda, sorta sunny California…..

Hmmmm….still delayed….wonder if I should hit the slots here in the terminal. Nah….

New renderings released last week.

Update from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review