Woke up on Saturday around 7:30 since Jeff Fletcher was heading back up to Boston. Luckily everything had subsided and all travel restrictions into and out of Boston had been lifted. As he left I intended to get in the shower so I could meet up with Tom Huddle at the Blind Pig to watch the Arsenal game. Alas the best intentions sometimes go to waste and the next thing I knew it was 11 AM and I awoke to a text from Tom saying he would be there for at least another hour...
After Tom, Tim Ghiorso and I finally got our acts together, we all met up at my hotel and got our Nets tickets printed out for the Playoff game against the Bulls that night. Thanks to Tim's Stub Hub prowess we were able to score tickets at the last minute just as we did for the Yankees game on Thursday. If I learned anything from this it's that, if you're willing to gamble and wait, prices start dropping quickly as game time approaches.
Since the Knicks were opening up their Playoff Series against Boston at MSG we decided to roll over there so we could 1: check out The Garden, and 2: state our case to support keeping the Kings in Sacramento. We arrived right as the fans were exiting after a Knicks victory. There were a lot of curious people asking us what we were doing, as well as people totally aware of what was going on. Quite a few people took our pictures and there was roughly a 50/50 reaction to our plight. Some people totally on board, while others just wanted to give us a hard time, all good either way as we got the message out.
The subway to Brooklyn was relatively crowded and took maybe 20 minutes or so but conveniently dropped us right at the Barclays Center. We took a few pictures and then decided to walk around the perimeter of the Arena to check it out. As we were walking we were stopped by the staff working the VIP Entrance to express their support for Sacramento and wishing us well. As we continued on we were fortunate enough to catch Darryl Dawkins heading in for the game. In an interesting twist of fate he was wearing a purple pinstripe suit! He graciously took a picture with us and expressed his support as well. Later on he even responded on Twitter!
After making our way back to the entrance we displayed our signs and took pictures with fans and talked to people, all who were OVERWHELMINGLY in support of the Kings staying in Sacramento! It was a lot of fun and Tim and I each interviewed with some local reporters who were very receptive to our message.
As we went to go into the game we were told we could not bring our signs in. #SignGate! We told multiple people we only wanted to display them behind the ESPN announcers after the game but it was to no avail. It's funny that with all the people who have asked about our trip this has, by far, been the number 1 topic I have been asked about.
It was a pleasure to enjoy the Nets blow out in a truly "State of the Art" Arena as this place was amazing and a great reminder of things to come for us! After the game we made our way down behind the announcers and were lucky enough to get a picture with Jon Barry! A fitting end symbolically to my first visit to the "Big Apple"...
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