Game 110
Houston Rockets vs Oklahoma City Thunder
April 5, 2025
Many months ago I got word from our Tri club that we can have 20 people register for Roth Challenge in Germany without having to fight the rest of the world. It normally sells out in about 3 minutes and it is a bucket list race, so I jumped at the opportunity. But with that came a lot of training, and the decision to do a warm up 1/2 Ironman distance. After searching around the country, I decided on Galveston because the course was flat, it was way cheaper, I could use points on the flights and hotels, and I could knock off a game on my fantasy sports list.
I got into Houston with a few hiccups. First, a lady in front of me on the plane was having a panick attack and we had to stop our taxi to the jetway to let her off. Then when we landed the airline didn’t take my bike off until I asked baggage people to check on it, finally the bike rolled out 1 hour after we landed. But I made it, grabbed the car, and was off to the hotel. After a nap, a cold shower (had Luke warm water, yeah), put my bike together, I headed off to the arena a bit early to grab some photos. The Toyota center on the outside was pretty boring. I only found one monument to Hakeem Olajuwan and some painted electric boxes. I was actually surprised there was nothing about Yao Ming or a statue considering he was the biggest star there for years. Or Clyde Drexler. Who knows. I also got a few photos across the street at the local park that looked pretty cool, but other than that I walked the whole block and saw nothing else.
Inside they print your ticket so I was able to knock that off my list and then explored the arena. On the bottom floor there really was only some pictures of former players on the wall, the two championship banners, and all of the past jerseys the team has used. What I didn’t know was that the rockets formed in San Diego in 1967-1971, then moved. Apparently, fans in San Diego chose “Rockets” in a naming contest, reflecting the city’s burgeoning space age industries at the time. But it seems so much more fitting in Houston with NASA down the road.
Next I went to the top floor mainly to grab photos of the rafter banners, the retired jerseys, and a picture of the center court logo. But was pleasantly surprised to see all sorts of fan interasction places for kids and adults. The area where you can try to out jump a player to grab a ball, compare height with stars, and how wide is your arm span compared to Yao Ming. They had a mock locker room and a mini basketball court for the kiddos as well. The other cool area was the original center court from 20 years ago with plexi glass on top as well as another more realistic mock locker room of some of the more famous Houston Rockets over the years. For some reason the area was blocked off but I still got a good view and shots of the area.
On the elevator ride down I noted the operators cool Rockets painted nails, grabbed a pic and went by the case of bobble heads from the past 20 years before heading to my seat. I bought a lower bowl seat in the corner, it wasn’t too expensive and was lucky enough to not have anyone around me or behind me. That makes the experience so much more enjoyable. The introduction of the players were made, the anthem was sung by high school kids (one happened to be sitting next to me and I congratulated her on the performance, and then the game was on. This should be an exciting match because OKC has the best record in the league, Houston is first in their division, and the crowd was pumped because it was a Friday night. OKC was on an 11 game winning streak and was plowing their way into the playoffs posed to capture a title. But the Rockets had other ideas. They were blowing out the Thunder and by the first half they were up 23 points. Jalen Green was crushing and Alperen Sengun had an amazing night. Green ended up with 34 points, Sengun with 31. Jalen Williams on the Thunder was also having a game with 33 and Gilgeous-Alexander had 22 to reach 20 points for the 70th straight game, that put him ahead of legend Michael Jordan for the fourth longest single season streak in NBA history. Although OKC had a few runs they were never in the game. And when the Rockets through up a brick and one of the players (can’t remember who now) grabbed the rebound with a reverse slam dunk, it brought the house down. Rockets won 125-111 and the home team fans were stoked.
Tonight was also a special night because the team was honoring a ton of past players on the court. Names I recognized were Calvin Murphy, Carl Landry, Terry Teagle, Moochie Norris, Vernon Maxwell, Rudy Tomjanovich, and then the place went nuts when they introduced Hakeem Olajuwon. Conversely, we were very underwhelmed by the half time performance from Kello O and David Cordero. Apparently she was a 90s one hit wonder, but I never heard of the song (which sounded awful) but her dancing was atrocious. I don’t know if it was because she is probably a upper 50 year old white lady with no rhythm, or the choreography was horrendous, but the crowd was not into it. I had a stank face the whole time I was watching.
I headed back to the hotel afterward, but I was starving. Downtown was a ghost town. Nothing was open except this really crappy corner store filled with some super sketchy homeless people. But I needed something before going back to the hotel. I grabbed a bad of pop tarts for $2, scarfed those down, attempted the shower again (still cold), and went to bed for the night. This was game 22 of 30 for basketball, I am now at 109 for 153 teams (71.24%). I’m getting there!
Friday, April 11, 2025
Game #110-Houston Rockets vs Oklahoma City Thunder
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Game 109-San Diego FC vs St Louis City SC
March 1st, 2025
San Diego FC vs St Louis City SC
San Diego finally got awarded an MLS team back in 2023, and at the time I told Keli that I would like to be a season ticket holder. I know soccer is big in this city, not only because of all the youth club teams, but being by Mexico and the really high viewership of international games, it was a no brainer. I think they would have received a team a lot earlier except we didn’t have a state of the art stadium. Qualcomm was falling apart for years and there was no way the MLS would play at USD or something similar. When San Diego State was able to finally put together the deal to build SnapDragon stadium a few years back that was the final hurdle. So when the team sent out deposits requests for seats, I immediately put my name down (I honestly think it was only $10 or $20). And about a year ago I looked at the available spots around the stadium, opting to stay away from the $20k section but still got really good seats in the 100s. In fact three weeks before the game the team had a kick off party where we got to see our seats, picked up our Season Ticket and Founding Member gifts, even went to the team store to grab a few cool team sweater/jackets. We were all set for the inaugural match.
Game day, and I was excited that Keli just recently bought an electric pedal assist bike which we took to the stadium. Snapdragon is only 9 miles away and being able to skip the trolly lines as well as parking lot, we got there in about 35 minutes. Now that we have the lay of the land a bit, we parked the bikes by our section, finished our drinks and grabbed our free team scarfs as we entered the stadium. After buying some food and beer, it was off to our seats to meet our neighbors for the year. They are a family of three with a little boy. Seemed like a nice crew, and hopefully everything goes well the rest of the year.
Before the game the team played some cool videos of the city, announced the team, and had a nice firework show which always excites the crowd. I honestly thought they may do a bit more like a flyover, people parachuting in, something else…but that ok. Once the smoke cleared the team took the field and we were on our way. The play on the field was fun to watch. Our team seemed to have gelled well over the past few weeks and in fact they beat the LA Galaxy who won the league last year 2-0, so there was high expectations in the stadium. We had a few good shots on goal, and had possession most of the game, but star Chucky Lozzano was taken out of the game early as he pulled a hamstring so that didn’t bode well since we still have well over half the game left. The positive as Gaucho fans, Emmanuel “Ema” Boateng entered the game, one of two UCSB players on the team. He’s great, 5’6” and a ball of lightning on the pitch. It’s funny seeing him next to the defenders who are easily a foot taller.
I wish I had more to say specifically about scoring during the game, but neither team had a ton of shots on goal and what eventually hit the target wasn’t extremely dangerous. At time, it was a 0-0 tie which was a bit of a let down for the nearly 35,000 people in the stands celebrating the 30th team to be added to the league. The most disappointing aspect of the game were the Mexican fans chanting homophobic slurs when the opponents put the ball in play during goal kicks. It’s a disgusting and embarrassing thing the idiots started to chant. I really hope the team, security, and stadium start to kick offenders out of the stadium. That’s the only way to shut them up.
Kel and I jumped back on our bikes, turned on the headlamps, and were home probably before we would have got on the first trolly unless we left the game early. Another benefit of having a bike, Next game is in two weeks!