Hurricane Sandy's Impact On Sports

New York City's Subway System Suffered Major Flooding During Hurricane Sandy

Obviously the talk of the country this past week has been about the dreadful Hurricane Sandy that caused substantial damage in the northeast. Homes and cars have been destroyed, and millions are still without power. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected, and hopefully the life gets restored to the greatest city on the planet (NYC) soon.

That being said, this is a sports blog, so I wanted to stress the effect that this storm has had in the sporting world. It started on Sunday when the east coast football teams hurried out of wherever they were playing to get back to their homes as soon as possible to avoid getting stranded on the road. Thankfully all of them did so safely before the hurricane unleashed its wrath on everything in its path.

The big news came Wednesday afternoon when Mayor Bloomberg announced that the home opener of the Brooklyn Nets, in their brand new Barclays Arena against the rival New York Knicks, would be postponed. The marquee matchup was one that many were looking forward to as the debate has already begun on, "Who is the better New York team?"

The news was shocking because the mayor had announced just a day before that the game would be played on schedule. However, this was not the case, as Bloomberg stressed that the city and police had other things to worry about. The game has been rescheduled on November 26th.

The NFL was also affected by the storm when many of the teams' headquarters were left without power at a crucial point of the season, the trade deadline. This caused the NFL to push back its deadline  two days, allowing teams more days of limited communication.

On top of the trade deadline being moved, there was also news today about Hurricane Sandy and the NFL, when it was announced that the Pittsburgh Steelers will be allowed to travel to New York on the day of the game. This is very uncommon considering that the league requires the away team to arrive at the opposing teams' venue the day before. However, the Steelers were granted permission to travel on Sunday due to their hotel being without power, and all other hotels in the area being booked already. Aside from it being a change to league rules, it is also strange for a team to arrive on a plane where they are playing the same day, it may be hard for the Steelers to adjust to this change.

Travels in the NBA were also hindered when the Miami Heat arrived in New York today for their game at the Garden against the Knicks Friday night. Apparently there was three hours of traffic getting into the city when the Heat were trying to get to their hotel. Dwyane Wade, one of the Heat's stars, tweeted, "3 hour traffic just to get into the NY city...#C'monMan..."

Wade later addressed his previous tweet with, "2 be clear 'Traffic tweet was meant 2 say'... We shouldn't B hre 2 play a basketball game when theirs so many families obviously still R affected by #Sandy" Despite the horrible grammar, Wade may have a point. The city is obviously hurting from this storm and it seems a little bit unfair to have a game going on right in the center of it all. These guys are professionals, so the game will be played, but it will be interesting to see the turnout for the game since a lot of the public transportation is out of service due to the flooding. Also, it will be interesting to see if the TV ratings for the game drop since New York is marred with blackouts.

One Last Thing: The MLS playoffs were also affected by the storm, but honestly who even knew that they were even playing.

**UPDATE** The 43rd NYC Marathon was canceled for the first time in the event's history today.