A super trifecta: Heaven on earth for one NY sports fan

Try to remember the first time that your dad took you to a sporting event.

By BEN TENZER
South Africa stadium (photo credit: AP)
South Africa stadium
(photo credit: AP)
Try to remember the first time that your dad took you to a sporting event.
It can be any event, whether it be football, soccer, baseball, or something else; you never forget the excitement you felt when you first stepped into the stadium.
For many diehard sports fans that excitement is still captured whenever they go to an arena.
Most people only go to one sporting event in a day, some baseball fans see two in one day, but my dream was to see three separate events, all different sports, in the same day.
This is the story of that wonderful day, Sunday, November 14, 2010.
It all started with the idea that three sports were happening at the same time close to my New York City home.
It was my friend Zak’s birthday and he has a family friend with a “connection” to Sage Rosenfels, the Jewish back-up quarterback for the New York Giants.
They made a few phone calls, and much to our surprise, we landed free tickets to the Giants’ game! Like me, Zak is always on Stub Hub (an online secondhand ticket supplier).
I got to thinking about Zak’s birthday, looked on Stub Hub, and realized, hey, there is also a New York Rangers NHL hockey game that day at noon.
A noon hockey game is an unusual event. I noticed that the Giants game was a 4:05 p.m. kickoff.
Then I thought, “a sports trifecta is always something I wanted to do.”
I checked to see if there was a New York Knicks NBA basketball game that night.
And there was.
Tickets for Knicks games are easy for me to get because my dad’s office has access to them.
I suggested that I would get them, and Zak would take care of the other two games, and from there we planned it out.
How did we pull it off? We met at The Garden (Madison Square Garden or MSG, in Manhattan, for the uninitiated) at around noon (after my Hebrew lesson, of course!) We watched a very exciting Rangers’ game, in which they mauled the Edmonton Oilers 8-2.
From there, we took advantage of fact that MSG is on top of Penn Station, a major New York City train hub, and took two New Jersey Transit trains to the new Giants’ Stadium.
The hockey game ended at 3:15 and we raced to the train for our 40-minute ride.
The train was packed and we missed the first shuttle, so that set us back another 15 minutes, but luckily the gate was next to our train stop, so we slipped into our seats just as the ball was being kicked off.
The Giants’ game, against the Dallas Cowboys, was an odd affair.
It was a very intense game between divisional rivals. It was strange because, at two points in the game, there were power outages.
The first was a quick surge – where all the lights went off for a second and gradually turned back on.
The second time, I was standing at the food stand near my seat, getting nachos and Mountain Dew soda. As the woman hands me my food, I turn around and the stadium went dark for 12 minutes.
I later found out that one of the transformers started smoking, causing slight power outages.
As a result, the Fox television network lost their broadcasting and for a drive-and-ahalf, I was on the phone doing play-by-play analysis for another friend of mine who was at home and unable to watch.
We stayed at that game through the end – from 4:05 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. – so unfortunately, we missed the first quarter of the Knicks’ game.
The G-Men lost their contest 33-20 in heartbreaking fashion after scoring a third-quarter touchdown to take the lead, only to have it called back due to a penalty.
We were able to get back to MSG for the Knicks game in less than 30 minutes. This last game of the day was the most disappointing of the three.
The Knicks came into the game as the favorites against a much worse Houston Rockets team.
However, they played lethargic, lackluster basketball and lost to the Rockets 104-96.
I arrived home at around 10:30, with my father, who met us at the game.
How does a fan dress for such a crazy day? I wore my New York Knicks No. 8 Danilo Gallinari jersey as an undershirt of sorts. Over that, I wore a Giants No. 10 Eli Manning jersey, and over THAT I wore a Rangers jacket! My overall take on the day? If you are a big sports fan, it is something you must do.
However, unless you are a true die-hard, I would not do it! It takes a tremendous emotional toll.
Try to imagine your favorite sports team losing a game.
Then try to imagine this happening twice, in succession! Overall, it was an enormously fun and memorable experience – something I would do again .... every day, if I had the chance!
Ben Tenzer is 15 years old. He lives in New York City and plans on eventually becoming a sports agent