GAME DAY IN LONDON

Jessie J’s latest track is playing on the radio, the DJ is wishing me a good morning in a thick cockney accent and my alarm clock this morning came in the shape of my aunt’s family dog leaping atop of me as I lay in my makeshift bed in the front room. My cousin has just left for school and I’m about to bite into a couple slices of the finest toast I’ve ever cooked in my life (here’s hoping it tastes that good, anyway). All in all, a pretty standard Friday morning whilst staying with family in the nation’s capital. Only, today, there’s one big difference. This evening, instead of joining them for dinner and a movie, I’ll be heading to The o2 Arena to watch my favourite basketball team, the Toronto Raptors, take on the New Jersey Nets. Live. In person. In London. Nuts.

The venue for tonight's game is a truly world class venue. Any major league franchise in North America would be thrilled play all forty-one home games in such a beautiful building and many players who have visited (2 NHL games & 4 NBA pre-season games) have commented as such.

At the turn of the new century, a fifty-two metre high, fibre glass, canopy sprung up on the banks of the River Thames. The ‘Millennium Dome’ opened on January 1^st 2000 with a wide array of exhibitions, restaurants, activities, exhibits and shows taking place underneath the huge shell, a government initiative to celebrate the new millennia. As was intended, the dome closed its doors on December 31^st 2000 and its content’s was stripped bare. For some years it lay mostly dormant, give or take the odd New Year’s party, charity event or winter exhibition. Politicians squabbled over the future of the 365m diameter building, whilst potential bidders campaigned to turn it into everything from a theme park to a casino. Eventually, the building was bought by Philip Anschutz and his Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) and re-opened in 2007 as a mammoth sized entertainment district, the like of which London had never seen before.

Featuring; a movie theatre, night clubs, restaurants, bars, indoor and outdoor events areas, a 2,410 capacity live music club along with countless other businesses - The o2 complex would be a fine entertainment venue even without the 23,000 capacity arena plumped in the middle of it. The arena is a free standing structure; in effect a building within a building, with its own walls and roof, sitting underneath the giant canopy which is a landmark on London’s skyline. It has been said the arena shares a lot of resemblances with another AEG building - Staple's Centre, in downtown Los Angeles, California.

The o2 Arena, during NBA Live 2008

When the Raptors and Nets step on the court tonight, the capacity will be just under 19,000. To give you some idea of how imposing the arena is, the ‘stage end’ of the building doesn’t even have an upper tier, as without a permanent sports tenant, the area is mostly used for video walls during concerts. – if there were second level of seating at that end, the arena would boast one of the highest capacity’s for sports in the world. The lower and upper bowls are separated by two levels of luxury suites (with ribbon boards), and a giant eight sided video board will be hanging over centre court at tip off. All seats in the building sport arm rests, cup holders and padding, with concourses being amongst the spacious of any arena I’ve been to (including the ACC). To put it bluntly, if The o2 Arena sat in Seattle, Washington instead of London, England, there is no way that Kevin Durant would be playing his basketball in Oklahoma City right now.

As nice as the arena is, and as much good food, drink and music fans will be able to enjoy pre/post/during the game, tonight is about two points. Two points which the winning team might regret possessing by the time the draft lottery balls fall this summer, but never the less, the players will be determined to block out the distractions of playing in an unfamiliar environment and produce the goods on the court.

Both teams’ personnel will enjoy playing in the building and using its world class facilities, and I anticipate the crowd loudly cheering them on. The British basketball fan is just as passionate as the American/Canadian basketball fan - the barn should be rocking at its foundations with some tenacity tonight.

Don’t forget, tip-off is 8pm London time, which translates into a 3pm start for those of you on the East coast. You can follow my experiences of the day (signal permitting) on twitter @TomHurley and also in my next blog post. For British fans unable to attend, you can watch the game with a free preview on NBA League Pass on the league website. For those of you that are able to make it, I’ll see you at The o2 tonight. LET’S GO RAPTORS.