Awoke bright and early at the crack of 9:30 am to a dreary and cold-looking day. We were psyched for the Raptors/Cavaliers game, which was to begin at 1:00 pm.
After a brief discussion about what whether or not we were going to have breakfast or lunch or brunch, and where we should go for said meal, my insistence upon ordered room service was agreed upon.
I love room service. I'm not sure why. Something about food being delivered to me, on a tray, with little silver covers over all the dishes, plastic wrap covering the juice and water glasses is terribly exciting to me. Not to mention the fact that I can eat it all in my underwear, should I so desire. I don't care that it costs a little more, the multiple fun factors make the extra cost worthwhile.
We had omelets and homefries and toast and it took a ridiculously long time, so they brought us FREE apple juice! REAL apple juice, too!
We ate our brunch and watched "The Craft" on TV...what a great "bad" movie...gotta love it...and then we got ready and checked out of the hotel.
The Quicken Loans Arena (aka The Q) is located only a few short blocks from our hotel, so we stowed our bags in the car, we each grabbed our respective Raptors-flag-on-a-stick to take to the game with us and headed over to the venue. Unfortunately, the security guards wouldn't let us bring the flags in with us...actually, that's not exactly true...they had no problem with us bringing in our flags, but we couldn't bring in the sticks, as they could, apparently, be brandished as weapons. Yes, this actually happened.
Apparently, The Cleve is more violent than Detroit. Last year we attended a Raptors/Pistons game at the Palace and the security guard there initially told me I couldn't bring my flag-on-a-stick into the arena. I managed to convince him I wasn't going to hurt anyone with my flag-on-a-stick. I assured him it wasn't dangerous and pointed out the little ball on the top of the stick whose sole purpose, I'm sure, was to prevent injury. After my convincing testimony, he allowed me to bring my flag-on-a-stick into the game with me.
We weren't so lucky at The Q. We ripped our flags off their sticks and threw the sticks in the garbage. It was very sad. And, as you can imagine, waving around tiny flags sans stick is just about as much fun as it sounds...not very.
:/
The Raptors went on to blow a nice, first-half lead and lose a heartbreaking game. A couple of other things that occurred to me, seeing a game for the first time in this building:
- The Cavs organization must believe their fans are all suffering from ADD. Every single second of non-playing time is filled with a game, or dancing, or the annoying in-game host or hostess addressing the crowd. It was sooo incredibly annoying. I actually mentioned this to Doug Smith, the Toronto Star reporter who covers the Raptors and he confirmed that at all the other arenas in the NBA, they only do ONE game during breaks, but at The Q, they do TWO!! I'm glad I wasn't just imagining things.
- There sure are a lot of jerky fans in Cleveland..we got up to go to the bathroom, sporting our Raptors gear, and the entire SECTION booed us!!! And it's not like the Raptors were winning...
- I'm not sure what the point of flashing the Pittsburgh Steelers logo on the big screen (while the Raptors were shooting free throws) was. Sure, it inspires boos, but it implies the fans are too stupid to realize that it's a good idea attempt to disrupt the opponents' free throws via obstreperous antics. Oh, and the cross-sport hate is a little odd, too...
Anyway, all in all, it was a really fun trip. Thanks America! Thanks to The Cleve!!
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