Big Weekend
This weekend is a big and busy weekend on the Cape Ann sports scene with multiple local events.
Kicking off the weekend on Saturday morning is the International Dory Elimination Races off of Niles Beach (8:30 a.m.). Tandems in five different divisions, Men’s, Women’s, Master’s (over 40), Mixed Doubles and Juniors, will square off for the right to travel to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia next month to take on the best rowers from that area.
If Saturday’s elimination races do not settle things, winning crews will meet again on Monday off of Niles Beach for the finals (6:00 p.m.).
On Saturday afternoon the Intertown Twilight Baseball League finals will begin at Memorial Field in Essex (2:00 p.m.) where the first place Manchester Essex Mariners will take on No. 3 Ipswich in Game 1, the two teams will be right back at it in the best of five series on Sunday where Game 2 will be played at Memorial Field (2:00 p.m.). The Mariners are looking for their fourth title in the last five years while Ipswich is looking for its first title in over a decade.
NHL Lockout?
Just when you thought the National Hockey League was back there is talks of another lockout. On Thursday league commissioner Gary Bettman said the owners will lock out the players if a collective bargaining agreement can not be reached by September 15.
The NHL looks like it is just starting to turn the corner from the cancelled 2004-2005 season, where the players were locked out for not reaching a collective bargaining agreement and a lockout in 2012-2013 could set the league back even further than the first.
Ratings were up in the NHL playoffs, before the boring Devils ruined it, and while some fans have yet to come back to the sport after the last lockout, even more fans may leave for good.
A lockout this season will nearly kill the sport in the United States, and that’s something the NHL players and league officials can not afford.
-Compiled by Nick Curcuru
