Opening Ceremonies

You know what today was supposed to have been?

The Opening Ceremonies for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

As with everything else in the athletic calendar in 2020, the Olympic Games were affected by the global pandemic. They have now been pushed back a year, with the Opening Ceremonies to be held on July 23, 2021.

The delay of one year will impact who wins certain events and who qualifies in the first place. Those who have trained to be exactly ready for the 2020 Olympic Trials and then the Games themselves might not necessarily be in the same place a year from now.

Throw in the randomness of injuries (either those who are hurt now and will be recovered in a year and those who are fine now who will be hurt in a year), and there will be no way to tell what might have been for some people.

Princeton is always well-represented at the Olympic Games.

Princeton sent 13 athletes to Rio four years ago and won three medals. Diana Matheson won her second straight bronze medal with Canada in women's soccer. Gevvie Stone won a bronze in singles rowing. Ashleigh Johnson won gold in women's water polo.

The only time Princeton was not represented at the modern Summer Olympics was in 1960 in Rome.

For TB, the best part of the Olympics is watching the Princetonians compete. He has no doubt that there would have been the usual number of Tigers to root for in Tokyo this time around.

He also enjoys watching all of the more non-mainstream sports. The competition is always so compelling.

Now that the Olympics are pushed back a year, there will be three Olympiads in a three-year span. The Summer Games next year will be in Tokyo, followed in 2022 by the Winter Games in Beijing (six months after the Summer Games) and then the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.

TB has never been to the Olympics in person. BrotherBlog has, having attended the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010. He's also been to the Australian Open tennis tournament and a college football bowl game, two other events TB has not.

TB does have an insurmountable lead over his brother in Ivy League athletic events, and he's fine with that.

In fact, if you gave TB the choice between attending the Summer Olympics or the World Cup, he'd probably choose the World Cup.

With no Olympics coverage, NBC had a huge hole in its programming schedule. Into that void comes, in addition to other events, the second season of the Premier Lacrosse League. Princeton is well-represented in that league, with four players.

It's not exactly how the season was supposed to be held, with its format of rotating venues, rather than "home" cities for its franchises. This time the entire league will be playing all of its games in Utah, starting tomorrow and running through August 9 with the championship game.

As for Princeton alums, you have Tom Schreiber, Ryan Ambler and Austin Sims on the Archers and Zach Currier on the Waterdogs. Currier is in his first season in the PLL, after having played in Major League Lacrosse a year ago.

You can get the full schedule for the PLL HERE.

The Major League Baseball season has begun. The NHL and NBA seasons will be restarting soon.

The WNBA season is also about to begin, with the season to be played between this weekend and the middle of September, all in Bradenton, Fla. Each team will play 22 games, so essentially it will be one game, one day off, another game, another day off the entire way through.

The schedule Sunday includes a game between the Dallas Wings and the Atlanta Dream that is a Princeton fan's delight, as it matches Bella Alarie (Dallas, in her WNBA debut) and Blake Dietrick (Atlanta).

The game is Sunday at 4 on CBS Sports Network.

For the Summer Olympics you'll have to wait another year.

For live sports on your TV, things are starting to open up a bit. This weekend gives you some pretty strong Princeton options to enjoy.

Beyond that, have a great weekend in general. And a safe one.