Tuesday March 1 2011 – 2:44pm Eastern – Toronto, ON

The Raptors will play host to the New Orleans Hornets tonight at the ACC and then head immediately to Lester B. Pearson for an overnight flight to London, England. 

Toronto will play against the New Jersey Nets on Friday and Saturday at the O2 arena in London before flying home on Sunday morning. 

Here’s a rough outline (subject to change) of the Raptors itinerary while in the UK:

Tuesday – host the New Orleans Hornets at 7pm;  fly to London, England around 1130pm
Wednesday – land in London in the AM; players rest and get acclimated to the 5-hour time difference;  practice in the evening
Thursday – late morning/early-afternoon practice;  free time for the players in the late afternoon and evening
Friday – morning shoot-around;  game 1 vs NJ that night (8pm London)
Saturday – morning shoot-around;  game 2 vs NJ that night (8pm London)
Sunday – fly back to Toronto in the morning

Both games can be heard on Sportsnet Radio, The FAN 590.  Paul Jones and I will be on the air – just prior to the tip-off – at 3pm each day.  And we’ll be blogging and VLOGGING throughout the week as well.

Sportsnet will broadcast Friday’s game while Sportsnet ONE has Saturday’s action.

These 2 games in London will be the first of 8 on the road in March for the Raptors.  Toronto will play 14 games this month and their trip to the UK won’t be their longest journey from the ACC ….. the Raps have a 5-game, 8-day journey to the west coast between March 19-26.  In fact, the Raptors will play 5 games in 7 days on that trip …

March 20 – at Oklahoma City
March 21 – at Denver
March 22 – OFF
March 23 – at Phoenix
March 24 – OFF
March 25 – at Golden State
March 26 - at LA Clippers

So when all is said and done, March will have the Raptors in 5 different time zones.  Should be … errr … fun.

Have a good one folks.

E. Smith

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.