And I Thought Forecasts of Snow Made People Crazy

Anyone who has lived in the Philadelphia region for a winter knows how insane people get when it might snow. If a TV weather forecaster hints at the white stuff, that's all people talk about for a week. Tonight, a college game was apparently postponed because it might RAIN! The sad part, for me at least, was that I didn't find out until I arrived at the field. My wife had a meeting tonight, so it was a perfect time to shoot down Rte. 55 to Glassboro to see my five former Xtreme girls play for Rowan University against Stockton. Even better, Rowan coach Scott Leacott and Stockton coach Nick Juengert are friends whom I have not see in awhile. And I looked forward to seeing the parents of the girls. I should have known it wasn't going to be my day when I was driving north on I-295 from Woodbury after a deposition and noticed southbound trafic - on the route I would be taking from home to Glassboro - at a standstill. KYW told me of an overturned tractor trailer where I-295 and Rte 42 come together - just above where I would get on Rte. 55 . After getting changed at home, I detoured over to Rte. 130 south towards 47, only to find 130 backed up in Brooklawn. And of course once on 47 I was behind a guy going no more than 5 mph below the speed limit at any given time. After nearly an hour on the road, I reached the Rte. 322 exit of Rte. 55 for Rowan and figured I would just about make the start of the game, only to find traffic on Rte 322 backed up. I finally pulled into the parking lot by the Rowan soccer stadium 5 minutes after start time, only to find it empty. The school's athletic website tonight says the game was postponed due to "inclement weather" meaning someone thought it might rain. Which it did not while I was there. I don't know if it rained in Camden, either, but less than 20 miles north of Glassboro, the TCNJ women played at Rutgers-Camden (and won, 4-0). The Rowan-Stockton game has been changed until tomorrow night, but I heard it might be windy.

UEFA Tries to Level the Field

Jeré Longman reports in today's New York Times that there is an effort to level the financial playing field in Europe.

Alarmed that more than than half of Europe’s 650 top soccer clubs are reporting operating losses, the governing body of European soccer, UEFA, has instituted a plan known as "Financial Fair Play," in which clubs are permitted to spend only what they take in from soccer revenue. This is intended to eliminate mega-rich owners from pumping their own millions (or billions) into a team - to the detriment of the competition. Such is the case, Longman reports, with England's Manchester City, owned by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, a member of the royal family of the emirate of Abu Dhabi who has

The plan will phase in over two years and is not without its critics. So we'll have to wait to see if it works.