Basketball all over the place

So the first round of the NCAA tournament is over. It was an exciting round, and a ton of good basketball games.

My tournament started at Buffalo Wild Wings (BWW) in Parkersburg, which is different than the past 6 years when we watched the tournament at Damon’s here in Marietta. Now I was wondering how this experience would go, because as long as I have been taking the first 2 days of the tournament off to watch games, no place has gotten the whole routine of getting the maximum amount of games on their TV’s correct. Well this was no exception.

I had reserved the “back room” at BWW for the first 2 days of the tournament, but I also knew that we would have a smaller amount of people join us the first day. Well it was Tom and I the first day and we had 2 other people who we knew were coming out, and we felt that since I hadn’t paid a reservation fee for the 2 days (a bonus move by the GM at BWW) we should take up the room for just 3-4 people.

That move was stupid. We sat in the main dining room and for the first 45-60 minutes we were forced to watch one game on 4 TV’s, and spent the rest of the time trying to get the others changed. At one point Renea called me and I asked her how many games did she get at home, and she had 2 different games on our 2 different CBS stations. I was sitting at a so-called sports bar and was worse off than I would have been at home. Pathetic.

So anyway we finally moved to the “bar area” later in the day, in time for the second round of games and got to have 3 TV’s in front of us with different games, and over our shoulder behind us we got the fourth game, so that wasn’t so bad. I don’t mind having to swivel and turn to catch another game, because most of the time I am just happy that I have access to all of the games.

So needless to say Thursday was not a very good day. This seems to be typical with a rookie bar hosting a lot of people for the first time on a March Madness weekend. Too few servers on duty, the TV’s not properly calibrated, and a general feeling like they had no idea that people would be there to watch basketball.

Friday was the exact opposite. We got and used the “back room” the server (which was a male and understood the TV’s and the fact that we wanted a different game on every TV) was excellent. The back room had 4 TV’s and each was on a different game, and if it wasn’t he made sure it was. When we got there it took about 3 minutes to get our drinks and another 5 for him to take our order. It could have been the best set-up ever to watch games. The only thing that could have been better was the set up of the room. It was a long room and the TV’s were spread through out and were hanging from the ceiling, and the chairs (for a 5 hour afternoon) were a little uncomfortable after 3 hours. But you could stand up, walk around the room, and hold conversations with other people with out yelling. It was a great setup and even if I had had to pay the $20 reservation fee I would have done it in a second. It was worth it.