So you’ve just finished Christmas and you’re now preparing for the calendar to flip to 2015. Depending on where you are in the world, New Year’s Eve is a celebration unlike any other. You prepare the fireworks, you write down your resolutions, and then you spend the rest of night reveling in merriment until you wake up the next day with the world’s worst hangover. It’s not the 
perfect way to start a new year, but at least you can enjoy the day watching sports from your bed whilst you try your best to recuperate from the alcoholic pasting you received the night before. So we’re doing you a favor and presenting a list of sports games/events that are scheduled to play between December 31, 2014 to January 2, 2015, or as some people in other parts of the world would call it, the three-day New Year celebration.
Unlike Christmas, the NBA will be in full swing in the days before and after January 1st, leaving only two games on the 1st itself. December 31 will feature a total of seven games, including the San Antonio Spurs hosting the New Orleans Pelicans, the Indiana Pacers taking on the Miami Heat, and the Cleveland Cavaliers playing the Milwaukee Bucks.
Flip to the new year and there will only be two NBA games on the schedule, neither of which appear to be appetizing in any sense. But hey, if you want to watch the Denver Nuggets take on the Chicago Bulls and the Sacramento Kings play the Minnesota Timberwolves, well, then that’s your call.
But should the two games not be worth your time, you can hold on to your money and then splurge it all on January 2 when there are a total of 11 games on the docket. We browsed through it and found some interesting ones, including the Washington Wizards taking on the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Toronto Raptors playing the Golden State Warriors, and the Houston Rockets traveling to New Orleans to take on the Pelicans.
Over in the NHL, the same three-day New Year’s schedule applies just like the NBA. The 31st will feature a full schedule of 11 games, including barn burners like the Toronto Maple Leafs taking on the Boston Bruins, the San Jose Sharks locking sticks with the Anaheim Ducks, and the New Jersey Devils playing the Detroit Red Wings. On January 1st, only two games will be played, one of which is a nice dalliance between the Los Angeles Kings and the Vancouver Kings.
As for the other one, well, that’s going to be the 2015 Winter Classic between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Washington Capitals. The game will be played at Nationals Field in DC and if you’ve been paying attention to this game since its inception in 2008, you know that this is arguably the best sports game to watch in high definition TV. Yup. It’s even better than the Super Bowl.
As soon as the Classic is done, the NHL resumes to normal programming on January 2 with eight total games, including the Tampa Bay Lightning taking on the Pittsburgh Penguins and the St. Louis Blues traveling to Anaheim to face the Quacks.
This three-day window is also the time when college football is playing a lot of Bowl games. So if you’re preparing to root for two random schools playing in a hilariously sponsored football game in the middle of nowhere, keep this three days open. On the 31st, we get three Bowl games, all of which involve nationally ranked teams. The first one on the schedule is the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl (12:30 pm ET) between ninth ranked Ole Miss and sixth ranked TCU. Once that’s settled, the action shifts to the Vizio Fiesta Bowl (4:00 pm ET) between 20th ranked Boise State and 10th ranked Arizona. For the night cap, we get the Capital One Orange Bowl (8:00 pm) between 7th ranked Mississippi State and 12th ranked Georgia Tech.
But those games are just the appetizers for what’s to come on January 1, 2015. There are five games on schedule, but there really are only two we should be paying attention to. Apologies to those teams playing in the Outback Bowl, the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, and the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl, but the real action begins at 5:30 pm when 2nd ranked Oregon takes on 3rd ranked Florida State in the Rose Bowl. As soon as that game is finished, the night finishes with 1st ranked Alabama playing 4th ranked Ohio State in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Whoever wins these two games will a little under two weeks to prepare for the College Football National Championship game on January 12 at Cowboys Stadium.
So if you’re keeping score, here’s what your sports schedule should look like on January 1: the Winter Classic, the Rose Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl.
That is, unless you live across the pond and these games are irrelevant to you. In that case, you can take comfort knowing that the English Premier League will be in full force on New Year’s Day with a total of nine games on the schedule. Not a lot of these games are particularly intriguing with the exception of Southampton taking on Arsenal and Tottenham traveling to face Chelsea, but hey, at least you can get to watch the two Manchester teams on that day, too.
