News & notes

For years, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) has operated on a six day a week schedule at Saratoga, and, in recent times, four or five days at Aqueduct, currently in its winter meet, and Belmont.

This year, while NYRA is still committed to a 40 day meet at Saratoga, it'll start a week earlier than normal, and it'll be a five day a week calendar, with Monday & Tuesday dark, just like their downstate sister tracks. NYRA will only open Belmont or Aqueduct on a Monday if it's a holiday, but were thwarted last month when a card scheduled for January 21 (Martin Luther King Day) was wiped out by extremely cold temperatures. The 2019 meet at Saratoga will start on Thursday, July 11, and wrap on September 2 (Labor Day), the lone Monday on the meet calendar. Attendance, you figure, won't change much, as horse-players from downstate will gravitate north for the summer.

The move is being made to coincide with the construction of a new arena in Elmont, home of Belmont Park, for the NHL's New York Islanders, who are splitting their home games this season between their ancient home at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Current Islander ownership doesn't like the Brooklyn locale for some reason.

Will this be a one-season thing? Stay tuned.
=============================================
As of press time, we don't know if Troy & Burnt Hills were able to have their bowling match on Tuesday, but I'm going to guess that the answer there is "no", because the Suburban Council championships took place the next day. Troy finished 11th in the team competition. Still, if the match was cancelled for the 2nd straight week, Troy finishes with a respectable 5-7-1 ledger, an improvement over the last three seasons. We hope to have some clarification before the end of the weekend.
===============================================
As LaSalle's hockey team preps for tomorrow's Battle of The Cadets II, their Senior Night meeting with Albany Academy, Tim Flanigan's club needs to shake off a 4-2 loss to CBA on Wednesday night. The Cadets are 1-2 on the current four game homestand, having beaten Burnt Hills last Saturday night, and they'll close at Adirondack on Tuesday. If anything, Conway Arena should be packed tomorrow night for the first hockey visit by Academy in several years. A win for Dave Rider's club will lock down the #2 seed in the playoffs, which begin with the play-in round next week.

Meanwhile, CDHSHL regular season champ Bethlehem thumped the Capital District Jets, 12-2, on Wednesday, and will finish their schedule tonight vs. Burnt Hills.