(Editor's Note: Philadelphia area sports writer Ben Horrow contributes weekly to Authentically Speaking.)
By Ben Horrow
With the NBA season closing in upon us, one of the most interesting story lines will be anything having to do with the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets sport a new lineup, having acquired former Atlanta Hawk Joe Johnson, and failing to acquire new Lakers center Dwight Howard.
This season, the Nets look to make some noise in the Eastern Conference for the first time since Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin roamed the court. In addition, the Nets will no longer be known as the New Jersey Nets, but instead the Brooklyn Nets. The team, owned by Russian Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, moved to Brooklyn over the summer.
Their new arena is called the Barclays Center, and for the first time we get a look at their home court. The hardwood is done in a herringbone-patterned and made of Maple Hardwood. The court was designed by the Nets creative team, but produced by the Connor Sports Flooring Manufacturing Mill in Amasa, Mich.
The Nets new color scheme is quite simple. They use black and white instead of the red and blue accented with white that the team used when playing in New Jersey. Due to the color scheme change, the arena is equipped with all black seats, with the new Nets emblem, a basketball with a black “B” in the center, lodged in the middle of the new hardwood floor.
The Nets first game at the Barclays Center is on October 15th against the Washington Wizards in pre-season action.
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Authentic Store Buzz: Two events coming up: Left Field Cards presentation with artist Amelie Mancini (pictured above) on Thursday, October 4 from 6-8pm at our Center City Philly location (137 S. 13th Street). The event will mark the official unveiling of Amalie’s “Presidents of the United State of Baseball” letterpress baseball cards with the Von Hayes card pictured above..
Then on Saturday Oct. 6, is the annual Midtown Village Fall Festival in which 13th Street in front of the store is closed to traffic and it’s one giant block party throughout the area in which merchants set up out in front of the stores. We invite you stop by for the day-long event (noon-8pm), they’ll be all sorts of the special proceedings going on in and around the store.
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Authentically Speaking Trivia Time: What major college football team wore this helmet for one game at the conclusion of the 1968 season? Answer coming on Monday.
Thursday’s answer: The Chicago Cubs, after putting names on the back of the road uniforms as mandated by the National League in 1979, finally put names on the back of the home pinstripes in the 1993 season.
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