Daily Sports: The Weekend Ahead

The NBA Finals are over, and the College World Series is set until next week, but there’s still championship action going on in the NHL, as the Stanley Cup Finals gear up for a big battle on Saturday night in Chicago. The Blackhawks and Bruins are tied at two games apiece in a series as evenly played as the results suggest. Tonight’s Game 5 (8 PM ET, NBC) is the highlight of the daily sports schedule for the weekend.

Baseball is focused heavily this weekend on the Texas Rangers’ visit to St. Louis, the first time the Rangers have played the Cardinals since their outstanding World Series back in 2011. They were on MLB Network Friday night and now get Fox coverage on Saturday evening (7:15 PM ET) and are the Sunday Night Game at 8 PM ET on ESPN.  On Saturday night, note that Fox splits its coverage among five games, with Boston-Detroit being the one other game that would be worth showing beyond the local fan base.

The New York Yankees will never get too far from anyone’s television set, and the second game of their series with Tampa Bay is one part of split coverage on MLB Network for Saturday afternoon at noon ET. Some viewers will get Colorado-Washington. The Rays-Yanks then play for the entire country on TBS at 2 PM ET on Sunday. If you like NASCAR, you can check the Toyota-Save Mart 350 on Sunday afternoon (2 PM ET, TNT), in conjunction with the Rays-Yanks.

Other than that, we’re waiting for next week when more champions will join the Miami Heat in the Summer Celebration. The Stanley Cup Finals will conclude either Monday or Wednesday, and in that same three-day timeframe, Mississippi State and UCLA will settle college baseball’s championship. For now, the weekend is a chance to watch some hockey and dial down after all the intensity that marked the Miami-San Antonio battle for the NBA crown that wrapped up on Thursday night.

Here at TheSportsNotebook we’ve got NASCAR Sprint Cup Series coverage coming up by Saturday afternoon, looking at Sunday’s race and the season as a whole. NHL analysis will return Sunday morning to look back on Game 5. You can check yesterday’s NBA commentary that reflected on the just-concluded Finals, and MLB coverage was recently updated with closer looks at the Toronto Blue Jays and San Diego Padres.