Hello sports fans, this is Lester Sessions filling in for Lars.

Right now our friend Lars is in Haiti, a country so poor that when its basketball team is beating the team from Darfur, the Darfur crowd chants “that’s alright, that’s OK, you’re going to work for us someday”.  Said another way, if you lived in a refrigerator box insulated by toilet paper and held together with scratch-n-sniff stickers the good people of Haiti would view it the way Willis and Arnold viewed the Drummond residence.  Haiti is poor, it’s destitute, it’s a mess.

But Lars and his crew, along with countless others, are trying to change that.  They believe that time, money, and effort can provide a foundation of hope for Haiti that will one day lead to prosperity. 

They are fighting the good fight and I wish them all the best, but I worry for them.  As Red (that would be Morgan Freeman’s character) from The Shawshank Redemption said “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

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A few weeks ago, while at the Indians game with some of our fellow writers at The Cleveland Fan, there was a point in the game where we looked around and seemingly everyone in our group was busy looking down and tapping away on some kind of device.

Being the only person in the group without a smart phone made us realize how much technology and social media has changed the way we watch and interact during sports events. We can be at home on the couch, at the stadium or the arena, and still interact with a community of Indians, Browns and Cavs fans across the country and around the world through Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. (And that doesn’t even take into account the numerous high-quality fans sites devoted to Cleveland sports).

That got us thinking about some of the biggest Cleveland sports moments in our lifetime in the pre-blog and social media era, which we are defining as anything before 2004. Because while Syknet may have become self-aware in 1999, sports blogs didn’t become prevalent in town until 2004, the same year Facebook was created, and Twitter did not launch until 2006.

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The dreams of 30 young men will come true on Friday night inPittsburgh,Pennsylvaniawhen the first round of the 2012 NHL Entry Draft takes place. It is just one of the many steps to becoming a NHL player, but a day of validation for the player and his family, friends, and coaches who have given their time, effort, and money to make a dream into reality.

Over the course of the two days of the NHL Entry Draft, 211 players will have their names announced atConsolEnergyCenter, the host building for this year’s event. Players from all backgrounds, all walks of life, and all corners of the hockey world will eagerly wait to hear their names called.

There are several players expected to go in the first round who have battled back from serious knee injuries in their first year of draft eligibility. Players must be 18 years of age or older by September 14 and not older than 20 by December 31 (exception for non-North American players) to be eligible to be selected. Outside of the first 10-15 draft picks, the majority of players will return to their junior teams, head to college, or continue playing in their respective countries. Teams hold exclusive negotiating rights for their players until they get them signed or their window of opportunity ends.

The draft order is determined by standings finish for the 14 teams that miss the playoffs. After that, draft order is determined by standings order based on who is eliminated over the first two rounds of the playoffs, with division winners picking last of those 12 teams. The conference final losers pick in spots 27 and 28, the Stanley Cup loser in 29, and the Stanley Cup winner picks last.

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A few weeks ago, while at the Indians game with some of our fellow writers at The Cleveland Fan, there was a point in the game where we looked around and seemingly everyone in our group was busy looking down and tapping away on some kind of device.

Being the only person in the group without a smart phone made us realize how much technology and social media has changed the way we watch and interact during sports events. We can be at home on the couch, at the stadium or the arena, and still interact with a community of Indians, Browns and Cavs fans across the country and around the world through Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. (And that doesn’t even take into account the numerous high-quality fans sites devoted to Cleveland sports).

That got us thinking about some of the biggest Cleveland sports moments in our lifetime in the pre-blog and social media era, which we are defining as anything before 2004. Because while Syknet may have become self-aware in 1999, sports blogs didn’t become prevalent in town until 2004, the same year Facebook was created, and Twitter did not launch until 2006.

So we came up with the 20 biggest sports stories that would have made the Internet blow up in Cleveland had these various social media platforms existed at the time. Today we present Part Two, highlighting No. 15 to No. 11. (You can find Part One here).

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