This year I decided to jump into the festivities surrounding the Boxing Hall of Fame with both feet.

We're experimenting with new ways to cover the news, so this year in addition to sportswriter David Johnson's professional coverage, I brought along my brother-in-law, Barry Brown to serve as a citizen-journalist blogger. His impressions are at the bottom of this piece.

As for me, I had watched "The Fighter" a few days ago for the second time, so it was a particular thrill to see "Irish" Micky Ward and his one-of-a-kind brother, Dickie Eklund.

At one point, during a boxing demonstration, James "Smitty" Smith asked Ecklund, "Hey Dickie, did you really knock down Sugar Ray Leonard?" Eklund replied, "I tripped him." The exchange referred to a controversy that persisted throughout "The Fighter," the Oscar-winning film based on the two brothers and their family.

During the parade, I happened to be seated across the street from Ray Halbritter, the Oneida Nation CEO. I think I got a pretty good shot of him waving to Canastota boxer Billy Backus. I was waiting to see how he's react to the UCE float, but group must've decided to skip the event.

Speaking of skipping the event, my family was quite disappointed that Sylvester Stallone chose to forego the parade.

Mike Tyson rode down Peterboro Street. OK, he was so surrounded by police and burly bodyguards that I could hardly see him, but at least he showed up.

Speaking of showing up, in my opinion, our sportswriter David Johnson did a great job both before and during the event. We sent his work out to 23 other Journal Register papers throughout America, which can't help but raise the profile of this area.

At any rate, below is the work of an aspiring citizen-journalist:

By Barry Brown:

Azumeh Nelson, left, and Barry Brown

We arrived on the site and, eh, surveyed the area and checked out the 50-year-old original Madison Square Garden ring, met Azumeh Nelson, who was very gracious and humble, and allowed me to have my picture taken with him.

I remember watching him fight on TV; he lost, but put up a great fight.

We went over to the Hall of Fame museum, saw many very interesting things and compared fist sizes with some of the huge heavyweight boxing champions. I found that the two that were most impressive were Primo Carnera, who was heavyweight champion in 1933 and 1934 and Lennox Lewis.

We viewed boxing demonstrations by boxing greats Aaron Pryor and "Irish" Mickey Ward. They worked out in the ring while being interviewed by James "Smitty" Smith, who has a web TV show at www.inthiscornertv.com show.

It was very informative and fun.
We bought some souvenirs and went home.