[B]DALLAS –[/B] Everything’s supposed to be bigger in Texas, so when they get a snowstorm, it’s not a dusting. Just before the city’s first NBA All-Star Game, Dallas was pounded with a record 12 inches of snow. I was on the 6 a.m. flight out that Thursday morning so I was one of the lucky ones who got in. The snow kept coming down – big flakes like I remember from the NHL All-Star Game in Minnesota – and the flights started getting canceled.

The NBA had to charter a lot of flights just to get its key personnel into town. When it snows in the Washington, D.C. area (where I went to high school, college and grad school) or in North Carolina (where I live), the roads are properly prepared for ice and snow. Dallas lacks that infrastructure. As a result, the restaurants and businesses (and Jam Session) were ghost towns the first night.

It took Ami Blair, vice president of marketing at Square Enix, three days and hours at LAX to get to town – and she missed the celebrity basketball game that was sponsored by Final Fantasy XIII on Friday night. Square also had a final playable version of the game on the floor of the NBA Jam Session at the Dallas Convention Center throughout the weekend.

While the cold remained in Dallas, by Saturday most of the snow was gone. And all the events went on as planned. EA Sports hosted a tip-off party on Thursday night to get things started. EA Sports President Peter Moore, who was supposed to attend and then speak at the NBA Tech Summit Friday morning, never made it out because his flights from San Francisco were all canceled.

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