Few events are affected by the blackout.

NEW YORK (AP) – Too hot upstairs, too dark outside. So Vince Carter walked into the lobby of his hotel, where a half-dozen of his Olympic teammates were chatting and playing cards.

Who should walk in at that very moment? None other than incoming NBA rookie LeBron James, the most hyped prep player in the history of basketball.

“I have no idea what he was doing there,” Carter said, referring to James – who has no connection with the U.S. team.

Everyone had a story to tell Friday about surviving the blackout of 2003, and the surprise appearance of James was only one of the tales related by members of the U.S. men’s basketball Olympic qualifying team. Coach Larry Brown was out for a 6-mile walk, strolling the perimeter of Central Park with assistant coach Gregg Popovich, when people started to stream into the park.

“A kid in a Suburban stopped us and said ‘Did you hear about the blackout?’ He said there was a power shortage all over, and he mentioned Detroit – which cracked me up,’ said Brown, who recently took a job as head coach of the Detroit Pistons.

The U.S. team’s exhibition game against Puerto Rico, originally scheduled for Friday night, was postponed until noon EDT Sunday because of the blackout. One CFL game also was postponed Friday, as was the racing card at Woodbine in Toronto, but the blackout did not cause any other major disruptions in the sporting world.

Colorado Rockies pitching coach Bob Apodaca, in town for a series against the Mets, stayed in his hotel room.

“I spent more time in bed than I did on my honeymoon. It was really a helpless feeling. There wasn’t enough light to read by, I wasn’t going to gamble on the elevators, and I certainly wasn’t going to walk 19 flights of stairs,” Apodaca said at Shea, where the Mets’ game against San Francisco was called off Thursday.

In Cleveland, members of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers and the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun chatted in the lobby of their hotel. The Packers arrived in Cleveland just minutes before the massive power outage, while the Sun’s game against the Cleveland Rockers was postponed.

“If it’s not a rainout, it’s a blackout,” quipped Green Bay linebacker Na’il Diggs, whose game last week against Kansas City in Canton, Ohio, was cut short by lightning.

U.S. basketball team member Jason Kidd was oblivious to the blackout until he walked off the 18th green at Manhattan Woods country club and discovered he couldn’t get into the clubhouse.

“I did some calculating, and when my game started to come together was when the lights went out,” said Kidd, who shot 83 and lost to teammate Ray Allen by a stroke.

Kidd decided to take Allen and USA Basketball official Quinn Buckner to his house in New Jersey, where they grilled hot dogs and sat outside until power was restored at 9 p.m.

That spurred them to make the drive back into Manhattan, where – unbeknownst to them – the power was still off and would be for several more hours.

When he arrived back at the team hotel, Kidd found his 4-year-old son, T.J., holding court before about 20 people in a second-floor lounge. One team official said T.J. recited the name and number of every player on the New Jersey Nets’ roster.

“He was the entertainer, talking about the planets and everything,” Kidd said. “Then he said he had an idea – everyone get their pajamas and their sleeping bags and we’ll pitch a tent in Central Park.”

Many of the American players remarked about how dark the city got after sundown on a night when the moon did not rise until shortly before 10 p.m.

Nick Collison of the U.S. team took the opportunity to walk nearly 20 blocks to view a sight unseen in New York since the blackout of ’77 – Times Square with no neon lights.

“I saw a lot of interesting people that had too much to drink,” Collison said. “There were a few bars over there that were open, a lot of people coming in and out having a good time. We had fun with it despite the inconvenience.”

AP-ES-08-15-03 1857EDT