Friday, January 09, 2009

Bruins Blog Project Game 6.5: 1/6/08 vs. Minnesota Wild



Final Score:

Attended With: Jon, Chris, Mom, Dad, Brothers Dave and Rob

Pre-Pregame:
Few quick notes, thus necessitating a pre-pregame column.

1) I know it looks like I've been slacking, but I really haven't missed blogging a season ticket holder game. Last game I had was on 11/29 and the next one I have is 1/13. I did watch the Bruins destroy the Thrashers 4-2 on December 13th. Hell, I watched it from the 4th row:



So why didn't I blog? Well a combination of big time internet problems at home, facebook not uploading photos for about a week and, oh, a pretty big hangover.

2) Scored a sick new Bruins jersey on ebay. It is the road white jersey. The seller had it for Buy It Now: $99 or Best Offer. I jokingly Best Offered him $70 and it is now mine. I love it, but think it might be bad luck.

3) Attended the Bruins Wives' Charity Carnival on 1/4 and it was awesome. Katelyn and I got our photos taken with Zdeno Chara, toured the locker room, etc. Took 200+ photos here.

4) You may have noticed the "Attended With" section is quite full. Well here's the deal. Chris had our Section 308 seats, Jon had won 2 loge seats for $5 through some Cybear Club promotion and at the aforementioned Wives' Carnival, I won 4 seats to the game. So, being the #1 son & brother, I gave the tickets to my family.

OK all caught up?

Pregame: The MBTA fucking hates me. Allow me to explain. Got to Wollaston before 5 p.m., with the hopes of meeting Jon at Hurricane's by 5:30 or so for a beer or two, meeting up with the fam and heading in. I hate being rushed getting to the game, and being in town at 5:30 for a 7 p.m. game is so very refreshing.

A train finally comes (took about 10-15 minutes) and we pull into the next stop, North Quincy. And nothing happened. And nothing happened. And nothing happened. For a good 15 minutes, I was waiting on a packed train at rush hour while the conductor frantically walked outside. Eventually, we pulled up the extra 50 feet to the station and were let out. Train out of service. Good times! Apparently, someone had jumped onto the track to retrieve a cell phone and the train made an emergency stop or something. Great. Now you have two trains worth of people waiting for the next train and I've gone one stop in 35 minutes.

*Aside: Our train also went out of service on New Year's Eve right after N. Quincy, which caused us to nearly miss our Joel McHale show*

Finally back on the train, we are stopped abruptly for about 5 minutes in the middle of nowhere. When we get going again, finally some good news appears. This will now be an Express Train to South Station. SWEET! From there on my problems washed away and I was running to Hurricane O'Reilly's at 6.

Met up with Jon, grabbed a quick beer and my family arrived. We chatted away for a few, snapped some pics, then headed in. I didn't want them to miss the intro. Tonight's giveaway:a Ghost Ryder poster featuring Michael Ryder. The Bruins love their fake movie posters.


The Game: Not much to say here about the actual game. Fucking Minnesota and their stupid trap. They are perfectly content sitting 4 guys back in the neutral zone and winning every game by scoring 1-0. Which is exactly what they did.

Buncha B's looked really bad, and I'd say the best line was the Krecji-Ryder-Wheeler line, per usual. Wheeler was skating around guys as if they weer pylons but couldn't get a decent shot on the net, Krecji was passing too much (not always a bad thing, but in this case it was), and Ryder rang one off the post. Big Z also had a good chance but somehow couldn't pot it. For the love of all that is good and joyful, please remove P.J. Axelsson from the Power Play unit. Thanks!

The seats that Jon nabbed were sick. 21st row behind the net, which put us in the last row before the premium seats. Here is a look:



My family was up in Sec. 321 so I went up and sat with them for the 2nd period. I know this seems like a fantastic family man, but really I just wanted to sit on the side where the Bruins shot for all 3 periods. Just kidding. Possibly.

Here's the few from up in the heavens:



You might be asking yourself why I'd choose to waste a whole period way up top when I was so close. Well, my friend, it's clear you have never been to a hockey game. I love the balcony. It's livelier and you can see EVERYTHING. Remember those 4th row seats I mentioned earlier? Great for when the play is right in front of you. After that, you're at the mercy of whatever the Jumbotron is showing.

I mean, check out this video I took for no reason while really, really drunk to illustrate my point:





Additionally, the atmosphere down low is nothing compared to the heavens. There's rarely any chanting, nothing beyond clapping, really. To really put things in perspective, at that Atlanta game, there was a woman in my row wearing a fur coat.

/Soapbox.

Post game: Went to the Penalty Box with Jon and met up with Chris, Jackie and Andrew. We discussed the upcoming Sharks game we are all attending, Chris' love for Joe Thornton, Jon's eBay addiction and the soon-to-be constructed epic Cam Neely hooded sweatshirt.

Early night, work in the A.M.

Stay tuned for a busy month from me, however:

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