10/16/17

UConn @ Sacred Heart recap

As promised earlier this past week, I returned to college hockey, specifically UConn @ Sacred Heart, just near downtown Bridgeport, CT, which, having only passed through there in the past to get to places like Boston, I had a feeling it would be worse than places like Stamford, just west of there, or places like Hartford or New Haven just to the east, but not nearly as abandoned/run-down as I noticed yesterday evening - like, even the worst neighborhoods in places like Newark, N.J., or parts of the Bronx/Brooklyn/Queens look better than downtown Bridgeport, at least in my opinion... anyway, game recap incoming:

The arena itself sits in the "Harbor Yard" complex just off downtown, which makes sense, considering Long Island Sound is literally right next door to the arena/ballpark there, and, inside, the place almost feels stuck back in the 1990s - at least when UConn moved into the former Hartford Civic Center (now the "XL" Center) back in 2014, the place got renovated, with a new video board and refreshed concourses; in contrast, the only new part of the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport seems to be the scoreboard! That being said, I'm sure that place would look at least similar to, if not superior than, the XL Center, if only it had been built in someplace like Norwalk or Stamford, right near Bridgeport along I-95/the "Northeast Corridor" train lines...

There seems to be a surprisingly loyal, however small it might be, fanbase for Sacred Heart, as there were enough UConn fans there to be heard (which the team itself seems to have embraced, calling itself the "ice bus" on social media, in reference to the proximity to most of its conference foes), yet not nearly the majority, which is ironic considering UConn faced Maine in Bridgeport last January (which I honestly would've considered making the trip for, had I not been in a certain other place that week...), although UConn had the first 10 shots of the game, yet couldn't convert on any of them, while it only took Sacred Heart its first two shots to open the scoring about 10 minutes into the game, but, afterward, UConn kept pressing Sacred Heart shot-wise, except that Sacred Heart scored again as UConn kept racking up shot after shot near the end of the period! Surprisingly, also, considering how many shots UConn seemed to get early on, there was only a single penalty, which Sacred Heart managed to kill off, taking a 2-0 lead back to the dressers despite almost getting doubled on shots...

The middle of the game was when a few more penalties got called, as both teams got penalized a few times then, although mostly Sacred Heart, and Sacred Heart stretched the lead to 3-0 just before the halfway point of the period, followed by UConn finally getting something for the mega amount of shots it had up until then, and also giving the fans who showed up for them something to make some noise for, although that would be it for the scoring for the game - UConn missed on a 5-on-3 which later became a 4-on-3 "man advantage" after only about 10 seconds had elapsed on the second Sacred Heart penalty, and Sacred Heart somehow survived all the pressure to win by a 3-1 count, although the game could've easily gotten ugly for Sacred Heart, had UConn converted on more than just the single goal!

On top of there seemingly being very little decor that had been updated since the late 1990s, the arena has a small Irish pub on-site, called the Limerick Pub, neither school's band appeared, and the arena has a rather unique bells/"flashing lights" intro to each period, when Sacred Heart takes the ice for the start of either the game, or a certain period, and the scoreboard received very little use aside from showing live action/replays - no game highlights/"upcoming event" promos during the intermissions; very few "player profiles" after the introductions; a few promotions for other Sacred Heart sporting teams (most of which actually made the trip from campus to the arena); local business advertisements, none of which were actually in Bridgeport... What it did do, though, was be fair to UConn when the Huskies scored their lone goal of the game, as it showed the replay in the exact same fashion it showed replays for Sacred Heart throughout the game, from goals, to penalties and saves!

box scores (Sacred Heart; UConn)

recaps (same as the box scores; note the attendance figures there!)

Also, in a follow-up from a few days ago, it's truly over now for Sears Canada:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASwVPiW1sIk (this looks like it'll be the last "regular" holiday season commercial for Sears up there, since all the commercials between now and late next January will most likely be "liquidation" promotions...)


...and the mayor of the town containing the original Sears location in all of Canada has offered to help employees displaced by the shutdown get their earnings:


(also, can anybody explain this at all?)

The cruise, now that it's back on with slight changes, instead of being postponed, will take up the remainder of this month, though, so it looks like the earliest I'll be able to get back to anything sporting-related at this point will be next month (November), and, honestly, I'm thinking about all the Saturday afternoons UConn will be at home then (11/4 v. Vermont; 11/11 v. Ohio State; 11/18 v. UMass Lowell, all in Hartford, all starting shortly after 3:30), since, then, I would only need to get to Quinnipiac (Hamden, CT) to complete all the "major" Connecticut rinks!

(P.S.: I've attached part of UConn's "media guide" for this season, which gives an idea (based on a 7:05 P.M. face-off) of how pre-game/intermissions usually go there!)

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10/9/17

end-of-this-month cruise complaints, Delaware (FCS) @ Stony Brook (FCS) recap, and looking ahead to (the start of) college hockey season

On a more personal note from some of the other things I've posted here for you so far, I figured I would wait for there to be some more "certainty" here about this, but we had planned a pre-Halloween cruise to a trio of Caribbean islands (St. Martin, the U.S.V.I., and, lastly, Puerto Rico) before all the hurricanes ripped through those islands, so things didn't seem as "certain" as they do now about the damage done down there, so it looks like that will get postponed to a later week, but, if not, I'll get back to you on that sooner rather than later to remind you, once again, about that... It looks, however, like this whole "saga" here just took a bizarre turn a few days ago - apparently, Celebrity Cruises (which we booked with, through a travel agency website) just sent out an update about some of its cruises:


...which means they haven't postponed the thing; they've merely changed it, to include places that have also been hit, albeit not worse than Puerto Rico, by the string of hurricanes these past few weeks!


...although, I will say, personally, if they swap out Puerto Rico with another "minimally" damaged location, then I might be (back) on board with the idea of keeping that cruise that week, but, otherwise, I'd rather wait, and then do something much closer to home either before or after that week (most likely college hockey, which will be back in action with its most recent season by then)!

...the cruise, between both the line (Celebrity) and travel agency (iCruise), hasn't been postponed, or even just changed from Puerto Rico to some other island, so (un)fortunately, now, it looks like the schedule I mentioned to you just above here, with those few links, will now stand: Port Liberty (Bayonne, N.J.) -> Antigua; Antigua -> St. Kitts/Nevis; St. Kitts/Nevis -> San Juan, Puerto Rico, the last full week of this month, so we might be out of town that week, but at least you'll know the reason why, even though you might notice me "pouting" a bit about that whole debacle sometime the previous week...

Also, before heading out to Delaware @ Stony Brook on Long Island (CFB) this past Saturday night (more on that just now), I noticed a few Disney Christmas celebration commercials on ESPN, during SportsCenter/various (other) college football telecasts, so this might just be "confirmation bias" on my part, since I was down in Orlando at the start of this year, but I figured I would ask you whether you've noticed that "encroachment" of various holidays/etc. in recent years to the extent some people have...?

This weekend (Saturday), I headed out to Long Island, N.Y., to catch Delaware @ Stony Brook, in a matchup between two (in recent years) top FCS teams, Delaware and Stony Brook, and the whole deal almost felt more like a high school game than a (lower-level) college matchup out on Long Island...

Also, now that I've (finally) dealt with both systems, between the various parts of N.Y.C.'s MTA, I much prefer MTA's Metro-North (Grand Central) to the Long Island Railroad (Penn Station), although I guess I could hitch either the LIRR or subways to get to Barclays Center sometime in the future... Also, security on the way in was simply a few small folding tables with people standing alongside them, so somebody could've easily slipped something in, and nobody would've noticed with how "lax" security was!

It took about halfway through the first quarter for Stony Brook to open the scoring here, and, as would be the theme throughout the first half, it would be Stony Brook (mostly) passing the ball every which way, and its defense stuffing Delaware's passing game, although having less success against the run, which would prove to be pivotal later on - it seemed like every drive throughout the game went to third down at least once, and Stony Brook would miss a field goal after taking a 14-7 second quarter lead, along with a missed extra point later to keep things at 20-7 leading into the halftime break!

After the Stony Brook band performed a "music around the world" halftime show, though, Delaware suddenly dominated the second half, as the offense's run game just exploded, and Stony Brook suddenly couldn't seem to move the ball at all, although the defense started off all right, holding Delaware to a 50-yard (made) field goal, and Stony Brook's sudden offensive ineptitude led to a fumble return that just barely broke the goal line for a defensive TD for Delaware, giving Delaware even more "momentum" than it had after the field goal to make it 24-10 earlier in the third quarter...

Once Delaware took the lead early in the fourth quarter, though, at 24-20, it seemed as if things had suddenly reverted to the opening quarter, as Stony Brook's defense finally put a few stops together, only for the offense to keep faltering, at least until the last drive of the game, when the offense, suddenly (A) down, and (B) only operating with a single remaining timeout, "dumped" and "screened" its way from the 10-yard line to about the Delaware 20-yard line, although that was just about where Stony Brook would stall, and thus blow the potential game-winning drive, as the offense coaches basically did the reverse of what the Seattle Seahawks did at the end of SB 49: they stupidly called a run play first, then had a pass that not only floated over the end zone and incomplete, but also just absolutely leveled one of the team's receivers, who ran at (almost) full speed, right into the padding behind the end zone, and got KO'd as a result, leading to an injury timeout and (after the game) an ambulance being called, just as a pre-caution, although that seemed to give the Delaware "D" even more determination to stop Stony Brook once and for all, and another run play call, along with a fourth down pass play stopped short of both the first-down line, as well as the end zone, effectively ended the game immediately, with about 20 seconds remaining in the game, and allowing Delaware to just "clock out" from there and hang on for the 24-20 win!

The officiating crew, meanwhile, almost seemed to be in "opposite land" the entire night, making certain calls that probably should've just been left alone, and missing some other calls, particularly a few "procedural" penalties, such as a few grounding/offside calls, along with a few late/out-of-bounds hits by defensive players against opposing receivers, so if they were going to "blow" so many calls like that, they might as well not even have bothered appearing there that night...

The fans, however, were practically lifeless early on, though, regardless of whether the game was ongoing, or during changes of possession/official timeouts on the field, only coming to life in the second half, as Delaware slowly but surely closed the gap, and even the Delaware fans who made the trip started making more noise then, as their team suddenly "resurrected" itself then!

I mentioned at the top here about how the experience almost felt more like your typical "neighborhood Friday night out", though, and the stadium itself seems to reflect that, with the 200-level sections seemingly almost built on top of the 100-level sections, and only a single concession stand and rather cramped bathrooms comprising the rest of the stadium, despite the place only having opened back in 2002, and having been renovated back in 2012, although, on the plus side, that meant a (relatively) "low-frills" experience, with very little interference from the announcer(s)/band/scoreboard/other sound effects (cannons, etc.), except for the last few minutes of the game, when the PA announcer and scoreboard graphics started urging the fans more often, and more urgently, but, thankfully, this time, everything stayed inside the stadium, instead of getting heard for a few hundred feet around, like Philly and West Point!

Also, Princeton's (albeit black and orange, instead of blue and yellow) helmets, along with Michigan's famous "maize and blue" helmets (not just in football, either), basically inspired Delaware's blue and yellow "winged" helmets that the team has officially worn since 1951!





As for next weekend (13-15), since the cruise will now occupy the following weekend (20-22), I'll most likely be returning to the "rinks" once again, specifically Western Ontario U. (from the other "London") @ Yale (New Haven, CT) Friday night, or either UConn traveling to Bridgeport to face Sacred Heart, or Western Ontario making the trip from New Haven to Princeton Saturday night! (interestingly enough, turns out Yale also made admission to its exhibition game that Friday night free!)
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