A pair of Fridays ago, I was over at the Chelsea Piers at 23rd Street, right along the Hudson River in Manhattan, for an ACHA D1 (basically the first level below NCAA D1 and 3) matchup between Syracuse, which is, surprisingly, at a somewhat lower level of competition in hockey than basketball/football/lacrosse, and NYU, and, in doing so, I ended up at one of the wackiest games I, personally, had attended up until now!
Before I recap the game, though, as always with any places I've visited for the first time, here, now, is a little "background" on Chelsea Piers' "Sky Rink": it's actually a pair of rinks that initially opened back in the mid '90s, and is in a tricky location, as it's at 23rd Street/11th Avenue along Manhattan's West Side, basically requiring people to walk from whichever subway stop (most likely the "A/C/E" 23rd Street station) west, then up either an elevator, or a set of stairs from the parking deck below the facility, in order to reach the lobby leading to whichever rink!
There was a penalty against NYU just seconds into the game, and, as it would turn out, that very early penalty would end up "setting the tone" for the rest of the game, as Syracuse got off shot after shot during the following two minutes; NYU soon recovered, but not for long, since there were what seemed like a million hits, and a million more penalties against both teams later on, although, amazingly, despite Syracuse almost doubling NYU's shot totals then, the opening frame still ended in scoreless fashion, even after all those penalties!
The shots kept coming early in the following 20 minutes, although the penalties slowed down for about the first five minutes or so until NYU killed off another penalty against it, followed by another pair of penalties against Syracuse and yet another against NYU, on which Syracuse actually ended up opening the scoring when two of its shorthanded skaters beat one of NYU's defensemen followed by the goaltender; there was an argument from the NYU bench immediately afterward that the puck didn't entirely cross the goal line, which is the rule at pretty much every level of hockey/soccer; it only took Syracuse a little under another two minutes to double its lead, followed by burying a rebound of an initial two-against-none breakaway to give Syracuse a three-goal second period, and hold that lead through the intermission!
Even more penalties got the third period started, but it would be another against NYU that would end up giving Syracuse a 4-0 lead; again, it only took Syracuse about a minute or two to make it 5-0, after multiple penalties both
Syracuse recap (the only one available this time, apparently...)
The following week, it was Penn State v. Princeton at the Wells Fargo Center in the Philadelphia sports complex, which, as of the weekend prior, was officially a top-10 team vs. an unranked one, as (9) Penn State initially lost to (5) Notre Dame, then went and ripped them, 9-1, the following night, while Princeton got blown out by Arizona State, of all teams (after traveling cross-country), 4-0, before losing 3-2 in overtime; that set of results effectively eliminated the chance of both teams being ranked for the 12/15 game...
...in retail news now, Kmart/Sears might end up getting purchased out of bankruptcy restructuring, albeit by the company's duplicitous/sneaky former CEO/current chairman Eddie Lampert, and also not without closing even more locations in many more places throughout the country in the process:
...not Kmart/Sears-related, but retailers are increasingly going "cashless" now:
...also, there's a train rolling through MLS, initially departing from Atlanta, GA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to propose a few changes to the specific formats of college sports postseason tournaments, since, as it stands currently, those tournaments are merely "winner-take-all" after each game (college basketball/lacrosse), multiple game "regional" series, followed by individual games (baseball/hockey), or many rather meaningless "bowl" games, followed by only the "top 4" getting a chance at the championship (football); on top of that, there appears to be no reason for the (eventual) third place teams in any of those sports' postseasons to keep going, if they even have to do so, after losses; given that "subjectivity" of how all those teams in all those sports get "seeded", I hereby propose the addition of "third-place games", of sorts, along the lines of various international tourname
As mentioned above, I headed down to Philadelphia for another edition of Penn State v. Princeton, which, ironically, featured Princeton as the "home" team, being geographically closer to Philadelphia than State College, PA by about 2-2 1/2 hours', and about 150 miles', distance from Center City Philadelphia, in a game originally started by executives within Penn State's athletic department when its hockey program moved up from ACHA D1 to NCAA D1 back in 2012-13!
After departing the area mid-afternoon yesterday (Saturday) to arrive in Philly rather early, I ended up grabbing one of SEPTA's new "Key" smart cards (more on those later), after which I wandered around Philadelphia's annual "Christmas Village" for a bit, in what turned out to be quite dry and warm weather given last week's forecasts, before finding one of the many Wawa locations in Center City Philly - it's been said "one can barely 'throw stones' in Philly without hitting a Wawa" - just kidding; I completely made up that phrase, but, still, I had a meatball hoagie/sub/whatever, mac and cheese, and not one or two, but three pint-sized bottles of Wawa's (locally) famous dairy farm-produced chocolate milk, and dodged more than a few surprisingly/suspiciously still sober "SantaCon" revelers, specifically between the corner of S. Broad/Walnut Streets and City Hall, before heading down from there to the Wells Fargo Center!
Once again, the crowd was incredibly in favor of Penn State, although, surprisingly, there seemed to be even fewer Princeton fans in attendance compared to last time the teams met in Philadelphia, perhaps because Princeton entered the game having lost seven consecutive games heading into its last pre-holiday break game, although Penn State entered having gone 2 wins-3 losses-1 tie in its previous few, despite still scoring goals in bunches then!
Just like last time, the game itself started off very similarly, as Princeton opened the scoring only a little over a couple of minutes in, although, from there, the rest of the opening period pretty much belonged entirely to Penn State, as many Princeton turnovers early on led to Penn State almost instantly jumping out to a double-digit shots-on-goal advantage, and, in the process, a trio of Penn State goals that, despite one of them coming shorthanded, and another getting waved off for what appeared to be the puck not entirely crossing the goal line for what could've been yet another goal for Penn State, stood as an eventual 3-1 lead after 20, even with a surprisingly low amount of penalties during the first 20 minutes!
It only took Penn State the first quarter-minute or so of the middle 20 to stretch the aforementioned 3-1 lead after 20 minutes, also forcing a change "between the pipes" for Princeton, which seemed to at least start to change things back in favor of Princeton, as, suddenly, Princeton started being more careful with its passes, eventually starting up a series of breakaways that initially either got put over/wide of the net, or stopped by somebody on Penn State, be it a defender/multiple of them, or the goaltender, but, eventually, one such opportunity found the back of the net for Princeton to cut the score to 4-2 in favor of Penn State, which stood for another approximately 18 minutes or so of game time until a little "excuse me"-type soft wrist shot from along the Penn State goal line that just slipped into the net cut the Penn State back down to a single goal, at 4-3; Princeton then barely got started on its plans for the "extra attacker" situation a few minutes later before the game suddenly ended up tied, which stunned everybody in the crowd not wearing black and orange, and, despite a few glorious opportunities in the five-minute overtime, the game finished with a 4-4 tied final score!
The game itself actually seemed quite similar to your typical Philadelphia Flyers home game nowadays, from Princeton goals getting followed by the team's "goal horn", which, for however long that's been used, has produced a very unmistakably "deep" sound, and even featured the team's long-time PA announcer, Lou Nolan, who moved with the Flyers across the street from the now-demolished Spectrum after having announced there between 1972 and 1996; in contrast to how he usually works Flyers' home games, though. he seemed a bit more "laid back" this time around, even engaging in a bit of semi-joking commentary of the two "mini-games" during each of the intermissions featuring a pair of Princeton-based "mite" teams, and handing off non-game announcements (basically everything other than goals and penalties) to a different guy who mostly acted as a "host", of sorts, and announced promos for upcoming events at the Wells Fargo Center!
There were also a few - I guess one could consider them current Penn State students, who kept raising funds both pre-game and during each of the intermissions, at least from what I noticed, for pediatric cancer research efforts, which, regardless of the scope of the research they happened to be raising funds for, they could use all of those funds, and then some, since, sadly, nobody seems to have figured out any "permanent" cures for too many cancer types yet...
Back to what I mentioned earlier about SEPTA now, again, I got one of the agency's "Key" cards for myself this time, since it seems as if the agency is "phasing out" just about everything but those cards; unfortunately, tokens don't seem to be compatible with the machines dispensing those cards, since every one of those I checked only referenced nickels/dimes/quarters/etc., and tokens have been relegated to little "coin holes", if you will, in the booths inside SEPTA stations, which then open up the little gates in front of them upon being accepted; speaking of which, I like that all of the agency's current "fares" (cards/tickets/tokens) make the gates in all the stations make different noises upon being accepted, since that is an easy way to determine just which type of "fare" is being used; also, after the game, as I returned to 30th Street, somebody had apparently left a "Quick Trip" single-use ticket behind at the station near the sports complex, which, upon noticing, I gladly took and used, since I wasn't about to figure out how to work the "Key" card system once again when having very little time to get back there from the sports complex in order to be able to (eventually) get back up here that same night!
(...also, two minutes for "ruffing"...)
...also, CBS Sunday Morning, that network's weekly "newsmagazine" show, aired a piece this morning about the downfall of Kmart/Sears:
Well, that's it for now, since Christmas is next week, with our celebrations of that holiday this year including some visitors from out in Colorado, although, after that (Sat. evening 12/29), I might head back to the Nassau Coliseum out on Long Island for Colgate v. Quinnipiac, except that game conflicts with this year's college football national semi-finals that same evening; regardless, I'll get back to you once again from MSG near the end of January, by then for Michigan v. Penn State in the Big Ten conference's annual basketball/hockey doubleheader; until that game rolls around near the end of next month, though; in all seriousness...
