Here now, on this, one the very first days after the beginning of this calendar year, I have just a few more "headlines" for you to check out for yourselves:
...first off, yet another round of many rounds of store closures just occurred for Kmart/Sears:
...next up, a little "exposé" that initially dates back to last June involving Walmart's Brazilian subsidiary, "Bompreço", and its struggles in that market:
...also, the former 50+-year Pathmark location right near me that closed back in 2015 will have a Crunch Fitness gym, ironically, joining the Shoprite liquor store that has been there since about a year or so after the old Pathmark location initially closed! (yes, I get that (A) that article is from September 2015, and (B) it's about supermarkets; I just wanted to find something with an image of said Pathmark location!)
Well, I was planning on heading out to Long Island to catch Colgate v. Quinnipiac at the Nassau Coliseum last weekend, but, as tends to happen more often this time of year than others, when the weather turns cold, I ended up getting "flu-like symptoms" a few days ago, so, in the interest of not getting anybody else sick, and, also, partly in the interest of catching Alabama/Oklahoma and Clemson/Notre Dame in their respective national semi-final games that weekend (Saturday), I stayed home; as such, you'll get another game recap down below here, followed by a recap of Michigan v. Penn State @ MSG the last Saturday of this month!
Anyway, as I'm sure you noticed within these past few days, Kmart/Sears faced a 4 P.M. deadline last Friday (12/28/18) for bids to get submitted essentially determining whether the chains' "fate(s)" end up being "liquidation"; in the end, Eddie Lampert, ex-CEO (as of late last year)/chairman of Sears Holdings beat out Hilco Global, a financial/private equity firm infamous for slapping those ugly liquidation banners/signs all over stores about to get shut down by their companies, or, occasionally, entire companies, such as Kmart/Sears; unfortunately, Lampert's bid winning this most recent "round" basically signals the same "slow death" as these past few years for Sears Holdings, as another 80 locations were announced to be closed just hours prior to the bid announcement...
(also, we did our annual "Christmas in Manhattan" evening a bit differently than pretty much every other year I remember, since, this time, even though we didn't check out the "corpse" of the Lord & Taylor location there, it also involved the Macy's Herald Square windows along with our usual stops during said trips, such as the two main "parks" in the (west) 40s, along with Saks 5th Avenue...)
(also, we did our annual "Christmas in Manhattan" evening a bit differently than pretty much every other year I remember, since, this time, even though we didn't check out the "corpse" of the Lord & Taylor location there, it also involved the Macy's Herald Square windows along with our usual stops during said trips, such as the two main "parks" in the (west) 40s, along with Saks 5th Avenue...)
Well, partly to start off the calendar year of 2019, and, also, partly, to make up for me missing Colgate v. Quinnipiac at the Nassau Coliseum out on Long Island last weekend due to some sort of "bug", I ended up catching Cornell @ Princeton once again, this time, thankfully, in much warmer weather than around the very beginning of last year, when I caught Army and Sacred Heart at the Coliseum in "sub-zero" temperatures last January; there was even a little bit of "déjà vu" from the previous Cornell @ Princeton game (11/4/17), as you'll soon find out once I recap this past Friday evening's game!
This time around, the game started with almost the entire first half of the opening period happening without any stoppages in play - specifically, the first 9:13 of the game, to be exact, after which the officials, I guess, just said "screw it" and called the first "media timeout" of the game to accommodate ESPN+, which took over the streaming rights to live online Ivy League telecasts this past summer, which is the off-season for college hockey, but, anyway, Cornell got off the majority of the shots the rest of the period, since that whole nine minute-plus uninterrupted stretch to start the game honestly seemed rather "uneventful" overall; that increase in pressure gave Cornell the early lead, first only about a minute after the first stoppag
The second period, though, was when Princeton slowly started clawing its way back into the game, as Cornell's shot advantage kept dwindling as the period progressed; unfortunately for Princeton, it took about three-quarters of the way through the frame to get on the scoreboard, as Princeton took the puck from the "near" corner (at least from where the cameras get placed inside its rink during games), then just past center ice, before keeping possession just long enough along the "far" side of the rink to draw just about everybody wearing red over there, leaving one of the forwards wide open for Princeton to cut the deficit in half, at 2-1; that was how the period would end, albeit much closer in terms of shots on goal!
The final 20 minutes saw Princeton initially tie the game a little more than halfway through, after Princeton had continued to just about match Cornell shots-wise; this time, however, it seemed like a shot that might very well have intentionally been put just wide of goal ended up leading to the tying marker, as the puck immediately bounced in front of the net again after deflecting off the end boards right behind what was once again, by then, the Cornell net, where somebody wearing white just so happened to be waiting, and, indeed, the puck ended up in the back of the net to tie the game for Princeton, just as it had done against it, by Cornell, back in early November 2017, when Cornell erased 2-0 and 4-2 Princeton leads to end up winning that game, 5-4; only about a minute later, however, a very controversial moment ended up becoming the "game-winner" for Cornell, as an initial shot led to a little "back pass" that, instead of immediately leading to another shot, instead ended up getting dragged right through the crease, just making contact with the Princeton goaltender, before getting put back between the two face-off circles for a shot that finally ended up getting put in the back of the net, only to initially get "waved off" due to what one of the officials claimed was
Amazingly, there were no penalties called in the game, leading to the first "penalty-free" game in college hockey since Bentley defeated AIC 1-0 back on 12/1/15; it was definitely weird, though, not seeing any times displayed at the bottom of the scoreboard, where the scoreboard inside Princeton's rink usually displays penalties, since there were none in this game...
...in other hockey news this weekend, the U.S.A. "under-20" team reached the final of the 2019 IIHF "World Juniors", as those games have come to be known, tournament, as Finland defeated Switzerland and the U.S. defeated Russia in Vancouver, B.C., before Finland unfortunately ended up winning the gold medal the following night; personally, I think the U.S. team had arguably one of the best chances it ever had at winning the gold medal in said tournament, as Canada/Russia/Sweden all seemed like rather large "favorites" in this year's tournament in particular, despite Finland and the U.S. usually "rounding out" the top five teams in international hockey historically, never mind recently... (also, if you watch the highlights, you'll most likely hear (one of) the rather weird quotes the Swiss team's head coach had for the assembled reporters after his team lost to Finland...)
...in retail news now, just a few short days ago, it was "the end of an era" along 5th Avenue in Manhattan, as the Lord & Taylor "flagship" that existed there for over a century shut down after holding liquidation sales these past few months; unfortunately, it seemed that not even an "intervention", of sorts, from the Canadian-based Hudson's Bay Company department store chain could save the "flagship", as increasing rent payments ended up "dooming" it...
...also, Blockbuster Video is now down to just a pair of locations worldwide: one in Bend, OR (the last one "stateside"); another in Morley, Western Australia, right near the state capital of Perth, Western Australia!
...in just plain bizarre news now, a man is suing Burger King over him getting locked in the men's bathroom of the Wood Village, OR location; he's specifically suing BK over what he claims to be the value of "one Whopper meal, per week, for life", which is claimed to be a little over $9,000, according to this Yahoo article (something similar to that guy's incident actually happened to me, personally, a few summers ago down in the Dominican Republic, when I ended up getting stuck in the stall of the Greek restaurant of the "all-inclusive" resort we stayed at for a week in Punta Cana, and, as it turned out, the stall door ended up staying shut when I attempted to leave after "relieving" myself - I ended up having to make almost like a "spy" and climb up and over the side of the stall; unfortunately, said "escapade" ended up resulting not only in a few cuts/scrapes on my arms and legs; it also led to the urinal in that little bathroom completely breaking, and, as a result, almost entirely flooding said bathroom...)
UPCOMING: Michigan v. Penn State @ MSG (1/26); something else during the month of February, (most likely ("insert team here") @ Yale, since that's another "classic" rink I've made it a point to get back to each of these past few seasons), followed by the 2019 Hockey East conference championship weekend in Boston (3/23), which I had always promised - a "self-promise", if you will - myself I would attend, but never quite ended up "pulling the trigger", so to speak, on doing that in any of these past few years, for whatever reason(s)...
...lastly today, not quite retail, but, nonetheless, the Meadowlands Arena in the "swamps" of northeastern N.J. is, apparently, still being used very slightly, and by selected groups:
https://www.nj.com/
Well, that's about all I've got for you this time around; at this point, I might very well just end up waiting until the last weekend of this month (Sat., 1/26) for Michigan v. Penn State @ MSG; in the meantime, though, this weekend, I'll have made sure to have caught the NFL playoffs (Sat./Sun.), and "part four" between Alabama and Clemson Monday night - three of the past four national championship games (Alabama over Clemson 2016, Clemson over Alabama '17, and now '19), and the 2018 "national semifinal" game in the new "playoff" system in college football have been between those programs; beyond this month, though, I'll definitely at least try to clear things out in order to be able to make it to Boston for the 2019 Hockey East conference championship game (Sat., 3/23; unfortunately for those of us who are into "holidays", that's the week after St. Patrick's Day now)!
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