Well, after booking the Courtyard by Marriott Boston Downtown hotel smack in the middle of Boston recently, only to then recognize that said hotel was surrounded by nightclubs, and basically freaking out the ent
After arriving in Boston Friday evening, we walked over to the Quincy Market building, had a bit of seafood somewhere inside said building, and then walked back pretty much the same way we had headed to the market; from there, after simply "unwinding" for a few minutes, we ate a little more of something from this Panera Bread location literally within walking distance of the hotel, which ended up being quite nice, considering the weather was quite windy practically all
The following morning, we headed about an hour north of the city to visit the relatives who I had previously mentioned had moved from Framingham to Georgetown, MA, from a bigger house with a few cats and dogs, to a smaller one with a chicken coop in the backyard; while there, we bought a few lottery tickets to get in on the huge Powerball jackpot that played that weekend; after spending some time in Newburyport, near Georgetown, and some more time in their house, it was suddenly perilously close to 7 P.M., and, with that, the start of the 2019 Hockey East conference championship game at the TD Garden along Boston's "North End", literally just inches away from the "foundation" of the original Boston Garden (which originally stood between 1928 and 1997 after closing in 1995)!
If I may comment on a few of my "impressions" of the TD Garden now, said "impressions" would include a mention of the building almost seeming "too quiet" sometimes, especially during intermissions, but even, sometimes, during the action, since most other venues tend to "pump up the volume" during games, and then lower it during breaks (especially the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, at least in my opinion); there also appear to be these little "partitions", for lack of a better term, between each of the 300-level sections, as I noticed sitting at the very top of section 316 (row 15), right next to one of said "partitions" ((possible) example image here), and almost all of the seats are either gray or yellow, in keeping with the Boston Bruins' colors; more importantly, that meant I didn't have anybody to my right, and, for that matter, only a couple of other people to my left - said physical separation made it almost feel like looking through one of those old "View-Master", or, I guess, nowadays, "virtual reality", headsets, in a sense, except doing so in-person, instead of merely through one of those things...
Said game, this year, featuring the Boston College Eagles (henceforth referred to simply as "BC"), who defeated UMass-Amherst, and Northeastern U. Huskies, who defeated Boston U., basically ended up being "a tale of three periods", if you'll allow me to "paraphrase" a famous novel title, as Northeastern scored twice in the first five-and-a-half minutes or so (after it appeared that BC would get on the scoreboard first, only for the officials to determine that the puck had been "hand passed" into the net), then added another goal a little more than halfway through the opening period, forcing BC to use its team timeout ridiculously early; once the period ended, mercifully, I'm sure, for BC, the score remained 3-0 in favor of Northeastern, but, alas, it was the "shots on goal" totals that I, personally, at least, ended up disagreeing with initially, as it seemed like BC barely got any pressure on the Northeastern defense, yet still ended up getting "credited" with a mere 11-8 deficit after the first 20 minutes!
Surely, though, the BC coaches must have reminded their players that a conference championship was at stake, as, suddenly, BC ended up "flipping the script" early in the second period, first taking advantage of a rather weak penalty call against one of Northeastern's skaters with just seconds remaining in the first period to cut the deficit to 3-1, then finding the back of the net again barely a couple of minutes or so after that, and, suddenly, what was a 3-0 Northeastern lead literally only 20 minutes or so worth of "real-time" earlier was, suddenly, merely a 3-2 Northeastern lead; also, whatever lack of "presence" and "pressure" BC exhibited near the start of the game also ended up getting erased, as BC had the "shots on goal" advantage after 40 minutes!
The last period started with an ugly head/neck injury to one of the BC skaters, and a timeout immediately after that basically ended up turning into another "intermission", of sorts, with how long that whole mess took to get sorted out, but, afterward, even though it seemed to take both teams yet another minute or so of "game time" to put the injury behind them, things played out fairly evenly the rest of the way, although still in favor of BC; in the end, BC couldn't quite find the extra-skater equalizer, though, leaving Northeastern champions of the Hockey East conference in 2018-19, and also giving Northeastern the conference's "automatic" place in the 2019 NCAA tournament national semifinals up in Buffalo, NY, early next month!
BC highlights/recap;
The Heights (BC blog/newspaper) recap;
Northeastern highlights/recap;
Hockey East conference highlights/recap)
Also, the 2019 FDNY-NYPD charity/exhibition hockey game was yesterday @ MSG, except it started even earlier this year (11:30 A.M.), compared to last year, when the teams and Garden at least waited until noon; as such, I didn't end up attending said game this year, after having done so in 2016/'18 (MSG), or '17 (Barclays Center, Brooklyn), nor was it broadcast locally, as was the case when WEPN-98.7 FM, the local ESPN Radio affiliate here, broadcast the game live, which, as you might recall now, I made sure to listen to after returning from MSG that afternoon, followed by Bridgeport, CT, where Notre Dame defeated Providence with a stunning last-minute goal to move on to last year's NCAA tournament championship weekend in Minnesota! Anyway, this year's FDNY-NYPD game actually ended in a 4-4 tie after a five-minute overtime period, which was due in large part to the Miami Heat @ New York Knicks basketball game set for last night, which basically mandated the FD and PD to wrap up their game by 2:30 or 3 P.M. yesterday afternoon, at the absolute latest; also, many people put the teams' Facebook pages "on blast" before/after the game, saying they want more "tailgating" in the future; personally, I'd rather they just head to the new (19K+ seats) Belmont Park arena post-2021!
In other news, I've visited the closest Carvel location to here many times over the years, occasionally as a little "post-pizza joint visit"-type deal, and, just recently, "corporate" there, now part of Atlanta-based Focus Brands, introduced "cold brew"-flavored cones/shakes/sundaes/etc., which I, personally, think belong(s) more at places like Dunkin'/Starbucks/etc.; what I had in mind, which I actually ended up telling both store #1389 (Clifton, N.J.) and "corporate" about (and, in the end, only ended up hearing about from the location just last night, taking advantage of the 70-degree weather locally; thankfully, the staff there gladly obliged my little "secret" order request), was:
