Well, after an equal parts boring/relaxing Thanksgiving Day/Black Friday (more on that later), it was back to MSG for me this weekend, this time for (#19) Boston University (hereafter referred to simply as "BU") against the unofficial "home" team in Thanksgiving weekend games @ MSG within these past few years, (#7) Cornell, and, for the most part, things were much the same as back then, with the ride over via NJT being relatively smooth, given the agency's "dire straits" right now, allowing me to spend a few minutes just "people watching" inside Penn Station, mostly to see (A) how many (other) fans were walking through there, and (B) which fans - for the most part, it looked like there were more Cornell fans, although, after seeing more BC fans there last December, only to enter the Garden and find it full of "North Dakota green", I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to have ended up in the midst of a bunch of Bostonians this time around!
The game itself started off as usual, with highlights of some of the past BU-Cornell matchups, along with highlights from some of Cornell's other (non-BU) past MSG games, but once the puck dropped to start the game, though, Cornell took complete control, keeping the majority of both the shots and time of possession, although quite a few of the shots missed the net entirely, yet BU seemed to have all the trouble in the world with trying to clear its zone, giving Cornell even more opportunities for shots on net, which, despite not converting on a mid-first period power play, Cornell would indeed convert soon enough, scoring with about five minutes remaining in the opening period, although BU put forth somewhat of a response to end the period, which, unfortunately for them, still ended with just the lone Cornell goal...
Once the second period started, though, any and all momentum that BU had at the end of the first period seemed to just disappear, as Cornell suddenly unloaded on BU early on, adding another goal about seven minutes into the period, then only needing about another two minutes after that goal to stretch the lead to 3-0, taking advantage of another BU penalty, so, by then, I'm sure anybody would assume that Cornell was on its way to just routing BU, but, suddenly, BU started "pouring it on" in the shots column, recognizing that it was suddenly down big, drawing a few more Cornell penalties along the way, and leading to a bit of a "skirmish" with only about a minute left, leaving BU much better positioned for what would end up becoming quite the third period after that!
The last period started with "more of the same" from the last half of the second for BU, including a power-play goal, but Cornell suddenly re-took the momentum, appearing to "seal the deal" with a little over nine minutes left in the game, only to see BU score twice about a minute apart to cut Cornell's lead from 4-1 to 4-3, although BU couldn't get the game-tying goal at all in the end, despite spending the last two minutes with the "extra attacker", allowing Cornell to hang on and win by the same 4-3 scoreline that had once been 4-1!
Cornell box score/highlights/recap
This time, in contrast to some other past games, both teams' bands made the trip, with both the BU and Cornell bands being placed more or less on the same "side" of the suite level, yet being placed on opposite "ends" of the rink, perhaps to prevent any trouble between those groups, and, obviously, along with whichever of the respective school's fans in the building, they both provided the only sounds after goals, since the actual "goal horn" itself never sounded, which, in a sense, provided a bit of a "throwback" feel on that front, since there were decades in the past, before (allegedly) the Chicago Blackhawks first installed an old yacht "foghorn" in the ancient Chicago (Indoor) Stadium way back when, when it was just the fans, or, in the case of college hockey (or college sports generally), the bands, also, when present; they also allowed a "fair share" of "pre-recorded" music throughout the game, which, weirdly enough, also featured NHL "timing" rules - under 14, 10, and 6 minute-media timeouts...
...there was also a bit of a weird moment between the PA announcer and Cornell fans after the 2-0 goal - if you've ever seen anything from over in Europe (mostly the Bundesliga in Germany, or Serie A in Italy), you've probably heard the "call-and-response" between the announcers and fans in those arenas/stadiums over there; well, the MSG PA announcer tried that then, and it seemed as if he threw off their usual "timing", since none of the Cornell fans provided the "response" to his "call" during the announcement after that goal, so he went back to the full names of the next "point-getters" on the third (3-0) and fourth (4-1) Cornell goals, to which the Cornell fans called out the last names of each of the trios of players involved in those goals!
To the "gridiron" now, this weekend was just plain crazy, with Alabama losing @ Auburn, and Miami getting upset @ Pittsburgh, along with Ohio State letting Michigan hang around early on, and Wisconsin completing an undefeated regular season, only needing the B1G championship game v. Ohio State next weekend to effectively reach the College Football Playoff, with at least ten teams all fighting to reach the "final four" of college football!
The NCAA usually takes a break for most of December, in deference to the end of the academic semester every fall, and returns in late December/early January; that being said, Army and Sacred Heart will be at the "new" Nassau Coliseum the first Saturday of January (1/6, 7 P.M.), so, barring anything these next two upcoming weekends (12/1-2, when Army will be hosting (18) Colgate, and Princeton will be hosting both Dartmouth (F) and Harvard (Sa), or 8-9), that will most likely be the next game I end up attending!
You could make the claim, at this point in time, that the Kmart/Sears company has become my favorite "target" (pun totally intended) in retail, but, honestly, I'm not nearly the only person on this planet who's read a bunch of articles on how those chains have singlehandedly shuttered
The N.Y. Times recently spent its "Black Friday" at a pair of Sears locations within this state (Phillipsburg, N.J., right across the state line from Easton, PA), and formed drastically different conclusions about each individual location, yet similar thoughts about the company in general - the Phillipsburg location is actually "winding down" right now, in order to be completely cleared out and closed entirely by January, being located in a mall with tons of vacancies right now (the article specifically mentions Payless Shoes and Radio Shack), and, in an even more baffling moment for the rapidly dying company, a Sears spokesman is quoted in the NYT article as claiming that stores like the one over in Phillipsburg, along with the rest that are currently being closed, don't provide a "fair representation of a current Sears shopping experience" - excuse me, "Mr. Spokesman"? I'm sure Sears hasn't had anything even close to a "current shopping experience" since Kmart bought Sears and consolidated as part of "Sears Holdings, Inc." back in 2005 - in fact, before taking over as CEO of Kmart and merging it with Sears, Eddie Lampert, that rat bastard himself, worked at Goldman Sachs before founding his own (mostly) "risk investment" financial firm, so that appears to be where he basically learned to "pit person against person", in the name of "competition"!
Also, at the beginning of this year, Sears sold its famous Craftsman line of tools to Stanley/Black & Decker, which immediately decided to take the "exclusive" label that Craftsman tools had long enjoyed within Sears, and later Kmart, locations, and "branch out" from there to places like Home Depot and Lowe's, along with other "specialty" chains like Ace Hardware, Orchard Supply Hardware, and the True Value Company, among other places!
Back here in Jersey, the Phillipsburg Mall location was empty this past Friday morning, only picking up once a few shoppers showed up shortly after 7 A.M., by which point in time I'm certain most other malls/shopping centers had already gotten jammed full of people, while the location connected to the Willowbrook Mall, somewhat closer to this area, in Wayne, took advantage of the mall itself being packed even before dawn, and the fact that the location itself has not (yet) been considered for closure, along with the ongoing downsizing/renovations to (eventually) bring in a Dave & Buster's entertainment center, not to mention the mall itself consistently outperforming most other malls everywhere, both historically and recently
(also, some advice for retail in general to heed, also courtesy of the N.Y. Times, keeping in mind the total contrasts between Kmart/Sears and the rest of the economy/stock markets)
(P.S.: see below for an actual magazine cover from back in 2004)
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