Game#26B-Carolina Hurricanes

I know, I know...I went to a Carolina Hurricanes game already but that hardly counted. When you only see the final few rounds of a OT shootout it shouldn't go toward my goal, but I was not sure if I was going to get back to Raleigh. Well I had my opportunity to make up for the "non-game" by hitting up a Canes vs. Detroit Redwings game. I usually don't have a lot at stake as a Kings fan when I see these games but I hate the Wings. There is nothing better than seeing them lose, well except when the Ducks drop one. Now to the game. First off, I had no clue there are that many Detroit fans in NC. I would say it was about 70% for the away team, but because everyone was wearing red it was hard to tell who was chearing for who until the "Let's go Wings!" chant started. But the Canes had there revenge, Cam Ward was a wall, Jeff Skinner and Derek Joslin scored in the second period and Erik Cole added a goal in the third for the Hurricanes, who beat the Red Wings for the first time since 2006. It felt good to actually cheer on the home team as they took home a 3-0 W. Nothing really exciting tonight, I guess I was a bit annoyed by the people I met at the game. There were about 10 Duke lab rats around me that were not paying attention at all to what was happening on the ice. How to people spend that much money to just talk about work???

Game #40-Charlotte Bobcats

Charlotte Bobcats vs Atlanta Hawks
April 3, 2011
Time Warner Cable Arena

I had to head out to Durham NC for a work trip, so no better way to start the week then with a trip to Charlotte for a basketball game. The city of Charlotte was not too exciting, but I have a feeling it was because I am in the Bible belt and I was going to a Sunday game. Prior to hitting up the arena I did a bit of site seeing checking out the huge plantation houses in the surrounding neighborhoods, and I even ventured to the NASCAR hall of fame for a couple of hours. While there I even bought a fan appreciation brick which states "My NASCAR is a Cervelo P3, Chris Costales". Most people won't get that inside joke but my triathlon bike is a Cervelo P3. This is now my 4th brick which includes Petco Park in San Diego, Staples Center in LA, and the University of MN arberitum. Now unto the game. The Bobcats are fighting for a final spot in the playoffs and were playing the Washington Wizards. This should be an evenly matched game by two struggling teams, but that was hardly the case. Andray Blatche had 25 points and 17 rebounds, Jordan Crawford added 23 points, and rookie John Wall had 18 points to run over the Cats in a lopsided 97-91 defeat of the home team. The Cats were without leading scorer Stephen Jackson and therefore tried to rely on crappy center Kwame Brown and overrated Boris Diaw, which blew up in there face. Unfortunately there are no funny stories at this game, in fact even though both teams nearly hit 100 points it was one of the most boring games I have been to. The fans were barely present, cheerleaders were un-inspirational, and again the players just didn't seem to have any heart. Maybe people were gearing up for a case of the Mondays. The one good thing is that the Time Warner Cable Arena is beautiful. Not a bad seat in the house and is extremely clean. I bet this place was rocking for the NCAA March Madness sweet sixteen games.

Game #39-New York Islanders

New York Islanders vs. Los Angeles Kings
Nassau Coliseum
February 19, 2011

What the hell happened over the past 24 hours? Yesterday it was 65 degrees and I was rolling around in shorts, today it is 25 degrees and I can’t seem to wear enough clothes to keep me from shivering. What can I do to cure this, well go see the LA Kings of course! Unlike Madison Square Garden, the trek to Nassau Coliseum is a bit more difficult since it is all the way out in Uniondale, about 25 miles from Manhattan. Luckily Keli came in town and I have a partner in crime. After a crazy night just getting to the game, we got out of the “cab” (I will explain later) and had to run about a half mile in the freezing temps just to get into the arena. I got fantastic seats at the game, 2 rows behind the penalty box, but already freezing and then being right on the ice it made for a miserable time. The game, as a Kings fan, didn’t make things any better. The Islanders are one of the worst teams in the league this year but this night they were dominant. With three goals from Frans Nielsen (1) and Matt Moulson (2) the Islanders made the Kings their bitches and took home the win 3-0. What made the game even worse were the fans, they are obnoxious. With extremely heavy New York accents, I just heard jabbering behind us the entire game about how much the Kings suck. One idiot behind me kept screaming at Alexi Ponikarovsky “Hey number 27, your name doesn’t even fit on the back of yo joisy!!!”. Really??? That’s your taunting??? The only positive from the game was the seats. I have never sat so close to the players before and you could hear them jawing at each other when they were in the penalty box. It was also pretty cool to be behind the head refs, I got a great picture of the commercial log which I have never seen before.

Crazy fact from this game. Keli and I had to take a train to the game with a connection in Jamaica, Queens. The train leaving Penn station was set for 5:40, but we were running a bit late so when we got to the tracks we just jumped on the train going to Jamaica not realizing there were two (one at 5:40 and one at 5:45) Unfortunately we took the 5:45 which made us 2 minutes late for the connection train. So now we are stuck in the ghetto (Keli informed me that Jamiaca is where 50 Cent got shot 9 times…). Our only option was to get a cab or be an hour late. A couple of sketchy dudes outside of the station asked if we needed a cab, and at this point we had no choice. The “cabbie” said my car is just down the street which was already odd, but when we were three blocks away following a random dude in the middle of the slums we thought for sure we made a huge mistake. Then we got to his “cab”, a regular dark blue Toyota Carolla. “What are we getting into” was all I was thinking. The entire time I had a map pulled up on my phone to make sure we were going in the right direction as well as 911 ready to be called. Keli kept looking at me like “we better not be killed tonight…”. Anyway, the trip was fine and we got the game on time, but I will NEVER put us in that situation again!!!

Game #38-New York Rangers

New York Rangers vs. Los Angeles Kings
Madison Square Garden
February 17, 2011

How much fun can you have on a trip to New York? Over the past three days I have been to Central Park, Times Square, the Empire State Building, saw the Adams Family on Broadway, went to the Knicks game last night, and now get to see my LA Kings in Madison Square Garden playing against one of the original 6 New York Rangers. I got there nice and early brandishing my 1970’s gold Kings sweater to make sure everyone knew who I was rooting for and got some fantastic pics with the SLR camera at the pregame warm-ups. I decided to get a good seat because the Knicks ticket was way up in the nose bleeds, and I was pleasantly surprised to be surrounded by LA fans. As for the game it was a fantastic match-up. The first period started with a great power play goal from captain Dustin Brown for the Kings and they held the lead into the second when Ryan Callahan put the puck in the net to tie it up. The third period got real exciting with a total of four goals which culminated with a late second goal by Dustin Brown to tie the game with two and a half minutes left and pushed the play into overtime. After 5 minutes of crazy back and forth play the game was still not decided and went into shootouts where the Rangers won off the stick of Mats Zuccarello 4-3. I hate to see the Kings lose but this was their 9th out of 10 straight road games and they got points in all of them so far which pushed them back into the playoff hunt.

Something funny from the game. Since I had my good camera and I was making a lot of friends around me (even the girls behind me cheering for the Rangers were cool), I think it was pissing off some of the other Ranger fans so when Artem Anisimov scored with three minutes left in the game some douche bag ran up behind me and yelled “Why don’t you take a picture of that!”. I turned around and the dude flicked me off. Good times, my team is losing and I have an idiot yelling at me. Well when Brown scored 47 seconds later I turned around and said “I guess I will take that picture tough guy!”.

Game #37-New York Knicks

New York Knicks vs. Atlanta Hawks
Madison Square Garden
February 16, 2011

My first time at the world famous Madison Square Garden! Funny thing, I guess I was expecting a little more magic and mystic about this place. Don’t get me wrong, I know there have been so many amazing teams, great concerts, and other famous events but in reality MSG reminded my of the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles…old. Unlike all the new arenas, the Garden pushes fans farther and farther away from the action as you go up the stairs. For this game, I couldn’t really get much farther away as I bought some really cheap seats. But I digress, let’s get to the game.

The Knicks pretty much dominated tonight. Amare Stoudimire put in 23, Wilson Chandler 20, and the Italian Stallion Danilo Gallinari had 17 as the Knickerbockers put away the Hawks 102-90. I was expecting a bit more from some of Hotlanta’s players, they are having a pretty good year and I thought it might be a closer game. But Mike Bibby (will always hate this guy from his time on the Sacramento Kings when they were actually good for a couple of years…it’s the Lakers fan in me) had a poor game only putting in 15 with 2 assists and Al Horford shot 50% while getting 12 points. The only highlight of the game was an ally oop pass to Chandler for a reverse dunk, too bad I was in line for a beer and only saw it on the TV monitor.

I tried to make the best of the game by seat hopping eventually making it to the lower bowl, dead center. I guess if I had this seat the whole time the game would have been a bit more exciting because I was sitting by a bunch of douche bags.

I was trying to think of something funny or interesting about the night but it was pretty uneventful. I guess the best part was when the fans starting chanting, “We want Melo! We want Melo!”, the reason being…he joined the Knicks only one week later. Good for the Knicks, bad timing for me.