Game #5 Islanders W3-2

YES FINALLY A WIN!!!

Mr Isaac Michael accompanied me to the game this evening. This was part of his birthday present I guess you could say. He must be good luck because we finally got victory #1 in the new arena. That makes me feel good because now not only can he say for the rest of his life that he did attend a game in the old Civic Arena (which he says he sort of remembers) but he also attended the very first victory ever at the new arena! No one can take that away from him.

NHL.com recap

• Eric Goddard has a good fight with Trevor Gillies early on. He was dominating at first but didn't win the 2nd half of the fight I'd say.
• We sucked big on the power play 0-7 until the PPG in OT, they did start listening to our cries of 'SHOOT THE PUCK' about after 4-5 power plays.
  
• People were booing the Pens. Those people should not be allowed to go to any more games.
  
• Kris Letang got kicked out of the game when he leveled Blake Comeau. The refs thought it was a hit to the head which it clearly wasn't when you saw the replay.
  
• The refs were absolutely horrible all game.
• I discovered that the prize blimp never goes an where near the upper bowl.
• Apparently neither do the cameraman. Isaac was dancing like a nut all game to get on the screen and was not rewarded for his efforts.
  
• He did do fantastic cheering and screaming throughout the game. All the people sitting around him thought he was funny the stuff he was yelling.
• He did get delirious towards the end of the game though. He was up way past his bedtime.
• The girl sitting in front of us totally biffed it when she was walking back to her seat at one point. I don't know if she was drunk or what but she almost had a bad, bad fall. Luckily the dude in the next row caught her on his lap but he was not happy she spilled his $8 beer.
  
• The old people next to us left with the game tied and over 10 min to go. WTF?! They shouldn't be allowed back either.
• I finally caught wind of the Cotton Candy Guy. I had not seen hide nor hair of him the 1st few games.
• Eric Tangradi got his first ever NHL goal.
• The 1st two goals scored by the Pens were by the two Penguins who have Twitter, Rupp and Tangradi.
• Goligoski scored his first ever game winning OT goal.
• I'm 9-0 when I go see us play the Islanders
• I'm 2-0 when Isaac is with me

I found that the parking lot (LC Parking I think it's called) over by Mercy hospital is big and usually half empty and although it's a few more blocks away thatn I'm used to walking - it's only $5. I think I might park here all the time then. Isaac and I parked here and ate our Sheetz dinner then walked over a bit early so he could look around in the stores at the Pens gear. We had to take this photo twice since he wasn't looking in the direction the first time around.

uwvark27's 2010-11 record: 1-2

Game #4 Leafs L3-4

I called my buddy David Gall to come with me to this game because I know he's a huge Pens fan as I am so I knew he'd be pumped. He brought a lot of good energy with him but unfortunately it was not enough and we dropped our 3rd straight at the new arena.

NHL.com recap

• Deryk Engelland had an intense fight with NHL tough guy Colton Orr and ended up taking him down hard. It was a really good energizing scrap.
• Crosby got his first goal in the new arena
  
• So did Talbot and Kunitz
• Toronto had 14 shots
• Fluery just isn't looking good like he was in the preseason. If he doesn't step it up soon the fickle Pittsburgh fans are going to turn on him
• This loss drops me to 0-4 when I go to a Leafs game
• The Dr Billy G was in Mario's box with him and got a standing O when they showed a video tribute to his time in da Burgh
  

We walked in down at the American Eagle gate which is one place I had yet to walk thru yet so that was cool. Since we were down low we got to use the kiosk before the game. This is probably the best picture so far. :D

uwvark27's 2010-11 record: 0-2

Game #1 Flyers L2-3

We lost the first game ever at the new arena. Can I say I still had a good time even though we lost this momentous game?

Instead of leaving work and trying to make it to the red carpet I had to go back to Monroeville to sit and wait for Matt to get there. At least I got to eat and follow some tweets about it as I started boozing for pregame. Lisa wanted Isaac to skip karate so she could watch the Pens game but I told her no. You can never tell what that woman has got going on in her mind.

Once Matt got there we took off and paid for our spot at the Crawford lot. It was packed. Matt spilled his drink like he does every time. Once we were in proper game form we headed down.

NHL.com recap

Here are some of the highlights:

• Danny Briere got the first goal ever in the new arena
  
• Tyler Kennedy got the first Pens goal ever in the new arena
• We lost the first game ever at the Civic Arena too back in the day
  
• Letang made a bonehead bad move resulting in a turnover that the Flyers got a shortie on to pretty much put it away.
• We did score like 20 secs later on the pp to bring it to within 3-2 but that wouldn't be enough
• Crosby and Malkin were scoreless
• This was not a typical Pens/Flyers game. There was almost no scrappiness or fights or anything. The Flyers just played hockey?!!? *SHOCK
  

I couldn't get my picture before the game started. We went in the Verizon gate and for some reason they wouldn't let us go down the stairs to the kiosk thing even though no one was using it. We ended up going out this way so this pic was after the game as you may be able to tell from my sourpuss.

uwvark27's 2010-11 record: 0-1

MARIO MOSAIC

Well the Mario Mosaic has been posted online as well as hung in the new arena (which I will see live tomorrow for the first regular season game ever!!)

It was up yesterday but I guess so many people were trying to see it the website was not working properly and then they just took it down and replaced it with a jpeg for a few hours. It is up now though and working fine. I found my pic too!! CHECK IT OUT!!

Pretty exciting eh!

The Time Is Nearly Upon Us

I stayed home on doctor's orders today. I am supposed to relax and let this medicine kick in so my lungs will get better. I actually did sleep okay until around 11am when I got up. I've been coughing since then.

But my brain was not so out of it that I didn't subconsciously hear the UPS man go down the street and suddenly stop. I didn't think anything of it for a few minutes until I heard the truck start back up again and continue on its way.

MY TICKETS ARE HERE!!!

Sure enough there was a little white envelope on my porch contains 9 months of joyous hockey pleasure in a brand new arena (in which they totally screwed us on our seats).

Buh-Bye Civic Arena

I'm not sure what these people are talking about when they say we need to save and reuse the old Civic Arena. We have a brand new arena now and anything that you might use the old one for can now be moved over. The fact is there will be a lot of new things coming now that we wouldn't have seen before because the crappiness of the Civic Arena was keeping them away. Don't these people realize that to keep the old arena you will need to pay to maintain it? I've been there and I see how badly that place is falling apart.

I know we all have memories there, etc but the time has come to move on. I've heard someone say previously 'If they demolished Yankee Stadium then they can demolish the Civic Arena' and I find that to be true. All these other cities aren't keeping their old arenas around when the new ones get built. Not even ones with as much history as Yankee Stadium (FYI, I am not a Yankee fan) It just doesn't seem like a viable option. Just because it COULD be used for such and such a purpose doesn't mean that it SHOULD. Just because it might be a cool idea to do this and that and the other thing to it to make it useful doesn't mean that someone is going to pony up the money to make that happen, especially when there is going to be very little return from it.

When grandma dies we don't prop her up in the corner and use her for other purposes. We look at our old photos, remember the good times and move on. That is what we need to do here. Sure it'll be hard to see it go but something new and cool will go in its place and we'll all grow to love that just as much and maybe even more.

Consol Energy Center First Look

Today I got to see the arena for the first time. It's definitely new and nice. I don't know how happy we are with our seats. I understand the upper bowl is UP more rather than BACK the way the old arena was but it seems like we are slightly more right than we were before too and that ain't cool. Plus we're 4 rows from the very back? Where the heck did all the section E & F people go? They stuffed them all behind us? I don't think so.

Since is was a free tour everything was open to us. We got to walk around in all the clubs and stuff that we will probably never have access to during a regular event so that was neat to see that.

They also have these screens at the entrance that they call the 'Interactive Hall Of Fame'. You can pick a player and touch the screen and see all their stats and videos of their greatest plays, etc. It's all pretty neat stuff.

There is also this one machine at the end with a circle on the ground that once you touch the screen it displays a countdown. You stand in the circle and pose and it will take your picture when it hits 0. You can then type in your email and it will send it to you. That is cool. I think I am going to try and do that for every game and make a collection. Here is the pic from the tour.


All in all I was very impressed. Definitely better than the poor old, falling apart Civic Arena. I can't wait to see some games here!! :D