Since 1980 when the US defeated the Soviets in Olympic Ice Hockey, anytime you have a major upset someone will shout out “DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES!” Friday night I was that guy on Press Row at the 2010 Pittsburgh College Hockey Showcase at Mellon Arena. The Robert Morris Colonials Men’s team(4-12-3) defeated Miami (13-2-5) who is currently the number one team in the nation, 3-1 in front of the brave 3654 who fought the snowstorm slamming Pittsburgh. In other words, this “wasn’t supposed to happen”… but it did and I had prime sets at center ice to witness it all.
Miami proved at the first drop of the puck that they are a well oiled machine and an obvious favorite to go to the Frozen Four. This night, however, their only goal would come from a 5-3 power play. RMU played tough, capitalized on mistakes Miami made and after giving up an early 1-o lead came back strong in the 3rd for 2 goals.
As the clock ran down the RMU faithful were drowning out the large contingency of Miami fans who made the trip and as the clock hit zero you would think the Pens won the Stanley cup… again. Christ I’m getting chills typing this. It was an amazing night for college hockey and I think that the University did a fantastic job marketing the great product they have in Division 1 hockey. I have my own personal rule to not talk about my employment on this blog so I need to find a craft way to talk about the behind the scenes of the Showcase.
Only issue from the night came from the disgustingly drunk Miami fans who don’t take kindly to losing. It was to the point that I thought fights were going to break out from the grief they gave RMU fans. Ironic coming from the losing team eh? I admit, those of us not from Miami on press row jumped up and celebrated when RMU won, but one guy was louder than the rest. He shouted in a drunken slur to myself and a few others “This was your big win of the year! Ours will be the Frozen Four!” I said “Not if your number 1 team in the nation can’t beat a 4-12 team.” He said a few more things so I pointed to the scoreboard. He gave me the finger and was dragged out by his embarrassed wife.
July
Began the month with recording at the BeerDependence Day celebration at Bocktown. Attended the Penguins Stanley Cup DVD Release Party. Started a contracting job at EDMC that would become the longest month of my life and that’s all I’m going to say. Enjoyed my first ever bowl of Pho. Rocked the Beer on the Bay festival in Erie which the videos are epic and may never be released. End the month being interviewed by KDKA for the Craft Beer Summit.
August
Won a 2009 Mustang! Bees invade our bathroom (landlord still has yet to remove the dead bodies). I got a full-time job in social media/web dev that has turned out to be freaking cool plus I’m on a rockstar team. Threatened Lushie with divorce after she gets rid of the Back to the Future marathon channels.
September
Attended “Best of the Burgh” at the Warhol with sickpuppy, PittGirl, Woy and Rachel. Go big time and hosted Beer School at the Cabaret downtown to a sold out crowd. Teaspoon hits 17lbs.
October
Hosted 2 sessions at Podcamp Pittsburgh 4. Should I Drink That passed 500,000 download mark. Pens start defending the Stanley Cup. Revised Google Maps errors. Celebrate 4 years of marriage with Lushie. Lay the smackdown on poor fact checking by the Post gazette about Erie. Teaspoon goes pumpkin farming.
November
I blogged the whole month. Seriously. Bought a X-box. Teaspoon’s first Thanksgiving. Wonders of fatherhood and a kid who grows like a weed. Craft Beer Dinner with Lew Bryson, Education on the Pittsburgh Potty. Making your own Bacon. BEER AT GIANT EAGLE! Yinz Bowl 2.o
December
Still living it for 5 more hours. Remembering dad on his anniversary. Hosted a Christmas beer sampling at Bocktown. Saw KISS in concert. Teaspoon’s first Christmas. Finished the school year with a 3.65GPA. SNOW!
So what do I have to look forward to in 2010? Come back tomorrow and find out!
Categories: Craft Beer, Drink, Erie, Family, Fatherhood, Food, Friends, Misc., Music, Penguins, Pirates, Pittsburgh, gaming, hockey, idiots, pcpgh4, podcasting, roadtrip, weather, xbox360
I have to admit that this has been the most life changing year of my life. Some good, some bad and some mind blowing kickass. Here’s a quick recap as I reflect before tonight’s festivities start. I’m splitting this up into 2 sections because lets be honest, no one will scroll through 12 months.
January
Reflected on the first beer I EVER drank and yes, I kept the bottle. Prepare for the end of my 10+ year employment at ForeSystems/Marconi/Ericsson. Bitched about the weather and yinzers inability to drive in snow plus dumb ass snow removal by my neighbors. Both of those still hold true today. Got ready for an unbelievable run to the Super Bowl
February
Steelers won the Super Bowl and became the first ever 6 time champ thus giving every knock off t-shirt maker starry eyes at the potential of “6 pack” shirts. Punxy Phil said 6 more weeks of winter. I was officially laid off, was interviewed for a Post Gazette story on unemployment moments after i was laid off (that never was published), Pens started to turn it around and the biggest shock of them all… Teaspoon arrived 2 months early making me the happiest and most terrified dad. Came in at 4.1lb, dropped to 3.2lb and would leave at 5 in March.
March
It was the month of Teaspoon. Lushie and I spent every minute we could at the Mercy NICU while he got healthy in an incubator. 28 days later he came home. Also witnessed the stupidity of some Hill District parents who think its a hotel in there and the joke that is unemployment system in PA.
April
Went to my first ever Rugby match and got addicted to watching Claire and the girls kick ass. Missed my first opening day of Pirates baseball since 1984 (watched it on TV with Teaspoon and started a new tradition with my boy). Bought a Wii. Enjoyed the greatest comeback in Pens Playoff hockey that I have witnessed as the Pens turned the series around with 1 fight and the Max Talbot shhhhhhh! Saw Beer Wars the Movie with hundreds of other craft beer fans around the world and baked an incredible beer ham for Easter.
May
Should I Drink That turned 3. Pens defeated Washington and Carolina to earn a second trip to the Stanley Cup Finals for a 2nd year. Bought a Blackberry. Joined Sadie’s Soldiers and took some Great Strides. KDKA reads my “tweet of the day” which I WISH they would bring back. The great personalized jersey debate. Meatshield welcomed his first child (i swear it was the year for kids to be born) and we had a cookout with some family. Bowling league ended and we were the undisputed champs.
June
Teaspoon’s first trip to the ER. Coming out of golf retirement after 3.5 year for a day with Yinz Teamer’s Woy, Lokay and Shireman at Cranberry Highlands. The Clarks release Restless Days after 5 years. Pens win the Stanley Cup in 7 games vs Detroit. Pittsburgh floods… again. Unemployed Utensil makes his first appearance as a way to help me get through not working. My first Father’s day and Pirates waste of talent Ian Snell cant take negative people.
up next… July through December.
Categories: Bowling, Craft Beer, Drink, Erie, Family, Fatherhood, Food, Friends, Misc., Music, Penguins, Pirates, Pittsburgh, Steelers, Wii, Yinzer Nation, hockey, idiots, podcasting, weather
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Unfortunately Teaspoon will never see a Pens game at the Mellon Arena, since this the last season before moving to the Consol Energy Arena across the street, so I was psyched to get him down there for season ticket holder family picture night.
Teaspoon was in awe. First it was the lights and banners, then it was the ice when I gave him his first skate and finally going in between the pipes like daddy used to. The real test came when he sat down for a chat with Iceburgh. In his mind he was probably thinking “whoa a big toy”!
The night was incredible and some of these pictures will be used for our first family Christmas card. I’m glad that the Pens have given us this chance to hang out at the arena on a non-game day. I know he won’t remember any of this and someday when he’s looking back in the archives of this site he can see the proof that he was there.
I’m looking forward to the day when I can share more hockey with my boy.
I love playing hockey video games and for the longest time they were the same game with different players so I grew bored and my PS2 collected dust. From the conversations on Twitter I read stories of how NHL 10 revolutionized the experience and I gave in. In fact THE reason why (amongst others but this was #1) I got the Xbox360 was for this game. I knew I was taking a risk buying a gaming system for the purpose of one game but believe me when I say that this game is crack… mind crack.
Be A Pro
This part of the game is what has sucked me in 100%. Not the sleek game play overall or the quest for the cup but the fact that I get to create myself as an early draft pick with the Penguins and work on my career. the game does a great job of making it feel like its really you in the game from the warm up and entering the ice to focusing on your player throughout.
Number 10? No idea. I need to change that to 22. Right now it’s my tribute to Gary Roberts and Pierre Larouche. When you create your player you can customize the heck out of yourself. Hair, eyes, nose, facial features, build and as you can see I have some work to do on myself. As you gain more experience and reach new levels of skills you can upgrade your equipment and also increase your personal performance.
You can either get drafted or assign yourself. I opted for the Pens since I can’t live with myself if the Flyers drafted me. Starting the season in WBS has been cool so far and updated rosters has helped me learn some of the young guys who may make an appearance some day. Being a former goalie, I really have no idea how to be a forward, so I made myself a power LW. The HUGE plus to doing this is that when you’re playing there are blue arrows showing you where to be on the ice and what angle you should approach the blue line so you’re not offsides. My first game I was skating around lost but did manage to get a point of an obscene 25 shots. Games 2 and 3 I was a huge ball of suck.
Game 4 the unthinkable happened…
Someone got their groove back
As luck would have it the clock hit midnight and I had be up in 5 hours so all of the magic was going to sleep.
It’s going to take me awhile to get use to this Xbox controller but for the most part I have it configured the way I can remember.
I’m absolutely hooked and plan on playing out the season in full for the first time since NHL 06. I’ve talked to a few friends about joining a pickup league so I only have a few more weeks before I get my ass handed to me on a regular basis.
On June 30th of last year I was having a real dilemma. Do I get an Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii? As you recall shortly after Teaspoon was born I picked up a Wii and loved it, still do actually, but now I upgraded again and bought a Xbox 360 Elite Saturday night.
Lushie basically got tired of me bellyaching about it and a package deal at Best Buy made it too good to resist (for an additional $50 I got another controller, rechargeable pack, HDMI cable and some other jazz). I was sitting there yesterday being even more unproductive this weekend as I tried to get use to this funky controller (I’ve only played Playstation and wii. Serious. I only played an Xbox once in my life) and familiarize myself with the whole gaming unit.
Games
I’ve always been a sports game kinda guy. I did own Devil May Cry and some other shooter games for the PS2 but couldn’t really get into much more because not having online play capabilities made those games boring for me. I bought NHL 10 since that is an absolute must in this hockey house and the system came with Lego BatMan and Pure. There is also a deal with buy 2 games and get a 3rd for free ($30 or less value). I already dumped enough cash so I resisted another $59.99 title. That was the biggest punch to the gut for me was the price of games. The average price for games I want to play are $59.99 and after playing hockey for 10 minutes this was no longer an issue. the quality of play, overall entertainment and appreciation for the programming that went into making these games was justified.
- NHL 10
Oh my be-freaking lord this is the greatest sports game I have ever played. I wont talk about the controls because I am still a huge ball of suck with all of the options but a HUGE plus is old school NHL 94 controls. Pass, shoot and hit. What more do you really need. The graphics are tight, the fighting I thought was decent but overall enjoyment is high. I played a few practice games to get a feel for it and love that I can have a practice to work on plays and strategy. I haven’t played online yet but there are a few yinzer anxious to take me into the boards.
- PURE
I’m not into racing outside Mario Kart because I can cause mass destruction so when I saw there was an ATV racing game I figured wtf, why not. Big thumbs up for including this! It’s a great game for learning the controller and also how intense graphics can get for the 1st timer. I thought the customizing your ride went into too much detail for someone not familiar with racing ATV’s but was appreciated. the tricks I’ve been able to do are impressive and I like that I can get a turbo boost to fire off jumps. The tutorial you get to start with is a huge help and that made slipping into this game much more comfy.
My brother’s kids are also on Xbox Live so I’m looking forward to shredding them all during online play. I was told by many on Facebook and Twitter that the new “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” could very well be the “end all-be all” of first person shooting when it hits shelves next week. Put that on the list.
Other Features
This is replacing the PS2 so the DVD player is a bonus. A pleasant surprise was watching my laptop sync with the Xbox. I wasn’t even aware that Vista and Xbox played together besides just sharing the Microsoft name. I’ll be honest, I havent had much time to mess around with it more but I’m off the next couple days so we’ll see how this pans out.
Do you have an Xbox? What’s your Live ID? Leave some comments and let me know what you think about the Xbox and some features I should check out.
HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY! HOCKEY!
Looks weird when its repeated over and over again eh? You know you wanna spell check it.
I wish I could properly express how freaking psyched I am for tonight. Not only is it the home opener but its the raising of the Stanley Cup Champions banner and the start of the final season at the Mellon Arena. Oh yeah, and there will be fireworks!
The home opener is the one game I get to when the gates open. I like to get in early so I can walk around without much obstruction, walk through Pens Station so I can shop without elbows to the back from a crazy yinzer rushing to get that Crosby jersey that’s been hanging since last year, and I get a chance to sit in my seat and absorb the moment… Stanley Cup Champions. Its like the calm before the storm.
I find it hard to hate the Rangers this year. Jagr isn’t gone. Straka is gone. Avery is there but that’s not even an effort anymore since he writes his own jokes. I guess Rozsival or Prospal could be whipping boys but they’ll have to stop skating into the boards like Happy Gilmore. This leaves the hack thug Brashear. Honestly I’m expecting Avery and Brashear to beat the tar out of each other. Knuckleheads do that.
Game starts at 7:30, gates open at 6. Game is sold out so if you don’t have tickets sit on the lawn and bring an umbrella or as Yinz Team would tell you, “bring a fucking towel”.
Final score: Pens 4 – Rangers 1
From pittsburghpenguins.com
Each 14 karat white and yellow gold ring contains 167 diamonds, totaling approximately 4.50 carats of diamonds and averaging approximately 100 grams of gold. The top of the ring is crowned with a custom-cut black onyx imbedded with a 1.3 carat pear-shaped diamond to create the Penguins logo. The logo is placed on an image of the Stanley Cup, which is sitting on a bed of round diamonds replicating the arena and ice surface.
The ring is further adorned with 12 princess-cut diamonds on each side of the shanks. The title “Stanley Cup Champions” is written along the ring’s left and right outer rim/bezel. The left side of the ring features the player’s name and number as well as a list of the team four playoff series victories. The right side of the ring has the year 2009 split with three Stanley Cups, adorned in diamonds. The two outer Stanley Cups are inscribed on top with 91 and 92, paying homage to the Penguins’ two previous championships.
Holy freaking ring! When Sid was on the news showing the media his new ring you’d think that it weighed more than the cup. What I think is an ironic twist is that the Steelers, who are more “yo yo yo lookit my bling yo! its the shizzle dawg!” have a smaller ring than a group of guys who are most likely to put it on a shelf in their house and be “yeah that’s cool… but I drank from the cup!”.
Ahhh hockey season is less than 72 hours away.
What a beautiful world…
Monday night I was at the Penguins DVD Release Party with Bobby, Jimmy and my new Twitter BFF Laynie. First off seeing the Stanley Cup was amazing. I always get a chill when I see the Cup in person because I know it’s not something I get to do often. I’d love to get Teaspoon in the bowl but that’s a long shot. The night was filled with fans lucky enough to win passes, local media and female heartthrobs Tyler Kennedy with his stick licking skills and Kris Letang and his sexy hair(ask @kdudders about that or any female pens fan). Red carpet treatment and 5 star seating.
The DVD was absolutely amazing. It was filled with tears, cheers and many jeers for Hossa. Plus it helped watching it on a screen the size of a house. I heard the DVD is almost impossible to keep in stock so do yourself a favor and pick yours up now.
I only took a few pics but you can see them on Flickr.
so git up and git git git down
What the bloody hell was that last night? Seriously NHL. Last night’s awards show was not only a suckubus but an insult to hockey fans. I wasn’t expecting the greatest and best awards show of all time but last night was more of “wtf is THIS?”. It was the public access of awards shows. As I posted on twitter last night… “NHL Awards is on VS cuz not enough strippers for Fox, too french for ABC, too many big screens for NBC & CBS really wants you to see NCIS”
First off the awards. I think Ovechkin gets more credit than he deserves. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good player but when you have 528 shots and only record 110 points that shows to me that you’re a spaz who can’t pass. If Happy Gilmore had that many shots he would score too. Meanwhile Evgeni Malkin has 112 points on 290 shots and lead his team from a 10th seed on 2/5 to the 4th seed less than 2 months later. Do the math. That is the sign of Most Valuable Player. Someone was snubbed as MVP. I know the award doesn’t have to do with playoff performance but getting your team there does. Geno was all around a better player.
Secondly, someone new to the game has NO idea what these awards are about. A montage of the award and maybe a picture of it would help over a scaled down version and hack Hollywood presenters.
Now for the entertainment. Whomever hired Chaka Kahn should be shown the door. Not once but TWICE we had to put up with her bad American Idol performance. The look on the faces of the crowd explained it all as a collective “WTF” was shown.
Dear NHL, the RedWings and Pens gave you a gift with one of the highest rated cup finals of all time and you failed on capitalizing on the momentum. This isn’t a foo foo la la cute and cuddle me sport. Its fast paced, tough and gritty. It’s metal, not washed up 80’s pop. Fix it.
Lushie and teaspoon gave me an early Father’s Day Present today…
