On my recent trip to New York, I saw three hockey games. Pittsburgh Penguins versus New Jersey, NY Rangers versus NJ (in NJ) and the Carolina Hurricanes versus the NY Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
There were three of us that went to the Pens/Devils game. We had two tickets, courtesy of Sarge's company, about 10rows behind the Devils net. We though we would go out and trade for three together, and split the cost. We were surprised when we arrived at the Prudential Center (downtown Newark) to hardly find a scalper in sight. We ran into a NJ Devil jersey wearing guy with lots of tickets. I asked him if he was "sellin" and he said "No, but I'll give you guys some free ones"!
Well, I couldn't believe it. This guy had a mitt full of upper bowl tickets to a game which had two of the best players (Crosby and Malkin), and was giving them away for free! Of course we took them, but we didn't sit in them.
We went down to the area where our original tickets (2) were and sat down there. The upper bowl was packed with people enjoying the game for free, while the lower bowl had a lot of empty seats.
The Devils and the Pens are both really, really good teams and they were giving away tickets for free. This does not bold well for the NHL.
The next 4-5 years will be very difficult times for the NHL. For the most part, all the of the season tickets sold were sold before the present economic downturn. For the NHL, it's the calm before the storm. Very rocky times ahead.
We made a late decision to attend the Devil/Ranger game, but glad we decided to go. It was a 8-5 win for the Devils with the Rangers making things interesting by comin back from a 5-1 deficit to tie the game at 5, before the Devils came back. And there were 3 fights!
I have seen hockey games at the old Montreal Forum, the Montreal Bell Centre, Toronto's ACC, Anaheim's Pond, LA's Staple Center, Vancouver's GM Place, Phoenix's Jobbing.com arena, Madison Square Garden, and now New Jersey's Prudential Center. I have yet to see an arena more beautiful than New Jersey's, Prudential Center. With open concourses in both ends, extremely wide hallways, great sight lines, two levels of private suites in the middle, they did everything right when they built this arena.
Unlike the Penguin game, the place was packed with Blueshirt fans which made for a great atmosphere. There was four of us that went to this game. We sat in $140 seats which we bought for $60 each.
The Rangers beat the Hurricanes 3-2 in a shootout in the last game we saw. Nothing like seeing a game at MSG. At every New York ranger game, you hear somebody start whistling to prompt the crowd to say "Potvin Sucks". Yes, they still say that at every game. Quite the tribute to the Islander hall of famer.
We ran into hall of famer Glenn Anderson in between periods, and had our picture taken with him. My buddy Craig seems to know which players have the best looking wives, because his only comment to Anderson was "You're wife is gorgeous!" Anderson laughed and said he should wait around cause she'll be along soon.
The boys with hall of famer Glenn Anderson.
Carolina Hurricanes versus New York Rangers, Madison Square Garden, Dec. 13, 2008
