Cool hockey event tonight.

Sadly, I heard about it too late, and it's already sold out, but this is pretty cool.

The Rangers and MSG have rented out the Ziegfeld Theater, which is pretty much the best place to see a movie in the known universe. They'll be showing tonight's Sabres/Rangers game in HD, and if the Rangers put out the same kind of effort they did in game one, you'll be able to head to 54th street and 6th Avenue around 10:00 PM tonight to see the most disappointed group of people filing out of the Ziegfeld since the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode II.

I went to the Devils/Senators game last night, and I gotta tell you, if you're a hockey fan, get your ass to Jersey and quick, cause this is gonna be a good series, and tickets are available.

I bought a 60 dollar upper deck ticket to the game, and as I was attending with a Senators fan, snuck down to the glass before puck drop to watch warmups. He wanted to marvel at the Senators up close, and I wanted to give Wade Redden a piece of my mind for fucking up my fantasy team this season.

I'm still pissed at that son of a bitch.

As warmups ended, there were still a lot of empty seats, so we- well, sat down- center ice, about 6 rows behind the penalty boxes. We had a plan fully in mind, and engaged in a little crafty pantomime of pulling out our tickets and looking at them, then looking at the seats, then decisively sitting down. We figured out what section we were in, what section we would claim we thought we were in, and then watched an entire Stanley Cup conference semifinal game from there.

It was amazing.

The Meadowlands was maybe 75 percent full, and there were empty seats all over the lower bowl. It did fill up in the second period, ( I think they were embarrassed) and we were even emboldened enough to leave our seats, go get food and beers and come back. They had guards at the entrances but if you had food in your hands and didn't look lost, they didn't hassle you. At first, I was upset that playoff tickets for a second round matchup were going unused, but then I realized that this is a fairly awesome situation and bitching about it is for morons. Big Lou is still rich, playoff hockey is still playoff hockey and I paid 60 bucks to sit in the 6th row! If anyone can see a problem with this scenario, I'm all ears.

In fact, maybe that's it. Lou takes over behind the bench and the rest of the guards figure he isn't watching them, so why should they watch us?

Either way, it's a great thing for true hockey fans so I'm not going to complain.

I mean, seriously- I used to lament the fact that people didn't give a crap about hockey in this town, now I'm coming to embrace it. I've attended three Stanley Cup playoff games already this month, paid a total of 220 dollars for all three games, sat directly behind the glass once and 6 rows back another time.

No complaints here, people.

Don't like hockey?

That's cool with me.

Go watch baseball, you won't be missed.

Seriously, have you guys seen A-Rod this season!?

He's sure hitting a lot of baseballs!

As for the hockey game itself, Dany Heatly is a terrifying force up close, Alfredsson is a great forechecker above and beyond his offensive talent and the Devils proved that even with a bad night of goaltending, they aren't giving up. It wasn't Marty's night last night, but his strength has never been that he's an all star every night, it's that bad games don't affect him. And to see the Devils offense come back the way they did, especially without Elias, was impressive.

Too little, too late, but impressive.

How many other 5 goal games do the Senators think they're going to get?

My guess is, not many.

The strength of the Senators on the other hand, which is something that will be hard for any team to overcome is how fast they start. The scored early in the first period after a devastating hit from Alfredsson, and after the Devils roared back in the second, scored another quick goal in the first minute of the third, effectively killing the Devils momentum and taking the crowd out of the game.

Still, the interesting thing about the game was we didn't really get a good look at either team. The Sens were as stunned as the Devils were to jump out to that big lead, and left themselves open to that comeback. The only period where the teams were on equal ground was the third, and each team got a goal.
So who knows?

Should be a good series.

Oh, and I didn't even see highlights of the Sharks/Wings.

How'd they look?