Boston appealed to me for a few reasons. First, I’m running out of great American cities to visit. Boston was the big one remaining on my list, so this was a chance to do that. Also, the Bruins are an original 6 team, so it’s always nice to head out and see old time franchises in their homes. Finally, it was on a Saturday and worked out financially and schedule-wise…always a plus.
This trip started Friday evening and finished up Monday evening. If you read my (T)MMR from this week, you’ll know all about the final flights home from my trip Monday night. The only other thing I will say about my flights is that the flight from LA to Boston is much, much faster than I thought it would be. Less than 5 hours in the air. Insane…that’s all the way across the country! I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep, which was nice. And that put me in Boston at about 5:15 on Saturday morning!
Dustin got in maybe 10-15 minutes later, and came over to meet me at baggage claim. We then got in a cab and headed to our hotel. In a remarkable stroke of luck, the hotel let us check in at 6am! That’s pretty unheard of, but no one visits Boston in the winter, so they weren’t full. This was clutch, as it let us get all our stuff into the room and catch a few hours sleep before the hockey game.
We woke up around 10am, showered and changed, and headed out into Boston. We spent the hour or so we had here wandering around Boston Garden and Boston Common…which was covered in snow. Actually, the entire city was covered in feet and feet of snow. It’s been a brutally cold and snowy winter out there.
After wandering around here a bit, and seeing some of the statues and such (and throwing a snowball or two), we caught the metro to the arena, TD Garden.
TD Garden is a fine arena, nothing special really. About the same size as San Jose’s. We had decent seats for the game, on the side of the ice the Sharks were shooting at twice (so both 3rd period goals were right in front of us).
The game was intense, with no scoring until the 3rd, and the Sharks fortunately were the team that struck first…and were able to hold off the Bruins for the win: 2-0 after a Couture goal and an empty net Setoguchi goal. Epic! After that, we had about an hour to get to South Station to catch our train to Worcester for the second half of our Epic Massachusetts Sharks Hockey Day TM.
The train ride to Worcester was about an hour and a half, and got us there an hour before the game was to start (perfect!). The two block walk to the arena, however, ended up taking like 20 minutes because it was so treacherous. You see, it had been raining all afternoon…which would melt the snow onto the sidewalks and then it would freeze there. Yeah, pretty slippery! Baby steps, and then every now and then I’d lose all traction whatsoever and have to just slide along the sidewalk until the shoes caught again. Kind of ridiculous. However, we made it to the arena without dying, and headed on in from the cold.
Inside, the NHL Sharks had shown up (some of them) to sign autographs! That was pretty awesome. I got my game ticket from the game in Boston earlier in the day signed by Joe Pavelski and Benn Ferriero! Pretty cool. I still need to figure out what to do with it (frame, maybe…maybe with a picture…who knows). And then we got to our seats, ready for the epic intro through the INTIMIDATING SHARK HEAD!!!
The NHL Sharks were there to honor the minor league coach who had just coached in his 1000th AHL game. Pretty neat! And then the game got underway. This really was a thrilling experience for me. How many Sharks fan can say they’ve been to a home game for their minor league squad? Not many, I’d guess…especially with the AHL club being so far away! A couple things of note:
~Jonathan Cheechoo is currently playing for Worcester. He is an old favorite of Sharks fans, especially after winning the Rocket Richard trophy back in 2006 (most goals in the NHL that season…56). Then he’s had some injuries and has lost the little speed he had and just kinda faded out of existence. He’s looked pretty good in Worcester, though!
~I follow the Sharks pretty closely, so I know of most of their prospects. So it was pretty awesome to see players like Nick Petrecki, Andrew Desjardins, Brandon Mashinter, Jamie McGinn, Dan DaSilva, Frazier McLaren, Justin Braun, etc. in action all at once. I see them every now and then in San Jose, but here they are stars. Kinda awesome.
~Goalie Carter Hutton had the distinct honor of being the backup in Boston in the afternoon, watching a 2-0 win, and then being the starter in Worcester that night, backstopping a 2-0 win. The game was actually eerily similar to the NHL win earlier in the day. Closely fought game. Sharks take a lead finally…this time on a Braun shot from the point that was tipped in by Loprieno. Then the Sharks held on with an empty net goal late in the 3rd by Mashinter. As I said, eerily similar. But yeah, Hutton as part of two 2-0 shutouts in the same day! Just like Dustin and I!
AHL games are fun because everyone playing is so amped up and trying to get to the NHL. So there’s a lot of physicality, and it leads to a lot of fights. Andrew Desjardins layed a beatdown in the first period (pictured below), and Mashinter opened up some whoop ass in the second period. Hooray!
After the game, we had like 3 ½ hours to kill before the train back to Boston, so we went to the restaurant next door and had some pizza and drinks to ride out the string. The train ride back was a little quicker than the train ride there, and we got back to Boston around 2am. Walking back to the hotel, I was amazed by the crowds on the streets. Boston might be one of the drunkest cities I’ve ever been in! It was madness! It was almost like being in Vegas, the number of people wandering around, being drunk, etc. I enjoyed it! Dustin and I eventually got back to the hotel for some sleep.
Sunday we slept in, like, all morning. Arose, slowly got around to getting ready while watching the Capitals whoop the Penguins on TV, and hit the streets. After lunch was over, we started meandering along the Freedom Trail, which links all the historic/important sites in the city. There was the Massachusetts State House:
The burial plot for Samuel Adams (always a good decision):
And the Old State House (It is the oldest serving public building in Boston, the Declaration of Independence was first read on that balcony, and the Boston Massacre happened from about the point I was standing to take this picture):
Pretty cool! Then we settled in at The Purple Shamrock for dinner, drinks, and the Super Bowl. After the game was over (grats Aaron Rodgers!), we jumped on the subway and headed down to Brookline to a bar called The Publick House. We went here because Dustin has this list of beers he's trying to check off, and this bar is the only place he's found that has two of the harder to find ones. It was actually a pretty chill spot. I have a feeling it was dead because it was a Sunday Night, but I enjoyed the vibe. When we were done, the trains had stopped running, so we grabbed a cab back to the hotel.
Monday we woke up, cleaned up, and packed up. We then left our bags at the hotel, checked out, and took the train up to the North End, crossed the river, and went to see some other sites. We saw the USS Constitution:
Although it was closed and we couldn't get on it. Sad. Then we doubled back across the river back to the North End again and saw the Old North Church (site of Paul Revere's famous lanterns to warn the country of the march of British troops towards Lexington and Concord):
After getting Dustin a cannoli at Mike's Pastry, we meandered back to the hotel, grabbed our bags, and took off for the airport. And then my fun plane travels home began, but you've read about all that already.
All in all, it was a pretty awesome trip. I think I'd like to go back to Boston in the summer, when its not covered in snow, and when I could catch a game at Fenway. But yeah, Boston is a pretty cool city. There's plenty to do, its easily walkable...although it is cold. Their "warm winter weekend" while we were there was probably 20 degrees colder during the day than it was at San Jose Airport when I landed near midnight. But Boston was still fun...and actually kinda pretty in the snow!
Hope you enjoyed reading about my latest adventure!
1 comment:
Benn and Pavs?!? May we have a picture of the signed ticket? Thankee! :) - C
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