Category: hockey (Page 9 of 26)

A Fan’s Guide to the Frozen Four – Part 1: Getting Around Detroit

6 April, 2010 / Kat

Last year at this time, I was packing and preparing to jump on a plane and attend the Frozen Four in Washington, DC with a whole host of BU hockey fans. The trip was an experience I’ll be telling my grandchildren about when I’m serving them turkey and Miracle Whip sandwiches with a side helping of ginger ale in 50 years. (You mean to tell me your grandmother didn’t do the same?)

One thing I learned at the Frozen Four is that there is an art to traveling to the Frozen Four. There are definitely pieces of knowledge I wish some more experienced college hockey fan had passed on to me before I jumped on the plane to DC. Thus, RIT, BC, Miami and Wisconsin fans, this is Part 1 of my advice to you before you head off to Detroit Wednesday or Thursday morning.

For Part 1, I present to you an Insider’s Guide to Detroit. I contacted one of the first folks I ever followed on Twitter, Jamie Favreau, PR and Marketing Goddess and Uber Hockey Fan. She resides in Detroit, and I knew I could turn to her for the insiders view of the city.

Kat: What is the best means of transport from the airport to Ford Field or main hotel area? (Bus, subway, taxi)

Jamie: I would call the hotels to find out if they are having a shuttle service. This is a big event so they might be offering something. Rental car or taxi is the best way if shuttles are NOT offered. (Kat’s note: In DC we took public transportation and a taxi to and from the airport, completely ignoring the hotel shuttle services that existed. Looking back, I wish we would have either taken our hotel’s shuttle or the SuperShuttle. Thus, definitely take Jamie’s advice here – taxi’s can jack up their prices if they are heading to the airport.)

The People Mover is best for getting around downtown Detroit.

K: Friday afternoon is when most Frozen Four attendees go site-seeing – besides team practices, the day is relatively quiet until the skills competition and Hobey Baker presentation at night. For those who have never been to Detroit, what three places are must-sees?

J: Slows BBQ and Lafeyette Coney Island are the best places and a must when in Detroit. I have a few ideas as far as what you can do. Greenfield Village and The Henry Ford Mare great places if you have a car and can get to Dearborn which is outside of Detroit. If you are staying in the City, there is a Wheelhouse Bike Rentals and DTours. You can also go to the Detroit Institute of Arts which is in Midtown. If you want to find out some more events you can visit the Downtown Detroit Partnership or for a short list visit Detroit Moxie. The NCAA has a list of what is going on this weekend as well.

If you have a passport, you can always bring it with you so you can go to Windsor, Ontario.

K: Are there any good sports bars either downtown or near Ford Field?

J: If you are looking for cheap drinks you can visit the Anchor Bar. $2 Blue and Blue Light Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Free shuttle to and from the games. Door prizes, giveaways, fun. The Anchor is located at Fort/Cass stop of the People Mover.

Alumni associations are hosting viewing parties at the following bars. Miami is having a VIP party at Hockeytown Cafe, but I am sure you can get in even if you aren’t a VIP. Wisconsin is holding a viewing party at Cheli’s. RIT home base is Angelina’s, but you need to register to attend. Boston College will be holding its viewing party at Bookies. Please contact your alumni association to find out if there will be a VIP event as part of the viewing parties. (Kat’s note: Definitely contact your school’s alumni association before attending any of those parties, even if you are a student. There may be special deals for registering and/or a cover charge. Plus, Alumni Associations always appreciate the heads up on what they can expect for attendance.)

K: Your team has just won the Frozen Four – where are you celebrating that evening?

J: I would be at one of those bars listed above or the Old Shillelagh in Greektown, Hard Rock Cafe at Campus Martius or Foran’s Irish Pub off of Woodward.

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A big thanks to Jamie for her help! This definitely makes me want to hop over to Detroit this weekend, even without my team being in this year’s Frozen Four! Stay tuned for Part 2 Tuesday night.

Jamie Favreau is a freelance interactive marketing specialist. With a passion for hockey and technology, her passion is to help sports clients get noticed. Being active in the social media community in Detroit has helped her understand and get excited about the start up community. You can reach her at her blog, @jfavreau on Twitter or on Linked IN.

Kevin Sneddon’s Playoff Beard

1 April, 2010 / Kat

I have looked up to my father for a lot during the years. He taught me to appreciate sports – that blue-collar introverts like ourselves could use sports discussion as the great equalizer. He taught me to be a workaholic, and to give 140% to any job and employer. He also taught me to appreciate music, as he was a guitarist and drummer in a local band and also a music journalist back in early-mid 1980s Rochester.

So it is in his honor that I would like to announce today, April 1st, that I am now in a band. A few of my friends and I have formed a folk band entitled, “Kevin Sneddon’s Playoff Beard.” Tone Deaf Me will be playing cowbell and Coke bottle.

Sneddon, UVM’s always interesting coach, inspired us with his goatee all season, and he really amped up the growth during the Catamounts playoff run. Last weekend, during his team’s first round Regional loss to eventual Frozen Four team Wisconsin, Sneddon sported quite a thick, substantial, and highly groomed patch of facial hair.

Thus, to honor the best facial hair of any current college hockey coach, our band decided to name ourselves after Sneddon and his goatee. We are well on a song-writing kick, having pulled all-nighters to jump start the band. Our current songbook includes such original ditties as:

“Ode to Parker”
“The Tragedy of the University of No Hardware”
“Short Forwards, Tall D-Men: They All Like Flannel”
“The Little Tech School That Could”
“Two and Out: The Ballad of Denver”
“Oh Little Rink in Andover”

“Kevin Sneddon’s Playoff Beard” hopes to release our first EP on iTunes around May 1, just in time to feed college hockey fans’ season withdrawal. Our manager, Mike LaFontaine, is working to get our first round of live shows set: looks like they’ll be at T’s Pub, Mary Ann’s, with our first big show at Matthews Arena. The arena has been so empty lately that they were eager to fill it with anything, including our lowly band.

April Fools! I’m tone deaf, thus I would never be in a band, despite my father’s musical talents and encouragement. Sneddon’s playoff goatee was pretty epic, however. There better be a student band at UVM with this name sometime soon…

Why I Can’t Help but Root for Minnesota-Duluth

18 March, 2010 / Kat

Tonight, the WCHA will kick off the Final Five with a play-in game between #11 University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and #5 University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux (or whatever they may be called these days.) The winner of Thursday night’s game will take on Denver University, the #1 team in the nation, on Friday – a game that frankily will be a hundred times better than either Hockey East matchup this weekend. (Take away my East Coast college hockey card, go ahead.)

University of Minnesota-Duluth features sophomore forward Jack Connolly, the little brother (despite being the same class year) of Boston University sophomore forward Chris Connolly. Chris is a sturdy little forward for the Terriers, currently second in the team in scoring with 10 goals and 21 assists, despite being thrown in seventy-five different line combinations this season. Jack is a powerhouse for the Bulldogs, leading the team in scoring with 18 goals and 31 assists. Jack is 7th in the nation in scoring, and his impact on the Bulldogs has been immense.

The Connolly’s have caused many BU fans to become slight UMD fans (although still many more pledge their WCHA allegiance to North Dakota), and many UMD fans to become slight BU fans (although many WCHA fans find East Coast college hockey grossly inferior). But what sealed the deal on my slight UMD fandom was the following shirt:

The one. The only. UMD Hjelle T-shirt.

The Bulldogs have a sophomore goaltender named Brady Hjelle, who played lights out last year, and found himself in a goalie rotation with junior Kenny Reiter this season. Reiter started last weekend’s quarterfinals against Colorado College, and will most likely start tonight’s game against North Dakota. Hjelle’s play last season – leading them from a seventh seed in the WCHA playoffs to the NCAA Regionals – spurred on this fan shirt, sold on the UMD fan blog Running With the Dogs.

For those of you not familiar with the reference, the shirt is based off the popular 2008 YouTube sensation, “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time.”

What can I say – I’m a sucker for a funny and punny fan shirt, and the Peanut Butter Hjelle shirt is one of my faves this year. Between this and Jack Connolly’s dominance, I have to root for UMD tonight over North Dakota.

Who Cares if Your Team’s Colors Aren’t Green?

17 March, 2010 / Kat

St. Patrick’s Day has become big business in the sports fan wear industry. It has become commonplace for teams across sports to eschew their traditional colors for the day and promote green and white fan wear and jerseys. All levels of professional hockey have been the biggest to jump on the trend, with special fanwear for sale and given away at games, and special jerseys worn for games played around March 17th. The following are three shirts that caught my eye for various reasons.

NHL: St. Louis Blues

Last night, the St. Louis Blues mixed their St. Patrick’s Day commemoration with environmental awareness, and gave away a “Green Game” t-shirt to all fans in attendance (quite a risky claim to advertise – from personal experience, you should always give an exact number of giveaways, a la “first 5,000 fans”). The shirt giveaway was sponsored by Monsanto, a Cambridge, MA based agricultural innovation company with an emphasis on sustainable practices. This was the second year for the Blues promotion.

Shirt Grade: B I like the muted, antiquey kelly green shirt and faded style of the print. It also helps that the Blues’ team colors happen not to horribly clash with green. Kudos for using that to their advantage and not changing the logo’s colors for the holiday’s sake. Environmental awareness initiatives during games are the new “it” thing to do in sports marketing – trust me, I participate in one – but the giveaway needs to be backed up with sustained, but subtle, green initiatives, otherwise it is just a t-shirt giveaway.

AHL: Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins

The Baby Pens (speaking of, we are long overdue for an edition of The Everyone’s Favorite Goalie Watch, but that’ll be another post) are selling two St. Patrick’s Day long sleeve shirts in their online store. The 2009 edition ($20) features their mascot, Tux, skating with a four leaf clover in the background on the front. The back reads “Happy St. Patrick’s Day.” The 2010 version ($22) features the logo in what appears to be a very dark green (nearly black), with a four leaf clover on the sleeve. Long sleeve shirts are always key in that part of Pennsylvania, where the damp gray chilly days seem to out number any other weather.

Grade: C The effort is there, but the execution is not. The 2009 version is too campy, and the 2010 version shows promise, but the green seems too dark. Kudos, however, for the 2010 edition’s four leaf clover on the sleeve.

ECHL: Gwinnett Gladiators

The ECHL Gwinnett Gladiators teamed with Old Time Hockey, the same Salisbury, MA based company who partnered to create some of the NHL’s 2010 St. Patrick’s Day gear, to create a green t-shirt to sell this March. The shirt ($20 with free shipping through today) features a rather disturbed and surly looking leprechaun brandishing a hockey stick, with a small Gladiators logo by his right foot. The all-caps font is rather 1950s style, and arches above Surly Leprechaun’s head.

Grade: A This is the first ever St. Patrick’s Day shirt I would ever consider purchasing, and not just because I’m in the market for a shirt from the team where two of my most favorite former BU hockey alums play. What sold me was the 1950s fonts – I’m a sucker for fonts. Plus, I feel like Surly Leprechaun is going to hurt me with that hockey stick if I don’t like the shirt.

ACR5GWEKYTEQ

Tales from Intermission

6 March, 2010 / Kat

Your typical Chuck-a-Puck. But if a Chuck-a-Puck takes place and no one chucks a puck... (Photo: Flickr user Travis S.)

After weeks of missing live hockey because of my upcoming wedding, I am finally in the midst of a multi-game weekend. Thank goodness, because this multi-game weekend allowed me to see two of the oddest intermission events I’ve witnessed in years of attending hockey games.

Friday night, the Boston University men’s ice hockey team hosted Northeastern University in their last regular season home game. BU beat Northeastern 4-2, which would go miles towards improving their status for the Hockey East playoffs. It was a double mites team game, with both intermissions host to a youth hockey team scrimmage. The teams usually have around five minutes to show their stuff, with the announcer and music timing their scrimmage, before the waiting Zambonis rev their engines and warn them off.

During the second intermission, I was chatting with a friend and not paying attention to the mites. Around me, I vaguely heard the announcement thanking the mites for their time and congratulating them on a scrimmage well done. Briefly after, my fiance nudged me.

“They won’t leave the ice.”