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The rarely updated blog of Joel Dixon

Viewing blogs tagged Pittsburgh

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Travel Log - Day 18 (The only game that really matters)

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 10/04/2007 22:09:00
Updated by Joel Dixon at 14/01/2008 12:52:14

It starts

Firstly, let me take you back. The year was 1994. I was about to start high school, and was probably thinking about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or playing Altered Beast on our Sega Mega Drive. My older brother brought home a few games for the aforementioned Mega Drive with a pooled resource of our Christmas / birthday money. One of them, I do not remember and obviously didn't have a huge impact on my life. The second was Sonic the Hedgehog II, a game that I was very excited about. I had played it a fair bit of Sonic at the local video game store, and it did take up a fair amount of my time during that year. The third game was seen as a little odd to me, as Gavin was more of a basketball fan back then, and I didn't think much of it at the time. That third game was NHL 94.

Notice how small the Electronic Arts branding is

I thought so

Oops, sorry about that

Lemieux to Jagr and he scores to tie it at one

He beat him like a rented mule, Mario Lemieux with the hat-trick.

Gretzky with three pitiful goals gets the third star

With all said and done, I think that that video game has probably had the most effect on my life, more than any other video game. Before NHL 94 I had never heard much about the sport of ice hockey, and only ice skated once when I was around 8 years old. Once I got sick of Sonic and Mr. Prowler I moved on to the NHL game. Initially I played as a few of the teams, and one of my first "favourites" were the Winnipeg Jets (I will buy their jersey one day) mostly due to Teemu Selanne, a gifted scorer. I never really settled on a team until I re-met an old primary school friend who's dad was a huge Penguins fan. The transition was simple for me, as Pittsburgh was also a team I would often play as, with both Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr lighting it up, almost at will.

From then on, my love for the Pittsburgh Penguins only increased. When my parents installed pay TV I was finally able to watch some of the games in full, and allowed my friends and I to watch Mario Lemieux's first comeback against the Toronto Maple Leafs at 3 am one December morning (it also introduced me to Mat Hoffman and the X Games, which kindled my love of rollerblading). Becoming a savvy interweb user helped a lot, as I was able to track my favourite team instantly and gain a lot of Penguin information quicker than I had previously encountered.

So that's why I like the Pittsburgh Penguins. Belinda, my lovely wife, on the other hand - chose her favourite NHL team (the Colorado Avalanche) because she likes the colour blue, and the Avs (with some blue on their jerseys) had recently won a Stanley Cup.

I provide this background information, so that you can understand why I deeply wished that the mighty Pens would crush my new wife's favourite team in their showdown match. This was the schedule for Day 18.

We might have done something during Day 18 that was non-hockey related. Perhaps we had a nice meal or saw some more of the town of Pittsburgh. I'm not 100% sure however, as I just thought about my last chance to see the Penguins win a regular season game. As always - dot point goodness:

I noticed during my research into this fateful game that the Colorado Avalanche had played a game the night before this one. I looked a little deeper and saw that the Avs had only played back-to-back three times prior in this season. The other three times resulted in a loss in the second game. Hesitant confidence was gained!
With Marc-Andre Fleury in net with his golden pads of goodness, I was feeling a little more confident about this match. That little nipper is just awesome to watch in goals.
I noticed that once the game started, the Penguins were playing with energy that I had yet to see. They were running around and banging bodies - it was looking like the momentum was all theirs. Maxime Talbot (one of my favourites) was one of the main proponent of the physical play, and it was fun to watch
Even more fun was watching the Penguins score the first goal of the game - the crowd was electric. I let myself get excited and started thinking about a win.
It only took 6 minutes for me to crash down into depression as the Avalanche tied the score at 1. To the Penguins credit, they kept the pressure up and went ahead again with only a minute to go in the 1st period.
After the Pens traded a goal a piece in the 2nd frame, I was still a little edgy being only 1 goal ahead to start the third period. My main man (after Crosby, Lemieux, Fleury etc) Max Talbot made me jump from my chair midway through the 3rd period with a well deserved insurance goal to put the Penguins up 4-2. It was great seeing Talbot's tough physical play rewarded with a goal in an important game.
Colorado scored another goal to make it 4-3, but the Penguins held on and I saw my first ever Pittsburgh victory. It was sweet!

The dance begins!

Belinda got to see a few Colorado goals ...

... but I got to see an extra Pittsburgh goal

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Travel Log - Day 17 (A kid in a candy-filled toy store)

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 21/03/2007 20:46:00
Updated by Joel Dixon at 15/11/2007 22:39:20

At the start of the 17th day overseas, I was starting to feel a little over travelling. The air travel, poor meals (involving a whole lot of cheese), lack of sleep and general running around was starting to catch up with Bell and I. I was also starting to get a little bit homesick, though this feeling was lessened by the impending show-down between the Mighty Penguins and the lowly Avalanches.

Due to a previous planning issue Day 17 was also a schedule packed with "bumming around". We went into town, and stumbled upon a toy store. It seemed like a proper, old fashioned, not-too-commercial toy store, and was a welcome change from some of the other, more commercialised sights.

The toy store was 3 levels of fun which was quite a feat, as unlike space crazy New York, the toy store had three decent sized levels. The items that interested Bell and I the most was the Christmas decorations.

Being that we were coming close to Christmas at this time, it was understandable that some holiday decorations would be on display. But these weren't just decorations, these were to-scale model representations of various Christmas themes. There were heaps of different varieties, many different ways to enjoy the holiday period with collectibles (here's some examples). The most we would ever see in Australia is a modest nativity scene model, but I must admit we snapped up some pretty cool items.

My parents have something that look just like this, I used to love pulling off the moss

The M&M Christmas themed decorations we bought in Pittsburgh

Where the magic happens (I'll resist my regular pants joke)

This one is just awesome, and note the winter M&M tree in the background

Such great detail - Yellow obviously needs to be persuaded by Red

As Day 17 was another light-on day for content, I'll post some other pictures of M&M toys Bell and I bought.

Red's quite the ladies man...

... but seems equally enthused when his partner is a scared, peanut-filled yellow male. Fair enough I guess

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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Travel Log - Day 16 (Worst NHL Game Ever)

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 17/03/2007 19:32:00

I had originally made a huge plan for our honeymoon, the planes we would catch, hotels we would stay at, hockey games we would watch, tours we would take and the various tourist locations we would gander upon. I created it in HTML and hosted it on my website so I could make changes from work in the weeks leading up to the trip. After I added all of the staples (planes, games and tours etc that we had booked), I would add a few ideas of what we could do on our days without plans. The trips to the Bronx Zoo and the Disney Store were planned in my handy Honeymoon Itinerary before actually booking tickets. For each day we had free I would research the various things available and note down a few options. Unfortunately work got really busy leading up to the honeymoon, so I had only finished planning up to Washington. This all meant that Day 16 was essentially un-planned - and we didn't do much at all really.

But at the tail end of a very busy and exciting honeymoon, both Bell and I were ready for a bit of a change in pace. We were also a little sick of carrying a camera around everywhere we went - so this post will be lacking in photos. We've agreed that we'll have to buy Belinda a new, small camera for the next trip we take.

After waking up very late in the morning (or perhaps the afternoon) we had lunch at a very nice Chinese restaurant. It's a pity it wasn't closer to our house - because I'm sure Bell and I would eat there quite frequently if it were. Other than the very nice meal, we pretty much did nothing other than watch a hockey game - the Penguins vs Minnesota Wild. Speaking of which, here's the summary:

Marc-Andre Fleury wasn't playing in net for this game, which was my first disappointment. This was very quickly followed up by another as the Wild scored the first goal just over a minute into the game. It certainly kept the crowd quiet.
Crosby was held without a point in the game, but was definitely the best player on the ice. He seemed to be the only one trying.
I was very upset by the way the Penguins were playing, they had few shots and were down 3-0 at the end of the second. But the behaviour of the other Penguins fans was unbelievably disgusting. I just cannot imagine a situation that would cause me to boo my own home team. Some of the fans were yelling out disparaging comments about our own players, and people were leaving the game from early in the third period (when Minnesota went up 4-0). I have trouble believing that any of the people booing their own team are true Pens fans. They really don't deserve to live so close!
Even though the game was going terribly for the Pens (we were down 5-0) I was amazed with the crowd's response towards the end of the game (in a good way). There had been a minor scuffle earlier on in the game - but nothing I would call a real fight. With less than 5 minutes to go in the game, Brooks Orpik and Kyle Wanvig participated in the first NHL hockey fight that I had witnessed. The audience made the most noise I had ever heard as the Penguins defender clearly won the fight. Sure, most of the negative nellys had gone by this point, but the crowd just went wild. I guess it was a small victory considering, but it did put a slightly positive note at the end of the game.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Travel Log - Day 11 (Best NHL Game Ever - Mach II)

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 19/07/2006 15:38:00

I was excited waking up on day 10, waking up on day 11 was twice as bad. I actually woke up quite early - a fair few hours before Bell - so I just read a book I had recently purchased.

When Bell finally woke up we decided to see a bit of the City of Pittsburgh. From the hotel room we could see that there was a fair bit of snow cover on the city, which was exciting. Even better - when we stepped outside our hotel room it was actually snowing. In Niagara Falls it was snowing - but really, that was the equivalent of a small spit. This was an actual fall - admittably not pissing down - but definately decent. I rather enjoyed holding my open hands up to the sky and collecting the snow. As a kid I always liked the idea of snow - the most we ever got in Melbourne was a very heavy hail storm - so this was great.

Something that I was entirely unprepared for was the amount of support the town gave to the Steelers. I had read on message boards that Pittsburgh was "Stillers Town" - but I was very surprised. Pretty much 1 out of every 3 or 4 people had some article of Steelers clothing on. Everyone from grandmothers to children was proudly displaying the Steelers name. There was also a lot of Penguin clothing (much more than I'd ever see in Australia) - but it was a little bit of a letdown.

We walked around the city - the first stop was the (now retired) Kaufmann's department store. The first thing I noticed was that half of the store staff were wearing Steelers jerseys as their uniforms (none of them were wearing Penguins jerseys though). We bought me two pairs of shoes (very cheap - and Pittsburgh has no sales tax on clothing) and two extra suitcases to store all of the crap we bought at the Penguins store. There was also a nice cafe in the middle of the store and I filled up on soda spiders. We just had a great day out.

At the end of the trip Belinda and I both agreed that Pittsburgh was one of the nicest cities we'd visited on the trip. The people were great, food was nice and (though it's probably got a lot to do with the snow) the place just looked beautiful. Whenever I list the honeymoon destinations (New York, Niagara Falls, Washington, Pittsburgh) I get a "Why Pittsburgh?". Originally the answer would just be "hawkey" - but now I could honestly say it was a great place to visit. We didn't even end up seeing much more of Pittsburgh than downtown - but it was great fun. I'm looking forward to returning (and Bell is too - which is wonderful)!

Anyway - the most important part of day 11 was the chance to watch the Penguins play at home. About a half-hour before the game's start time we walked around the corner to Mellon Arena. The atmosphere was incredible, and every second person had a Pens jersey on (with about a quarter of those having Crosby's number 87). Afterwards Bell and I both agreed that the Pittsburgh game was so much more of a show, and much more enjoyable (even though it was great in New York). Cheerleaders, free T-Shirts and a mini radio controlled blimp were some of the things that anyone could enjoy - not just fans of hockey.

Not as fancy as the Madison Square Garden display (a few extra dead pixels) but it was a great sight!

How cool are these! And note the Pen's credit card in the background

A few warmups going on behind me

The Penguin's cheerleaders shooting t-shirts from a slingshot. Iceburgh was also firing t-shits from a bazooka contraption

The Verizon blimp was dropping some kind of vouchars. One dropped right in front of me - but kids snatched it up before I got a chance (and then ran back to their seats on the other side of the stand - bastards!)

"My dad drives the zamboni"

Go you big skating penguin!

Anyway - another dot-point summary of the game:

I saw a few people wearing Steelers jerseys to the game - poor form!
I was happy to see Fleury starting in net again, and he played a great game again.
The Penguins were robbed early, and I was pissed off. Marcus Nilson's shot hit the crossbar and lay on the goal line - but didn't cross it. Many players on the ice could clearly see that the puck didn't go in - and quickly protested. The referee called the goal and they didn't even go to the video referees for clarrification. 1-0 Calgary.
Pittsburgh then tied it up with a spectacular backhander goal by Sidney Crosby. I was extremely happy that I got to witness Crosby scoring - and it was a plus that Mario Lemieux had the second assist on the goal.
Langkow scored two early third period goals to put Calgary ahead 3-1 both from great assists from Huselius.
Midway through the 3rd I saw Ryan VandenBussche's first NHL goal to bring it up to 3-2.
We pulled the goalie towards the end of the game to attempt to score a tying goal - but alas, it was not to be. Made the first non-goal so much more difficult to stomache!

Opening faceoff - people were still only just getting to their seats. What a waste!

Iceburgh stood up right in front of us. I didn't have the heart to yell "down in front" to him! (so I just pushed him)

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Sunday, July 02, 2006

Travel Log - Day 10 (Pittsburgh at last!)

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 02/07/2006 16:45:00

I woke up on day 10 with a real excited feeling - as this was the day we were finally going to Pittsburgh. We woke up early and left straight away to La Guardia Airport. The flight from New York to Pittsburgh was quite enjoyable, it only took an hour and a half and it was much less packed than the Red Eye we took earlier.

The first thing I did after touching down in Pittsburgh was purchase a Post-Gazette newspaper from the airport. At first it was great to actually buy the paper I had been reading online for many years - but then I realised it was a bit of a waste as I only read three articles from the sports section.

We took a Shuttle bus downtown, and checked into our hotel. Most hotels have a mint on your pillow to welcome you - the one we stayed at handed out cookies (which was muchly appreciated). Anyway, after dropping off our bags and scoping out the hotel room (much nicer compared to the one we just left) we set off to pick up the hockey tickets.

I really liked the Pittsburgh room - no neo-romantic Ostro-Goths here

Once we left the hotel and started looking for the building to pick up our tickets we saw that Mellon Arena was literally across the road from us. Being this close to The Igloo was another dream come true, and the hockey flags around the place just topped it off.

Mellon Arena - Terror goes into over-time

One of the flags around the 'Burgh

The place we picked our hockey tickets up was pretty cool in itself - as it was Mario Lemieux's actual office. The decorations around the room were very nice too - especially the next-game countdown.

A little display outside the ticket office

Time until the next Pen's home game. I would be lying if I didn't think of ripping it off the wall and running!

I'm sure this paper sold a few copies

Fleury's distinctive pads can be seen in the foreground

After picking up the tickets we went straight to the Arena to see if the memorabilia store was open, fortunately (unfortunately for my wallet) it was. I had another "WOW! This is awesome" moments when we stepped inside - looking at a sea of Black and Gold. All the Penguins stuff was cool and we bought lots of it!

The first thing I bought - a Crosby Pens home jersey

Wearing this in Melbourne - I'm sure some people are wondering when Bing played Ice Hockey

A couple of sweet hoodies, for the casual man about the town

Don't get me wrong - I'm not the kind of guy that normally wears leather jackets. But this jacket is just awesome - and will be treasured for years

The only things I got from the Pens store here is the shot glass and cool tiny replica of a goalies mask. The plastic cup was filled with sprite at one of the Pens games

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Viewing blogs tagged Pittsburgh

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Travel Log - Day 18 (The only game that really matters)

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Travel Log - Day 17 (A kid in a candy-filled toy store)

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Travel Log - Day 16 (Worst NHL Game Ever)

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Travel Log - Day 11 (Best NHL Game Ever - Mach II)

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Travel Log - Day 10 (Pittsburgh at last!)