Rangers @ Penguins 10/23/2007

In the warm afterglow of “Sidney Crosby: Revealed” (diary to follow), we slide straight into the Rangers at the Pens, complete with some wildly unprecedented editorializing by VS – their sexy studio-portrait player shots in the intro include some graphics floating along behind Chris Drury, and those graphics, Gentle Reader, are — hilariously — giant, green, cartoony dollar signs. It takes us several minutes to recover.

We get to start with Chris Simpson interviewing Sid; she is actually wearing a bazonga-covering shirt tonight, but Sid is still adamantly staring anywhere but at her chest. He is also demonstrating what a Little Wooden Robot Whore he is – he’s got a VS towel draped over his shoulders. Oh, Sid. (Boomer is convinced Chris is only wearing a shirt because Sid refused to be interviewed if she was going to wear her usual cleavage-bearing tops. She is also convinced when we see Chris later tonight on the Rangers bench, she’ll be wearing only a bra.)

FIRST PERIOD

19:47 We’re going to tell ourselves now that this is a win-win for us – if the Pens win, then the Rangers lose, obviously, and that’s the happiest thing hockey has to offer. But if the Rangers win, then we’ll remind ourselves the Penguins are in our division.

18:05 We are looking for hilariousness tonight, and so far this game has not offered that. A Gronk sighting on the Pens first foray into the Rangers’ zone prompts Pookie to declare, “Gronk is going to get no more than ten points this year.”

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Sharks @ Flames, 10/22/07

It is never easy for us to remain alert after dinner on Monday nights, and it’s exponentially harder to do so the day we came back from vacation. But Gentle Reader, we will endeavor, for you, to stay awake tonight while soaking up all the kick-assedness the Sharks and Flames have to offer, despite the fact that we know exactly nothing about either one of these teams.

We’re getting the Flames feed on Center Ice, and the broadcasters are color-guy Charlie Simmons and the hilariously-named play-by-play man Roger Millions. He sounds like he could be Max Power’s cousin.

Ugh. The pre-game features a tribute to Owen Nolan for his 1,000th game; there are few players we can think of who are less inspiring than Owen Nolan, and this highlight reel is pretty funny for how many teams he’s played for. The big present here for Owen is a “custom-made” bottle of wine, presented to him by Mike Ricci – oh my god! We just want to know what products he uses! Oh, wait, sorry. The big present for Owen is a goofy ATV thing. The fans appear to be as underwhelmed as we are; are we the only people here who don’t think 1,000 games played is as remarkable a milestone as it once was?

FIRST PERIOD

19:26 Mr. Millions mentions that Jeremy Roenick is on the ice right now, and we are suddenly convinced we’re going to see him score his 500th goal, because what could be more fun than watching JR get to 500 on the night Owen Nolan played his 1,000th game?

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On The Road With IPB: Epilogue

To quote the great American opera Pioneer Songs, “They made it. They all made it.” That’s right, Gentle Reader, we’re ensconced again on the sofa at stately IPB Manor, loads of laundry churning away downstairs, our cats staring at us like we’re strangers, and the joys of the open road fading away in the sands of time and memory. We won’t lie — it’s nice to not be in the car anymore. And to commemorate what we agree was probably our best vacation ever, we’re going to give you now an overview of our Road Trip, by the numbers.

1343.2 Miles driven, only 200 of which were driven by Schnookie. Pookie is a beast! (It’s probably fair to say Katebits actually drove us further than Schnookie did. Schnookie? Does not like to drive.)

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On The Road With IPB: Chapter Seven

Today marked the last full day of our epic journey, as we’ll be packing up and returning to real life on Sunday, leaving behind good friends, great hockey and, well, Chef’s. OK, we can’t really get away from Chef’s fast enough now that we think about it. We decided to live it up this afternoon, ensconcing ourselves in the hotel room chowing on chocolaty snack food, engaging in a deep and far-reaching discussion about NY metro area sports fans and playing round after round of Lumines II on our PSPs. So, if you took away the chocolaty snacks and the intelligent conversation, we were doing pretty much exactly the same thing the Devils were before tonight’s game against the Isles (which we will never speak of again). Katebits, our personal chauffeur for the week, saved us from ourselves and took us out for a delightful lunch at Betty’s in downtown Buffalo. The warm brie with hot pepper jelly appetizer briefly had us worried we were going to be facing down the barrel of another Chef’s situation when it arrived at our table accompanied by a handful of Town House crackers, just like our grandmothers used to serve us when we were kids. Fortunately the worry was all for naught as the food was quite tasty.

After lunch we all trucked back to Casa Katebits where we marveled over seeing the stained glass buffalo and pencil props from TWC, as well as the goggles made famous by Oh For Fun. It was like being in a Katebits Blogging Museum; she really should have a Plexiglas box by her front door with a sign reading “Suggested Donation: $20”. We proceeded to do what we all do best – talk about blogging. For hours. The only reason we didn’t talk about blogging all night was that Katebits had a concert to play. Since Schnookie had expressed doubt that she actually plays viola – none of us actually believe we all do what we say we do, right? This is the internet, after all – Katebits offered us the once in a lifetime opportunity to see the BPO in action.

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On The Road With IPB: Chapter Six

Today was all about the last of the three games we’ve been trekking to see, and also about meeting up with Heather (at long last). Considering how much bang for our buck we’ve gotten already from this trip, we had high hopes that the Sabres-Blue Jackets matchup would be seriously kick-ass. And we figured it was safe to assume Heather would be a lot of fun. Would we be disappointed? Well, it all started at Chef’s…

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On The Road With IPB: Chapter Five

The latest leg in our journey through the best the NHL schedule has to offer this week took us back to Buffalo. We got up bright and early (read: noon-ish), and after a bit of a snafu at the front desk with our Roadtrips vouchers, bade a fond adieu to our cozy aerie of Boggle and televised classic car auctions.

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On The Road With IPB: Chapter Four

Madness!

We won’t bore you with the mundane details that filled most of Day Four of IPB’s Great Hockey Road Trip ’07 — Schnookie beat Pookie in Boggle but Pookie evened the score winning 2 out of 3 hotly contested Chinese Checkers matches — and skip straight to the nutmeats: Devils 5, Penguins 4. We began the evening by showing remarkable restraint, arriving at the arena a mere 10 minutes early, rather than our usual hour or two. Not two minutes went by before we were approached by a Pens fan bringing some good-natured smack:

Pens Fan: We’re going to win toinght!
Schnookie: Oh ho, I don’t think so! The Devils will win!
Pens Fan: Excuse me, but didn’t you lose Scott Gomez to the Rangers?
Crickets: Chirp. Chirp.
Schnookie: Uh, yeah…
Pens Fan: I rest my case!

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