Wherein We Go On The World’s Most Random Roadtrip: Episode 1

Okay, so at some point early this season, when the Blue Jackets were acting as our secondary, back-up reserve tranny brides, we decided to plan a road trip to Columbus. We checked our schedules, checked their schedule, tried to estimate when, during the season, we’d be looking for a vacation, and picked a random, far-off date in March. The Devils weren’t going to be in Columbus then, but who cared? We were going to see the cute, fun Blue Jackets in person!

Five months later, on the eve of our scheduled trip, we were like, “Wait, we’re going where? To see what??”

But hey! Road trip!

Ah, interstate driving. It’s the life.

We hit the road late this morning, after a bit of a false start in which we left the house, drove as far as the bagel place in town, and realized we had neglected to pack our tickets for tomorrow’s game. Yeah, we’re very married to those long-ago secondary, back-up reserve tranny brides. What is interesting to know about driving from New Jersey to Columbus is that it’s completely gorgeous almost the entire way.

We just can’t stop ourselves from taking pictures, even when we know they’re going to suck!

It’s all bucolic farms and rolling hillsides and beautiful, ornate barn architecture…

…And the occasional barn billboard.

You would be surprised how many Mail Pouch Tobacco barn billboards we passed. It seems to be a very popular product with cows around here.

Because we are very cool people who lead very exciting lives, the highlight of our eight-hour drive was the tunnels.

The entrance to the Allegheny Mountain tunnel is quite pretty. You’d never know it from this picture.

Now, we didn’t realize there were mountains between New Jersey and Columbus, so when we came upon the first under-a-mountain tunnel on I-70, we were stunned. How totally cool! You know how many times before today that we’ve driven underneath mountains in our lives? Zero (that we know of)! And you know how different an under-a-mountain tunnel looks on the inside from a mundane, dime-a-dozen under-a-river tunnel? Not at all!

Under the Hudson River, or under the Allegheny Mountain? You be the judge!

Nevertheless, we were enchanted. It was a perfect day for driving, and a perfectly lovely drive. It was also maybe 45 minutes longer than we really wanted to be in the car. Good thing there was an easy-to-get-to restaurant waiting on the other end, just a stone’s throw from our hotel, serving pulled pork sandwiches, sweet-and-spicy french fries, and cold beer.

Rick Nash’s pre-game meal.

So, we’re hockeyless for the next couple of days but for the Blue Jackets/Blackhawks game tomorrow, but we’ve got all of exotic Columbus to explore. Thanks, early-season impulse, for booking this trip we would never have thought to go on if you’d asked us yesterday to make plans! This is going to be awesome!

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Chuck The Duck’s First Trip To The Rawk

You may remember, Gentle Reader, that we took an almost half star-crossed trip to The Rawk in December as a Christmas gift for Boomer. We had such a great time at that game that we immediately decided to get tickets to the next Saturday home game that fit our very busy schedules. That game turned out to be yesterday’s historic 1-0 loss to the Blues. Why was it historic, you wonder? Well, because Chuck the Duck was making his first trip to Newark for it.

Chuck wishes all the interlopers would just get out of his seats already so he can watch skatearound.

We did not have nearly the drama getting to the arena this time that we did last time, but the fact remains that no matter whose directions you follow — the Devils website’s or Google Maps’s — there is still a major disconnect between what the instructions say and what the signage on the actual roads says. GPS people, get your shit in order, okay? Quit it with the using street names when the signs all have route numbers and route numbers when the signs all have street names.

Anyway, we arrived at the arena armed with Chuck, tickets for our second-row seats (!!!), and one of our small camera lenses outfitted with a star filter. The combined awesomeness of those three things would more than compensate for the sucky final outcome of the game.

A star filter is one of the funnest toys on earth. And the Devils’ Stanley Cup banners are one of the prettiest things on earth. Together, they make beautiful flower.

We are fairly confident we’ve talked up the intoxicating deliciousness of the Fire Lounge chicken fingers, right?

Chuck tells us that ducks are not so closely related to chickens that they have ethical issues with eating chicken fingers.

Boomer remarked at one point during the game, while thinking of how we used to have season tickets at the old arena, that she thinks this is a fair tradeoff — seeing fewer games, “but more palatially”. (Seriously, the club seats are so nice. They have HDTVs in the bathrooms, so you don’t miss any action, even during skatearound!)

The highlight of the game (for people who aren’t Blues fans) was the Janssen/Leblond fight. This is how it played out for us:

Oh. Look. A staged fight. Yawn.

Let’s take a bunch of pictures of Chuck watching the fight!

Good grief — they’re still fighting???

Well, while that’s going on, let’s take a while trying to get a picture of Chuck with the Devils bench in the background, as they all watch the fight.

Holy flirking schnitt! That fight just will. not. end!!!

Chuck is no big fan of the fights, either, but even he can’t believe what he just saw. That fight was RIDONK.

The game had a crisp pace, but it never really seemed like the Devils were going to score. This is when Chuck developed his drinking problem.

Mmm… beer.

We took over 290 pictures during this outing, and only one of the action hockey shots was any good.

Pookie loves the wonky angles.

Now, we had season tickets in the fourth row at CAA for four years, but there is a world of difference between fourth-row seats and second-row seats. We’ve had first-row seats a few times in the past, as well, but those were always behind the Devils bench out in Arizona. The experience of watching the game as closely as we did this time was just awesome. The size of the players! The speed! And yowza — the hitting!!

This picture was taken mere moments before Brian Rolston was smushed into the glass right in front of us. There is no shot of the actual hit, because we were so busy cringing and recoiling.

It’s like they were being hit directly — and thunderously loudly — into our laps.

Rolston’s stick left a ghostly condensation outline on the glass after that hit. We took a lot of pictures of it.

And when there wasn’t massive hitting going on in front of us, the star filter gave us a reason to have a mini jumbotron photo challenge.

Pookie liked her shot of the Godzilla leading a rhythmic clap-along best.

Schnookie liked her shot of the flashing red spotlight best.

And while he might not have gotten to see a Devils win, Chuck did get to make new friends. The woman behind us had a Flat Stanley on hand, and wanted to get a shot of them together. Chuck was flattered.

After posing, Chuck and Stanley exchanged BFF lockets. And Zach warned them that BFF lockets are non-binding.

Our one regret during the action was that Rolston spent several TV timeouts skating back and forth across the ice directly in front of us. And when you’re sitting in the second row, you better believe you make eye contact often with the players. But we didn’t even think until it was too late that we should wink at Rolston. Once we decided we were going to do that the next time he skated his back-and-forth in front of us, he never came back. Oh, regrets.

After the game — and the booing the power play, Zach — was over, we headed up into the Fire Lounge to see if we could get Chuck some ink. He’s a tattoo-wearing kind of duck, and we knew just the person to take care of it. Unfortunately, Doc was in Boston for the NBC game, but Gel-O was on hand, and proudly informed us that this was the first time he’d ever signed a duck. (We’ll have more on Chuck’s body art tomorrow.)

Chuck, you don’t need to check the train schedule; we’re driving home.

All in all, it was a brilliant evening. The moral of the story is that it really doesn’t matter what happens in a hockey game when you’re sitting in the second row.

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IPB’s Tropical Vacation

This is what our backyard looked like when we woke up this morning:

You know what, Gentle Reader? We need a break from this terrible winter weather. We’re hitting the road to go somewhere more temperate than New Jersey — Buffalo! We should be logging in once we’re there, but if you don’t hear from us for a few days, it’s because we’re enjoying soaking up the tropical climes.

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Devils vs. Red Wings, 12/5/09: A Documentary Feature About Boomer’s First Trip To The Rawk

Yesterday we took Boomer to see her first game at The Rawk. Because the Devils were playing the Wings, it was “Honor the 1995 Cup Team” night, and they showed a little two-part documentary during the intermissions about that SCF. It was a standard-format documentary, with a narrator reading a script over game highlights, flavoring snippets of the real-time TV commentary from the series, and frequent flavoring clips of interviews with Devils players reminiscing about that Cup run. What was hilarious was that every interview clip of Shawn Chambers involved him stated whatever obvious thing the narrator just said. Like the part where they got to Nieder’s coast-to-coast goal in Detroit, and after the narration explained that Nieder was young and fast, Chambers popped up to say, “Scott Niedermayer was such a fast skater.” Thanks, Shawn! In that spirit, here is a documentary post about our day yesterday, with Shawn Chambers providing the insider commentary.

Narrator: It was a perfect December Saturday at stately IPB Manor. There was hockey on the TV, quilt fabric to be cut, Christmas cookies to be eaten, presents strewn about everywhere, and snow gently falling outside. And there was a festive spirit in the air, as the Ookies were taking Boomer to her first game at The Rawk that evening.

Shawn Chambers: It was snowing outside. And that’s a lot of presents.

Narrator: At about a quarter to five, the denizens of stately IPB Manor put on their Devils sweaters, loaded up their camera bags, and piled into the car; they were finally going to try driving to a game instead of having to wait for the train. Armed with Christmas carols on their iPod, everything should have been perfect for an easy drive to Newark, but the Ookies and Boomer hadn’t counted on the lousy weather. Snow is great when you’re home and don’t have anywhere to go, but it’s a completely different creature when you’re trying to drive in it.

Shawn Chambers: Snow is hard to drive in!

Narrator: While Pookie struggled with the low visibility, Schnookie tried to take pictures to preserve a sense of the yuckiness of the roads for generations to come. Ultimately, Pookie did a better job with the driving than Schnookie did with the camera.

Shawn Chambers: Someone needed to take the camera away from Schnookie.

Narrator: The drive was an adventure. There was a call to 911 to report a minor accident that, as it turned out, had already been reported.

Shawn Chambers: The Ookies and Boomer called 911. They were trying to be good citizens.

Narrator: There were the weird new traffic patterns on Rte. 1 in New Brunswick.

Shawn Chambers: The traffic patterns on 1 in New Brunswick are weird.

Narrator: And then there was the matter of the driving directions to the parking garage that the Devils offer on their website.

Shawn Chambers: The Devils offer driving directions to the arena parking.

Narrator: Before leaving the house, the Ookies tried to match up the directions with a look at the area on Google Maps, but the interchanges between the Turnpike, 78, 1-9, and everything else around Exit 14 is nothing but a tangle of ramps and cloverleafs when you look at a map.

Shawn Chambers: The map makes no sense.

Narrator: But as it turns out, the directions on the Devils site are tragically vague. It would have been helpful to clarify whether a person should be taking the ramp for 1-9 north or 1-9 south, and also to figure out whether they really mean that the exit to 21 is three miles after getting on 1-9 (north? South? Who even knows?).

Shawn Chambers: Those directions make no sense.

Narrator: Before long, after getting off the Turnpike, the Ookies realized they were lost.

Shawn Chambers: The Prudential Center isn’t in Elizabeth.

Narrator: It was 6:15 at this point, and the GPS system in Pookie’s car wasn’t helping, because no one knew what the area they were looking for was supposed to look like, thanks to the street map in that area being a Gordian knot, and the Devils-provided driving directions being a pile of poop. Some bickering flared up.

Shawn Chambers: Schnookie was sorry she ruined Pookie’s life, and vice versa. Boomer was sorry that she got dragged into this in the first place.

Narrator: Wishy-washiness set in, that sense of “we’ll just keep driving in a straight line in this direction forever and ever now that we’re lost, because there’s simply no point in ever trying to be found again” ennui. Pookie’s iPhone’s GPS was brought into play. The iPhone told the Ookies that they were 1 hour and 48 minutes from the arena. It was 6:30.

Shawn Chambers: That sucked.

Narrator: Despair overtook the stately IPB Car. They were going to miss the game at this rate. But then they realized that the iPhone was giving them walking directions.

Shawn Chambers: It’s faster to drive than to walk.

Narrator: It turns out they were just 12 minutes from the arena. But they hit every stoplight in Elizabeth and Newark along the way, so they arrived inside the arena just as the Devils starting lineup was being announced.

Shawn Chambers: They didn’t miss any action!

Narrator: The trauma of the trip to the arena was quickly forgotten, though, because Boomer’s mind was blown by the awesomeness of the arena, and by the awesomeness of their seats.

Shawn Chambers: The fifth-row seats rocked. They had a really good view of the ice, and of the Devils bench. It was cool.

Narrator: As if they knew this was Boomer’s Christmas present, the Devils decided not to suck in the first period, unlike recent games. In fact, they went up 2-0, including one of those crazy Johnny Oduya goals where he gets the puck in his own zone, starts skating, realizes the other team sucks, and just scores on his own. He does that whenever the Ookies are at the game in person, so it was a great convergence of his return to the lineup and their return to Newark.

Shawn Chambers: Johnny Oduya likes the Ookies.

Narrator: The Ookies are total girls, and got all excited when Zach took off his helmet on the bench.

Shawn Chambers: Zach’s dreamy. I love it when he takes his helmet off on the bench.

Narrator: Having been in the building in October for Marty’s shutout against the Hurricanes, the Ookies were highly confident they were going to see the record-setting shutout on this night. They were wrong.

Shawn Chambers: 2-1 is not nearly as good a score as 2-0.

Narrator: But things started looking up again when PandoNation’s emperor-god got an assist! Welcome back to the lineup, Pando! Pando also almost scored a goal, but the puck was pulled off the goal line by a Wings defender; Schnookie thinks that should have counted.

Shawn Chambers: 3-1 is a very good score, and 4-1 would have been even better.

Narrator: But this is the Devils, and it wouldn’t be a Devils game lately without a blown third-period lead.

Shawn Chambers: 3-3 is not nearly as good a score as 3-1.

Narrator: AndyGreeneNation’s emperor-god took a bit of a stumble in the eyes of his adoring people.

Shawn Chambers: It wasn’t Blandy’s best game.

Narrator: But a game in person is all about the experience, and Boomer and the Ookies had a great time. There was lots of action on the ice, and the chicken fingers in the Fire Lounge were plentiful.

Shawn Chambers: Chicken fingers taste good.

Narrator: The only problem was that rude guy in front of them who wouldn’t sit down.

Shawn Chambers: Victory Euro Mats is so rude. He thinks he’s the only person at the arena.

Narrator: In the end, Boomer’s Christmas present turned out to be a 4-3 shootout win! WOO HOOO!

Shawn Chambers: In actual hockey terms, that’s less a 4-3 win than a somewhat disappointing 3-3 tie. The Devils didn’t fool Boomer that much.

Narrator: But it was a great a great night, and the stately IPB Car did not get lost on its way back home.

Shawn Chambers: Getting home is nice.

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HOW DID WE NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?!?!

We have learned a valuable lesson today, Gentle Reader, about the dangers of letting yourself disconnect completely from popular culture. Behold:

Okay, we never watched “The Sopranos”. And while we were vaguely aware of what the opening credits were like, it wasn’t until today that we actually watched them. (As an aside, the reason for watching them was that we’re planning Patty (In Dallas)’s visit here [EEEEEEEE!], and wanted to give her an idea of the difference between the drives from Philly and Newark.) The first minute of the credits is, in reverse, our Devils season-ticket experience! It made us so nostalgic, all that Turnpike awesomeness. But the image at 0:37… that just blew our minds.

You see, when we had season tickets, we went to every single game, every year. All the preseason games, all 41 home games, and the two or three playoff games before the end of the first-round flameout. Our glory days only lasted 3 1/2 years, but that’s still roughly 160 drives up and down the Turnpike for our beloved Devils. Needless to say, the entire 90-minute drive became highly ritualized for us, with its own mythology and wildly-spun fictions. We had to say hello to the melted Javy Lopez life-sized blow-up doll on the tarmac at Newark. There were always hearty greetings for Trevor “Big Trev” Linden at the Linden refinery plant. And, most importantly, there was Hydro-Puf.

It’s hard to say what prompted the start of Hydro-Puf’s story, but suffice to say that it ended up thusly: Schnookie and Eric Fichaud (don’t ask) lived in the old, run-down Hyrdro-Pruf factory after the Exit 15 divergence, and in 1997 Fichaud tried to go to the All-Star Game in San Jose by kickboarding through the Panama Canal on his kickboard named Hydro-Puffie. Every time we drove past Hydro-Puf, we all heartily greeted Fiche, and discussed all the amenities his dilapidated surrounds had to offer (like the hot tub on the top of the crumbling industrial tower). There is no more beloved landmark on the New Jersey Turnpike for us than Hydro-Puf. Every time we drove past it — for any reason, Devils or otherwise — we giggled. Every time we took the train into the City, we craned our necks to see if we could catch a glimpse of it, even though we knew we couldn’t. Every time we flew into or out of Newark, we hoped against hope to see it from the plane. Hydro-Puf is as much a part of our Devils experience as the Meadowlands itself. Even after the “F” fell off and it was saddled with the indignity of being called Hydro-Pu.

And all this time, it was featured prominently on the opening credits of “The Sopranos”. Who knew??

Hi Fiche!

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IPB Eyewitnesses: Devils vs. Senators, 1/4/09

Today we made the long, long trek up to The Rawk to take in all the sights and sounds of the Devils facing off for a 5:00 Sunday game. Along for the ride? Pookie’s coworker Elizabeth, a Mets fan who is considering becoming a hockey fan to help pass the offseason. We couldn’t have picked a better game to showcase all that’s great in hockey.

Just kidding!

Okay, only kind of kidding. We had fabulous seats right up close to the net the Devils shot at twice (almost exactly where our old season tickets were, actually), so the big goals all happened right in our laps, and the Senators’ goals mostly happened way down at the end of the ice that we couldn’t see, so it was kind of like they never happened at all.

We’re both terrible at seeing hockey well in person, so we’ll go easy on the game analysis here. As far as we could tell, the Devils were not great for about 55 minutes (with the exception of the Zubrus/Patty/Gio line), then Captain Fuck This Shit was reminded that his opponent was the Senators, so he took his patented Fuck This Shit move out of mothballs to tie the game up late, and then Patty kicked in when he realized it was OT, drew a penalty, set the tone on the 4-on-3, and then Rolston sent us all home happy. That’s about it, right?

So the fact that we went into the game telling Elizabeth, “The only thing you need to know is that the Senators are profoundly awful,” then kept repeating it to her every time they took the lead, is beside the point. As is the fact that the Devils were catastrophically bad on the PK. Two points is two points, and Pollyanna would say that good teams find ways to win, even when they suck.

Most of all, though, we love that we got a picture of Pando as King Of The Good Ole Hockey Game:

And when we ordered our beers (Hoegaardens), the lady manning the tap declared, “Three hos!”

Three hos. That’s us.

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Chicken-Fried Stars Practice (In Dallas)

Gentle Reader, we wanted to have new hockey content to share with you, really we did. This morning we got up bright and early and headed out to the Stars’ practice rink, ready to see some bag skating after the sucktitude the Stars displayed in their game on Saturday. Instead, we saw this:

Yup, that’s Sergei Zubov, in wind pants, doing his low-speed “I’m on LTIR” workout. And there’s no one else there. It’s just like being back in New Jersey, being the only people attending a practice that won’t ever start. Dallas is way more like home than we ever expected.

So instead of watching hockey, we spent our day at the State Fair of Texas. You know what the fair is famous for this year?

CHICKEN-FRIED BACON.

Pookie wrote a poem about this delicacy that sums it up perfectly:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Chicken-fried bacon
You’re the most amazing thing ever invented good golly but you’re freaking delicious.

Today was the last day of the fair, but next year you should all mark your calendars and make the trip to see Big Tex — it’s well worth it!

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