Pittsbonk: A live blog of my journey to game 2.
by Bonk's Mullet
Hey sports fans. Welcome to my new site. I apologize that the site currently is about as stylish as a mullet, but I promise I didn't mean to make the rest of the internet look bad on purpose.
Join me today on my journey to Pittsburgh for game 2.
Live Blog:
6:15 AM: I have just woken up. I would reflect on the dream I had of Latendresse scoring a magnificent OT winner tonight, but I'll just wait to witness it in person.
7:00 AM: Bag is packed with only essentials. Socks, underwear, and my Sens Jersey. No room for pants.
7:30 AM: Walking to the bus station, I come across a sign. It's a patented Alfie hair elastic, discarded on the sidewalk. Alfie is letting his hair loose tonight.
8:00 AM: I am on the bus. I have decided to nickname the guy next to me Pissburgh. I'll let you guess why. (Hint: It has to do with his personal aroma)
8:20 AM: Pissburgh now has some serious competition from the man behind us: Snottsburgh.
10:30 AM: We are stopped in Harrisburg, PA. There is a carnival next to the bus stop. They appear to be hiring people for their sideshows, so I submitted a job application for Raffi Torres.
11:11 AM: ALFIE! ALFIE! ALFIE!
7:00 AM: Bag is packed with only essentials. Socks, underwear, and my Sens Jersey. No room for pants.
7:30 AM: Walking to the bus station, I come across a sign. It's a patented Alfie hair elastic, discarded on the sidewalk. Alfie is letting his hair loose tonight.
8:00 AM: I am on the bus. I have decided to nickname the guy next to me Pissburgh. I'll let you guess why. (Hint: It has to do with his personal aroma)
8:20 AM: Pissburgh now has some serious competition from the man behind us: Snottsburgh.
10:30 AM: We are stopped in Harrisburg, PA. There is a carnival next to the bus stop. They appear to be hiring people for their sideshows, so I submitted a job application for Raffi Torres.
11:11 AM: ALFIE! ALFIE! ALFIE!
12:00 PM: Popeye's Chicken for lunch at a rest stop. I've got greasier mittens than Erik Karlsson.
12:30 PM: I've been contacted by a few different press members for media availability. Boy are they going to be disappointed to find out I'm not actually a sentient hairpiece.
1:00 PM: Vocal exercises for my interview with CBC's Alan Neal later today. "Guillaume Latendresse is the best, I confess. Craig Anderson feasts on the beasts from the East. You won't.be puck stoppin' when Kyle Turris is #BigBootyPoppin. Alfie clappers beat Vokoun trappers."
2:00 PM: Pre-game nap. Pissburgh has been doing so on my shoulder for a while now. Napping that is...not...you're disgusting. I'm counting Pageau goals to fall asleep.
5:20 PM: Met up with Jordan Nelson, the brave man who decided to come to the game with me after he read my extremely convincing Craiglist ad. Jordan is from Wisconsin and picked a random team to cheer for when he was a teenager. Clearly he made the right choice. It was moderately easy to spot him in his bright red Silfverberg jersey sticking out like a sore thumb among all the black, gold, navy blue, light blue, sky blue, and powder blue jerseys.
5:30 PM: A bus of kids going to prom started heckling us out the window. This was shocking to me as I had no idea the Penguins had any fans over the age of 15.
5:40 PM: Did a radio interview with CBC's Alan Neal for "All In A Day". I'll post the audio once I have it. We talked about screaming prom goers, Sens Money on the Board, and my swanky hotel. While doing the interview, CBC's Stu Mills (@StuMills) was waving trying to get my attention, not knowing who I was talking to. Apparently I'm a hot ticket at CBC this week. I'll be taking PJ Stock's spot on the HNIC panel tomorrow night.
12:30 PM: I've been contacted by a few different press members for media availability. Boy are they going to be disappointed to find out I'm not actually a sentient hairpiece.
1:00 PM: Vocal exercises for my interview with CBC's Alan Neal later today. "Guillaume Latendresse is the best, I confess. Craig Anderson feasts on the beasts from the East. You won't.be puck stoppin' when Kyle Turris is #BigBootyPoppin. Alfie clappers beat Vokoun trappers."
2:00 PM: Pre-game nap. Pissburgh has been doing so on my shoulder for a while now. Napping that is...not...you're disgusting. I'm counting Pageau goals to fall asleep.
2:25 PM: Just saw Jason Spezza hitchhiking on the side of the road. It turns out he could have made the trip with the team but they offered his plane ticket to a mother with a crying baby, as his laugh is considered too annoying.
2:50 PM: Pulling in to Pittsburgh now. Given the Penguins fanbase, I'm shocked to see there are people over the age of 15 in this city.
2:52 PM: I will miss you Mr. Pissburgh.
3:00 PM: Bonk's Brain is still back in Philly so I've lost my wallet. Luckily Matt Kassian isn't up to anything today so he's offered to help me find it.
3:20 PM: I left it on the bus and the driver found it, but I have to pick it up later. They said it would be back in no time, but that's also what they said about Spezza.
3:45 PM: There are many Penguins jerseys in the city today. I've opted not to wear my Sens jersey until I get my wallet back. Even then it might not be a good idea.
3:50 PM: Speaking of bad ideas, I just spotted someone taking a smoke break in a Marc Andre Fleury jersey. I can't be sure it wasn't Marc Andre Fleury. Although he didn't drop his cigarette once, so it couldn't be him.
4:19 PM: Just spotted a child wearing a Pascale Dupuis jersey stop and wait to cross the street until his mom held his hand. She was wearing a Crosby jersey.
4:45 PM: Booked a hotel for the night on Hotwire for $80. Turns out it was the Omni, which is where the Sens were staying. This update was brought to you by Hotwire.com. "Hotwire: Sleep with the Sens!"
5:00 PM: Ran into Mika Zibanejad outside the elevators. I quietly said "Go Sens go" under my breath. He planned a careful response. He went with, "Heh heh. Thanks." You could say we had a moment.
5:20 PM: Met up with Jordan Nelson, the brave man who decided to come to the game with me after he read my extremely convincing Craiglist ad. Jordan is from Wisconsin and picked a random team to cheer for when he was a teenager. Clearly he made the right choice. It was moderately easy to spot him in his bright red Silfverberg jersey sticking out like a sore thumb among all the black, gold, navy blue, light blue, sky blue, and powder blue jerseys.
5:30 PM: A bus of kids going to prom started heckling us out the window. This was shocking to me as I had no idea the Penguins had any fans over the age of 15.
5:40 PM: Did a radio interview with CBC's Alan Neal for "All In A Day". I'll post the audio once I have it. We talked about screaming prom goers, Sens Money on the Board, and my swanky hotel. While doing the interview, CBC's Stu Mills (@StuMills) was waving trying to get my attention, not knowing who I was talking to. Apparently I'm a hot ticket at CBC this week. I'll be taking PJ Stock's spot on the HNIC panel tomorrow night.
5:50 PM: Chatted with Stu about the lack of Sens fans in game 1. I saw at least 20 Sens fans who showed up for game 2, which is about 19 more than the number of Sens who showed up to play.
6:00 PM: Drinking beers at the outdoor bar outside the arena. Pittsburgh radio station doing the show live from the patio calls us out for our Sens jerseys. Uh oh. We were expecting to be shit on live on the air. Then they thanked us for visiting Pittsburgh. They must be desperate for tourism. We chatted with dozens of Pens fans who were extremely receptive of us. It felt dirty. I wished all of them the worst of luck for the game. One of them had a shirt that said "Mullett Lake Country Club" so we were destined to be best friends. Apparently it's a real thing.
7:00 PM: We've entered the arena. People are less nice now.
7:15 PM: People seem to like this Crosby character.
6:00 PM: Drinking beers at the outdoor bar outside the arena. Pittsburgh radio station doing the show live from the patio calls us out for our Sens jerseys. Uh oh. We were expecting to be shit on live on the air. Then they thanked us for visiting Pittsburgh. They must be desperate for tourism. We chatted with dozens of Pens fans who were extremely receptive of us. It felt dirty. I wished all of them the worst of luck for the game. One of them had a shirt that said "Mullett Lake Country Club" so we were destined to be best friends. Apparently it's a real thing.
7:00 PM: We've entered the arena. People are less nice now.
7:15 PM: People seem to like this Crosby character.
7:30 PM: Jeff Jefferson, the guy with the most made up name in the world sings the anthems.
Game Time (I'll spare you of the in-game play by play)
First period: Crosbied. Need more beer.
First intermission: Met up with medical wizard, Twitter superstar, and friend of the blog Jo Innes. Unfortunately the intermission was hardly long enough to lick our wounds. The second couldn't be worse right?
Game Time (I'll spare you of the in-game play by play)
First period: Crosbied. Need more beer.
First intermission: Met up with medical wizard, Twitter superstar, and friend of the blog Jo Innes. Unfortunately the intermission was hardly long enough to lick our wounds. The second couldn't be worse right?
Second period: This is worse. Starting to get our first real heckling from a pair of Pens fans. They started throwing yellow and black M&M's at us, which was both shameful and delicious. They also through a tin of chew at Jordan.
Second intermission: My sadness was quelled by a kind Pens fan who offered to buy me a beer. Again, I couldn't be more blown away by how nice Penguins fans are.
Third period: Two Penguins fans stole our seats. Screw Penguins fans. Pretty clever joke actually. I'll give them that.
Post-game: Chatted with a bunch of Pens fans in the lobby. More than half of them brought up the Cooke-Karlsson incident, either apologizing, or asking about how Ottawa fans felt about it. I assured them only a small portion of the fanbase is Melnyk-crazy. We had a few beers in the hotel bar. Surprisingly, none of the Sens were there, but given their performance, it's possible they drank before the game.
Overall, Pittsburgh was a great experience. I'm still shocked as to how nice the fans were. I'm assuming if the scoreboard was reversed, we'd have had a less pillowy reaction from fans. I'm going to post a separate blog with photos from my trip.
Stay classy in the front.
Second intermission: My sadness was quelled by a kind Pens fan who offered to buy me a beer. Again, I couldn't be more blown away by how nice Penguins fans are.
Third period: Two Penguins fans stole our seats. Screw Penguins fans. Pretty clever joke actually. I'll give them that.
Post-game: Chatted with a bunch of Pens fans in the lobby. More than half of them brought up the Cooke-Karlsson incident, either apologizing, or asking about how Ottawa fans felt about it. I assured them only a small portion of the fanbase is Melnyk-crazy. We had a few beers in the hotel bar. Surprisingly, none of the Sens were there, but given their performance, it's possible they drank before the game.
Overall, Pittsburgh was a great experience. I'm still shocked as to how nice the fans were. I'm assuming if the scoreboard was reversed, we'd have had a less pillowy reaction from fans. I'm going to post a separate blog with photos from my trip.
Stay classy in the front.
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