First Trip to Consol

Last night I was able to make my first trip to Consol Energy Center. Granted my maiden voyage followed the likes of Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, and my own mother, who hasn't been to a Penguin game since before I was born. So needless to say I was late to the party.

So everything seemed the same as it would if I were going to Mellon/Civic Arena, same route to the game, same parking lot, same amount of booze consumed before, but then it all changed.

My first impression of the new arena was somewhat of a downer due to the fact that noone working the facility had any idea what they were doing and where to direct fans. After taking a round-about way, we finally entered the building and made our way to the new Lexus club. For all intents and purposes, it's still the Igloo club to me. One cool thing that I noticed was that as you walk past the massive suites, if you run your ticket across the barcode scanner, Phil Bourque's voice comes on and tells you that you are in the wrong room. Pretty funny.

So we wind our way past the suites, and finally enter the Lexus club, which is set up to be a fine dining establishment. Granted, it does cater to high-end clientale, and some jabronies like myself, but they took it too high scale. It's still a hockey game, not a funderaiser in the Hamptons. Hockey jerseys and hats are still worn during the meal, yet the ambiance of the place does not fit the mood of the event.

Can't complain about the meal, pork tenderloin, duck, elk, pasta, the best Caesar salad this side of the real Caesar's Palace.



After finishing up the meal, minus desert, I have learned not to eat the desert, while delicious, it will fill you up and ruin your game watching ability, we made the ridiculous walk to our seats.

Our seats were two rows above the visitor's penalty box, pretty sweet, a little too close in that some of the views are obstructed, but so close to the action that you can actually hear Crosby say "fuck."

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Jeff Jimerson fan, but with Mike Comrie and Mike Fisher in this game, I was hoping that their wives, Hillary Duff and Carrie Underwood would have dueling National Anthems in bikinis. Now that would be patriotic.

On an unpatriotic note, I do like the Canadian Anthem. As Larry David would say, its pretty good.

The game starts, Pens vs. Sens, Brent Johnson and his 3-0 record is in net. I can't argue with what Bylsma is doing. Yes, he has a very highly paid goaltender, with a Stanley Cup to his credit, sitting on the bench, but you have to go with the hot hand, and right now that is Johnson. Whatever needs to happen for the Pens to win is fine by me. And to back up Bylsma's decision, Johnson didn't disappoint.

Game starts off with both teams trading penalties back and forth. No dice for either side. Chris Neil then serves a penalty for too many men. Kinda fitting if you ask me. After the first unit looks blah, the second unit comes on, and after a great keep in by Paul Martin, Mark Letestu roofs the shot to give the Pens a 1-0 lead.

Not too much longer, the box is revisited by our old friend Chris Neil. Alex Goligoski takes a shot, it jumps off the new boards right to Sidney Crosby's stick. Easy. Sid couldn't let Letestu hold the team lead in goals, so he made quick work and tied it back up.

Going into the game there was a quiet anticipation being that it was Sergei Gonchar's return to the burgh. I will never say anything bad about the guy. Yeah he started off like crap, and his last game as a Pen was crap, but that time in between he was a solid as any offensive-minded defender could be. He joined the Pens during the dark ages, a time when Ziggy Palffey couldn't even last a season without getting frustrated and retiring. But Gonch held on, captained our Powerplay, lugged the puck into the zone when noone else could, always got the puck to the net, buried timely goals, played underrated d, and raised the Cup. All in all a great stint in the black and vegas gold. Sure he left in the offseason, he got the extra year he wanted and made some bank. The Pens wanted him, he wanted the Pens, but at days end the figures didn't line up and Gonch was sent packing. Great guy, great teammate, and great hockey player. He will be missed in Pittsburgh.

A nice standing O by the Pens faithful. Gotta love the song.



So the first continues, Malkin can't let everyone else have all the fun, makes a diving play at a puck and puts it in the twine.

Then we get another visit from our buddy Neil. He's a dick. A less skilled Matt Cooke, but with better fighting chops. Everyone has seen Deryk Engelland knockout of Colton Orr, so of course Neil challenges Engelland. They turn in a pretty good fight. I would call it a draw, but there was some heavy punches thrown.



Finally intermission. My bladder was about at its limit, so after a hike up Mount Kilamanjaro, I finally made it to the pisser. I would have thought it would be bigger to accomodate more people at once, but it wasn't bad.

The second begins and the Pens hold the vaunted 3-0 lead. Daniel Alfredsson and his gingerness rain on the parade and he sends a laser far post over Johnson's glove. 3-1.

Well the Pens said the hell with this, and scored 2 quick goals back-to-back. One from Pascal Dupuis and his October mustache, and the other from Kris Letang. The second also brought us the Kiss cam, which focused on gold digging wives with old ugly men. Comical in its own right.

The Senators come out early and score, which puts a dent in our plans for an early exit that would lead to the Rivers for some blackjack. We had initially planned to leave at the 12 minute mark if the score was still 5-1, but with the Sens tally we moved our exit time to 8 minutes.

Mike Rupp and Matt Carkner get into a fight, followed by Ben Lovejoy, the best Christmas name of all time, and guess who, Chris Neil. They kick Neil out of society and we don't see him again. Jarkko Ruutu and Crosby were getting ready to mix it up, but I guess even Ruutu knows better than to mess with Crosby, and the two former teammates skate away. So Carkner is this massive human being. We sat so close to the box that we had a great view of him, he is just huge. So while the refs were squaring up the penalties, Carkner and Crosby were jawing at each other through the glass. Gotta love Crosby but he would get demolished. His yapper was only running because the mammoth was behind two panes of glass. Crosby kept saying, "Who the fuck are you?" which was probably a legit question coming from the face of the NHL.

As if it were meant to be, there was a stoppage at exactly the 8 minute mark, and we climbed up the stairs and made our way out of the arena.

Off to the Rivers, after some beautiful blackjack play, I left Pittsburgh up $100 on the night.

Good news for Pens fans, Jordan Staal practiced today for the first time since their playoff exit to the Habs in May.

My impressions of the arena are:

It's a nice place, a much needed and definate upgrade to Mellon/Civic.

Didn't get to walk around it much, but it seemed pretty high tech and upscale.

The staff wasn't too friendly

The staff had no idea what was going on. This is the first time people have been here, they don't know where they are going, the staff is needed to direct. Nope. They don't know where they are even going.

Jumbo Tron is awesome. Would make a way bigger explosion if Jean-Claude got a hold of this one.



Seats were comfortable, better than the stone-age cloth ones at the old building. They were also wider to accomodate fat asses, and they actually had cup holders so you don't have to worry about kicking over your $7 beer. However, the cup holders are too small for the beers and the beers get stuck, and you have a rough go at pulling them out, and ultimately spill some and because of frustration, end up holding your beer anyways.

I don't know its a nice place, gonna take some time to learn my way around, and take in all the sights, but it definately is an upgrade, and the team deserves to play in something other than a minor league facility.