Highway to Hell...New Jersey Devils vs Carolina Hurricanes

Ah, New Jersey…the Garden State. I keep looking for this garden and I’ve yet to see it. Granted I’ve only been through New Jersey or in Newark, so I guess it’s not fair to call it a burned out shit hole. Jersey has 2 things going for it:
1. You can see New York from it.
2. The New Jersey Devils.

You can guess what we were there for. We stayed in Jersey City and the hotel was very nice. It was the Hyatt on the Hudson. We had a great view of the beautiful Hudson River. We did have a room near the corner though and we could see New York looking one way and Lady Liberty the other way.

The city that never sleeps. One of the views from our window.



Lady Liberty in the other view





I of course couldn't go see my beloved New Jersey Devils without signs! I made them at home and rolled them up inside of a wrapping paper tube so they wouldn't get crushed in my luggage.

For my former Thrasher, Niclas Havelid I had this sign. I'm not sure if he saw it or not, I couldn't tell. :( Johnny Oduya saw it though. The Swedish probably caught his eye. I loved being able to have a Thrashers sign in the Rock.



And, for my Marty I made this. He loved it! He totally did. I could absolutely tell...absolutely.




Me and Shauna at The Rock waiting for warm ups. Damn we are cute.

And there he is...the God of the Pipes. Of course you know this is going to be a "Welcome to the Marty Brodeur Show" post. He's looking at my sign.

Marty smiling...probably about my sign.

Warming up

Clarkson: Hey man, welcome to the Devils.

Weekes: Dude, it's me Kevin. I've been here.

Clarkson: Kevin...Kevin...not ringing a bell.

Weekes: I'm the back-up goalie.

Clarkson: No, we sent Clemmerson back to Lowell.

Weekes: *sigh*

Lycka Till Niclas! I hope you do well with the Devils.

Captain Langenbruner

More Marty!

Trainer: Hey you have a fan over there.

Marty: Yep.

Trainer: Nice sign. Wow she came all the way from Atlanta to see you.

Marty: Yep. She rocks. She made me a sign when I was in Atlanta in October and got my 97th shutout. She sent me a bitchin' get well card, too.

Trainer: She's kind of cute, too.

Marty: Yeah, she pretty much rocks.

Marty doing his stretches. Looks like something I'd have in my basement to trap goalies.

Don't worry, Marty! I'm still here.

"Dear God, please let these lazy bastards get off of their ass and play as well in front of me as they did for Clemmer. Thank you. Amen. Please. I'm sorry about the sister in law thing."

Eric Staal stretching. Eric probably thinks I'm stalking him, I've seen him five times this season. You have no worries Eric, I'm stalking other things on this sheet of ice.

Clarkson

Awwwww, it's Shanny. All of the ladies love Shanny. Except Shauna who calls him Oldmanahan.

Marty doing his Smooth Criminal pose.

Warming up Weekes...to do what exactly?

You can NEVER have enough Clarkson

Let the game begin! The opening chords of AC/DC's "Hell's Bell" started up and we lost our mind.

Marty after the Star Spangled Banner

SO EXCITED

SO EXCITED

SO EXCITED

I got the kiss! Kind of an awkward shot, but you can totally see it. Marty has his children's initials on the back of his mask and he kisses them before every game. Awwwwwww.

The Rock is a phenomenally beautiful brand new arena with state of the arts electronics and other features. Unfortunately their glass looks like someone threw up on it and the protective net looks like that stuff they make the bags out of that oranges are sold in. Not the easiest to shoot through.

Marty waiting for his crease to be cleaned.

Action. Not bad seats, not great for pics though.

NJ Devil!!!

Marty being fantastical.

Cam Ward. Wardo had a pretty good night, too.

A fight down in front of Marty.

The ref separating the two trouble makers.

Face off by Marty.

More discussions.

I don't know what Marty is looking at, but boy he doesn't like it. I had the same look on my face while riding the PATH through Newark.

Marty: Geez, do you think you guys could wake up and score some goals. I know I'm the greatest goalie that ever lived, but what more can I do.

Mottau: Sorry Marty.

Marty: You boys need to light a fire under it. Play like you did for Clemmer.

Mottau: We are trying.

Marty: No you....you know what, never mind. Next face off you shoot me the puck and I'll freaking score.

*waves* Here I am Marty!! Over here!

Guess that talk with Mottau didn't help. They scored on Marty with minutes left in the game. A disgusted Marty pulls himself up.

Poor Marty!!

That's it! It was so much fun even though we lost. I had been to The Rock before, but not with Marty there. It was so awesome to see him in his "house."

Next stop Philadelphia! Cheesesteaks, historical monuments and Flyers, woot woot!

Unpleasant surprise after the Nashville game

So we are heading back to the car after the game and I'm on a high from victory and seeing Nabakov. We are getting ready to start the car and I see there is a note on the windsheild. Serge grabs it. I figured it was an ad or something. Oh no.

It was a hand written note that said "A car hit your car and didn't stop. Here is his tag number." So we called the cops and reported it and got an incident number. GREAT!

It's not bad, but it peeled some paint off.

Winner of the Second "Caption This" contest!!

Well, the winner ONCE AGAIN of my contest is Aaron. He's too funny for his own good. I knew it would probably win as soon as I read it. It totally cracked me up.

Aaron has one both contests and will be getting a snazy Atlanta Thrashers hat very similar to this one.

So the official caption for this pic is:

Darren: "You know the sign girl that's always stalking Moose? She's here, and she's got a sign for you!"

Eric: "Me? Holy shit where's the back door!!"

Congrats Aaron!

Kicking off the road trip....Nashville vs San Jose

Serge and I love to go up and watch Predator games in Nashville. I'm not into honkey tonkin country music stuff, so it's about the only thing the city has for me. It does have the only life size replica of Greece's Parthenon which is outstanding. ANYWAY...the San Jose Sharks were coming so we decided to take a little road trip and drive up. For the road trip we had snacks provided by Candace..actually Aaron MADE them, they were rootbeer cookies, yum!

We love the Nasvhille hockey crowd. It's by far one of the best arenas. The fans are knowledgeable, excited and super enthusiastic.

Jumbo tron advertising their next game.


Everyone knows why I'm here...Evgeni Nabakov



Skate it out, baby.



Nabby making a glove save



Waiting for some more shots



more warm up



The Sharks went on to lose this game. By the 2nd period Nabby was frustrated I'm sure. I heard something that I can't verify because I did not see it. Some of the fans near me said that Nabby purposely kicked the shovel out of the hand of one of the ice crew. I did not see this myself, so I refuse to believe it. I did see the refs talking to him a few seconds later. If this happened, it's an asshole thing to do and I'm super disappointed.

Nabby says it never happened.
Nabby: Nyet, нет, я не пнул лопаткоулавливатель



He was insulted I could believe such a thing and said no more pictures.


Here's San Jose's bruise, Shelley



Jumbo Joe!

Everyone's favorite, Jeremy Roenick. JR was a goof and made faces at the fans. LOVE IT!

I was disappointed that Cheechoo wasn't there, but Setaguchi was.

Ah, Pekka Rinne. He totally showed up this season and took Dan Ellis' job. He's been performing fantastically and is putting up Steve Mason like numbers. There's been some whispers of him even being considered for a nomination for "Rookie of the Year."

Baby Pickles, Marc-Edward Vlasic

JR: I heard that chick from "Getting Pucks Deep" is here tonight.

Joe: No way, I thought she covered Atlanta.

JR: I don't know, that's what I heard.

Joe: I hear she's pretty cute.

More JR

Boucher warming up

If you leave your mouth hanging open or have your tongue hanging out...it makes what ever you are doing work better.

We had really great seats. They were high up, in 325, but dead center ice. So armed with my cowbell, Tootoo whistle and camera, we made our way up.

Nabby getting ready for the game after the National Anthem.

Nashville taking it to the net

Nabby covering the puck

Action

Don't worry Nabs, it didn't go in

Awww, Nabby's net fell over. Actually, they shoved it off the moorings...TWICE. Shame on you San Jose!

End of the first period, time for the intermission show.


Oh goody. Nothing like a good "ho" down.

Nashville has a live band play the intermissions. It's pretty cool. They don't play much if any country music surprisingly.

Rinne getting his crease ready

Nabby doing the lean *swoon*

Tootoo and Shelly were barking and chirping at each other all night. Of course the ref would run in and break it up or send one of them off the ice. If they would have just let them go and give them the 5 minutes it would have been over.

Tootoo ended up getting a RIDICULOUS penalty that allowed the Sharks to score on a power play. The ref had his back to him when he blew the whistle. He didn't even see what was going on. AWFUL!

Celebrating after a goal

Action

A discussion in front of Pekka's net

Nabby tracking the puck

Pekka is thirsty!

Last minute time out to try and get things going to tie it up

They pull Nabby and put the extra man out. Nabby and Boucher watch the action.

Woo hoo! Preds win.

Yes Gnash, you ARE #1 tonight! Preds win and my winning streak at visiting arenas remains intact (for now). In every arena I've visited this season...the home team wins, whether I want it to or not (as in Thrashers v Philly and Thrashers v Carolina).

The next morning Serge and I drove home and the next day Shauna and I jumped on the plain for Jersey!