Rocket Trombone

For whatever reason, I’ve had Queen songs stuck in my head all week.  (“One Vision” in particular.  Just gimme, gimme, gimme fried chicken.)  I love Queen.  They’re quite possibly my favorite band of all-time (in my Top 3 at the very least), and have been for many years.  I’m not sure why they are so firmly planted in my head this week, but apparently it’s contagious, since my sister is coming down to visit today just so we can hang out and watch my “Live at Wembley Stadium” concert DVD.  Well, we’ve been wanting to hang out anyway.  Watching the DVD just provided a convenient excuse.  I’m sure we’ll watch some movies, play games, and drink some beer too.  Anyway, I figured I’d share the love with all of you out there as well.  Here’s a video from the Wembley Stadium concert of “In The Lap Of The Gods.”  It’s an awesome song.  It blows my mind how powerful and moving the chorus is, despite the fact that it doesn’t have any words.  Love it.  Enjoy!

Last weekend, we went up to PA for a day of skiing with my mom at Camelback, the same place we went with her last year.  They’ve gotten a decent amount of snow up there this year (despite the lack of it closer to my house), and it’s been plenty cold, so the conditions were great.  The mountain wasn’t too crowded either, although some of the easier trails, which you have to take to reach many of the harder trails, had a lot more people on them, some of which were a bit (ahem) reckless.  But that aside, we got quite a lot of skiing in and had a fantastic day.

There was one odd thing we found during the day though.  From last year’s visit, we remembered a blue trail we had done a couple times which had been fairly tricky.  It was steep and, due to the number of people on that trail throughout the day, the snow had started to naturally form into moguls.  I vaguely remembered where it was and wanted to find it to try it again to see how the conditions were with fewer skiers.  So there we stood, in front of a giant trail map on a board at the top of a lift, searching for this trail.  But the only thing I could see in the area where I thought it should be was a black diamond.  I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out last year’s trail map and, sure enough, it was the trail we were looking for.  Last year it was a blue, and this year it was a black diamond.  Interesting!  It had been a pretty difficult run in our opinion last year, but we knew we had done it twice, so why not try it now?  It had a few icy spots in the steep section, but we made it and even decided to do it again.

What’s funny is that I think the arbitrary change of an arbitrary symbol on a map/sign made me more nervous.  Somehow it seemed more intimidating than before because now it’s a black diamond.  If I hadn’t done that trail before, I never would have tried it.  Since last year at Seven Springs we also skied a black diamond by accident (twice before we realized our mistake), due to a poorly marked and confusing trail crossing, we’ve now done two black trails.  So does this mean something?  Am I getting better at skiing?  Should I consider trying black diamonds on purpose?  Hmm, I dunno.  They’re still so scary…

It’s been kind of a funny winter so far.  The snow storms have been big and they’ve been pretty frequent, but they keep missing us.  It seems like every one will come across the South, dumping a bunch of snow on states that never get it, hit the ocean, turn north, pick up more moisture, and then dump even more snow on everything north and east of Philly.  But we get a dusting or nothing at all.  It’s very strange.

But one finally hit us this week, and it kind of came out of nowhere!  It hadn’t been mentioned in the forecasts at all just a few days ago.  I first noticed mention of it two days ago on Tuesday, but it didn’t sound like much of anything and it would be last Wednesday night.  However, throughout the day yesterday, the forecast steadily worsened.  The expected accumulation became an inch or two, then a few inches, then at least half a foot; the reports were all over the place.  But it was still supposed to be Wednesday night.  So I wasn’t worried when I walked into the computer lab at work a little before 4:00 yesterday afternoon.  When I came back out half an hour later, I saw that things had gotten very bad very fast.  There was already at least an inch, if not two, on the ground and it was coming down in huge clumps.  Yikes!  I quickly gathered up my stuff and got out of there, hoping to make it home before it got too awful.  I started to brush off the car and, by the time I made it all the way around, there was already a coating back on the areas I did first.  The roads were pretty slick and people were sliding all over the place, so I decided to take my normal back-road route to try to avoid the dangers of other cars.  This turned out to be a bad idea because the back roads are very hilly.  My little front-wheel drive Jetta just couldn’t climb them.  There wasn’t enough weight over the front wheels, so once the wheels lost traction, there was no way to continue.  I reluctantly retreated to the much flatter highway and, nearly two hours later, finally made it home.  (It’s only 6 miles and usually takes less than 15 minutes.)  I was mentally exhausted, but I made it safely back to my nice, warm house.

It continued snowing pretty hard through the evening.  We sat back to watch some TV and eat dinner, and heard this funny “whump” from outside.  We looked out and saw that the weight of the heavy, wet snow had brought down nearly half of our pear tree!  (see picture below)  Luckily, the section that fell was the part away from the house or the cars, so it didn’t hit anything.  However, the rest of the tree was drooping badly and any other branch that fell would hit something.  So we quickly scrambled to move the cars to safety across the parking lot.  Okay, perhaps “quickly” and “scrambled” aren’t the right words.  With all the snow on the ground, it took a long time and a tremendous effort to move my wife’s car, so we ended up leaving mine where it was.  Hers was closer to the tree anyway, only the very tips of the branches would reach mine.  So we went back inside, and eventually to bed, hoping that the rest of the tree held and we’d have a quiet night.

We woke this morning to find that the tree stood, but the branches were very low to the ground under the weight of the snow.  I think we ended up with around 7-8″, but it’s hard to tell because the snow compacted under its own weight.  It was definitely less deep this morning than when we were out trying to move the cars.  Thankfully, the snow plows worked all night and the roads were actually pretty decent on my way to work.  It’s a gorgeous, sunny day.  As suddenly as he storm arrived, it was gone!  Weather is really a funny thing…

With the holidays rapidly approaching, it means it’s time for one of the great traditions in the low-brass world: Tubachristmas!  What a great idea! Outdoor concerts all over the country where low-brass players get together by the hundreds and play Christmas carols. But, unfortunately, I play trombone, so I’m not invited!  This made me sad.  So I wrote a song (to the tune of South Park’s “A Jew on Christmas”):

It’s hard to be a trombone on Tubachristmas.
There is no concert where they’ll let me play.
And I can’t play Christmas songs
In Baltimore or in DC.
Because I have a slide
They think there’s something wrong with me.
How are ophicleides and serpents in the tuba family?!
I’m a ‘bone.
A lone trombone.
On tubachristmas.

So I posted a while back about all the ugly SUVs I’ve been seeing on the road lately.  In particular, I called out the Nissan Cube as being exceptionally odd-looking.  Well, it looks like Nissan has one-upped themselves.  I saw something new in the parking lot at work this week: the Nissan Juke.  I mean, take a look at this thing…

I’m sorry, to me that is just bizarre.  I don’t know what to make of it.  What’s up with the lights up above the fenders?  They kinda look like the eyes on a frog.  But then there’s the two big lights lower on the front.  Are those the headlights?  What’s going on here?  And the whole thing is very…lumpy.  It’s shaped like a potato.  Just not my cup of tea, I guess.  Wow.

I wrote a few months ago about starting off the “concert season” strong with two great shows, and we ended it strong this fall as well. Although with nothing in between…

First up were two concerts a mere three days apart in August at Merriweather Post Pavilion: Keane and Barenaked Ladies.  There was a pretty strong threat of rain for the Keane show and we had lawn tickets, so we dressed to get wet.  But it turned out that there were plenty of seats available in the outer sections under the pavilion, so the ushers allowed anyone with lawn tickets to move inside.  That worked out pretty well, since we got to sit much, much closer to the stage, and we stayed dry!  Keane put on a fantastic show.  I first heard their music maybe 2 years ago, and we picked up two more of their CDs this summer.  They’re British with a piano-rock style somewhat similar to Coldplay.  I’ve taken a pretty strong liking to them, so I was very excited for this concert and was not disappointed at all.  Do you know how some bands seem to be just playing their music on stage, while others are really “into it?”  Keane was definitely into it.  They were having a lot of fun up there, and that made it even more fun to be there with them.  I hope I get to see them again.  Ingrid Michaelson opened for them and she was just as good.  I hadn’t heard her music before, but it has a light, playful style and some very witty lyrics.  I enjoyed it a lot.  She definitely had plenty of fans in the audience too, including a little girl sitting way up front who gave her one of those “silly bandz” bracelets between songs.  It was pretty darn adorable.  All around a very good show.

I’ve seen Barenaked Ladies in concert a few times, so I knew exactly what to expect, which is that you never know what to expect.  The music is always great, but what really makes their shows memorable and sets them apart from anyone else I’ve seen live is the ad libbing between and during the songs.  The random conversations, jokes and newly-invented lyrics are always hilarious.  They always include numerous references to where they’re playing, too, so we were treated to an entire song about Columbia and the Merriweather Post Pavilion.  My one concern was how the band would be with the recent departure of lead singer Steven Page, but it wasn’t a problem at all.  The rest of the band picked up the vocals and, while they obviously sounded different, I thought the songs were just as good as ever.

Our next show was in October at Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore, where we saw Brandi Carlile.  Brandi is another artist I’ve fallen in love with recently.  Her style is hard to pinpoint, it’s somewhat indie, somewhat country and somewhat folk.  I absolutely love her voice though.  Ram’s Head was an incredible place to see her, too, since it’s a pretty small venue and we were on the floor only 10 feet or so from the stage.  We even moved off to the side at one point to get a drink during the show and were still only 25-30 feet away.  Her connection with the crowd was beyond anything I’ve ever seen.  She went completely unplugged for a song, no microphones or anything, and during the song and the story she told leading up to it, the crowd was completely silent so that everyone could hear her.  And hearing her sing without amplification really highlighted what a beautiful and powerful voice she has.  I was blown away.  Another highlight for me was her rendition of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.”  There are simply no other words for it than wow.  She said that Ram’s Head was one of her favorite venues to play and promised to come back next year.  I hope I’m there!

And, to round out our concert schedule with something completely different, we saw Straight No Chaser at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore this weekend.  They are an a cappella group originally from Indiana University who gained popularity through YouTube videos.  Because of this, they actually encouraged the audience to record and post videos of the show.  Their first two albums are entirely holiday music, but now they’ve started to cover more pop tunes as well.  Since we’re still a good ways off from Christmas (despite what the department stores will tell you), this concert was mostly pop.  That was fine with me, I’m just not ready for Christmas yet!  They did close with their rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas though, which is hilarious, so go watch it.  It was really a fun concert.  They’ve got a great sound but, much like BNL, the jokes and humor throughout the show make it that much better.  There was one technical problem during the night, there was some issue with the house lights, which kept coming on during the second half of the show.  Anytime they shut off, the crowd cheered, and the lights would almost immediately come back on again.  But SNC kept right on going, laughing along with the audience at the unintentional running joke.  An evening of hilarity and good music; can’t go wrong with that!

So I imagine that will wrap up concert-going for us this year.  I think this had to be some sort of a record for us, 6 concerts in one year.  Can we keep it up or even build on this pace in 2011?  There are a number of bands that I’ve got my fingers crossed, hoping they’ll make a stop in the area, so I’ll just have to keep an eye out and see who comes around!

There’s a saying in engineering (maybe in other things too) that on any given project, 80% of the work takes 20% of the time, and the remaining 20% of the work takes 80% of the time.  Well that certainly seemed to be true for the little bimmer!  Putting the interior back together and other little finishing touches took a long time, especially things like the dashboard and door panels.  But, at long last, it is done!  Okay, okay, so there may be one or two things left, like getting the radio working, but it’s close enough!

In any event, over the past several months, Dad and I finished off the dash, instrument cluster, doors, carpets and seat belts.  By August, it was ready to go to the DMV for inspections.  It actually failed emissions testing on the first try, but after a few minor adjustments to the engine, it passed and was officially legal to drive again!  And then earlier this month, we drove it to Manheim, PA for its first car show!

The bimmer didn’t end up winning anything, but it drew a lot of attention from passers-by and I had a great time.  Also, a past coworker from my college internship came to the show and brought his vintage (1947, I believe?) Triumph motorcycle along, so I really enjoyed the chance to catch up with him.  His bike looked amazing too, and totally should have won the motorcycle class.  There’s no accounting for taste, I guess!  And as one would expect, there were a lot of nice cars at the show, so it was fun to just walk around and check everything out.  By far, most of the cars there were either 60s & 70s American muscle cars or 40s & 50s street rods.  This was also evident from the judging categories, which had a variety of categories for American cars, while the bimmer fell into the very broad “Foreign/European” class.  This meant that my competition included 3 Volkswagens (the only other German cars present), a 1920-something MG (which deservedly won the class, it was gorgeous), two new Lotuses, and a few other British cars from various decades.  I had to chuckle at the nearly 100-year difference between the extremes.  Anyway, there were some pretty awesome cars there, so I’ll have to get some pictures up for you to see!  (If I ever remember to copy them over from the camera.)  But I’d have to say that the best part of the day for me was driving the bimmer back to Dad’s house after the show.  It’s roughly 60 miles of winding backroads, weaving their way across Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and I was in heaven.  Just an hour and a half of nothing but me, my car, the wind in my hair, and the gentle hum of the engine.  Ahh…

So it looks like the next items up on the agenda for the car are 1) get out and drive it more and 2) buy a house with a garage so I don’t have to travel to Dad’s house to get out and drive it more!  Oh, and let’s get that radio working…

Man, what a busy year it’s been!  I can’t believe I haven’t written since…[looks down at next post]…JUNE?!?! Yikes!  Apparently I’ve been even busier than I thought!  It was an amazing summer, that’s for sure.  I got to spend a decent amount of time at the beach in several different states (oddly enough, not including my beloved Delaware beaches), which in itself practically guarantees success as far as summers go, in my opinion.  There were a few more concerts (both performed and attended), some time putting finishing touches on the BMW, various parties and cookouts, the beginning of the college football season, and of course lots of volleyball and rock climbing.  Whew!  I haven’t even had any time to play Guild Wars or Spore for months, and that is a tragedy.  I did, however, finally beat Prince of Persia (the original 1989 version) for the first time in my life and I have the screenshot to prove it!

Anyway, more on some of that later, on to your Random Thought for the day.  It’s short and simple, but it’s the truth.  I’ve lived in Maryland for over 10 years now, so you’d think I’d be used to them.  There were lots of them on campus, and I even have them in my backyard.  But I still do a double-take every time I see one, even earlier this week.  And so your Random Thought is this:

Black squirrels are weird.

I celebrated Father’s Day with my dad this year by spending a long weekend with him on our annual roller-coaster-hunting trip.  This year’s destination: Kings Dominion in Virginia.

We hadn’t been to Kings Dominion for several years, but it’s a great destination for our coaster weekends.  It’s one of the closest parks to us, located just north of Richmond, and has a nice selection of roller coasters.  As an added bonus, it is one of the few parks in the area that has a campground nearby.  I enjoy camping much more than staying in a hotel and it costs a lot less, so it’s fun to be able to add that into the weekend.

The last time we were at Kings Dominion was before (or right about the same time as) Paramount sold it to Cedar Faire, so there were a few changes around the park since our last visit.  Any rides themed around Paramount characters or movies had been renamed and all of the shows had changed.  But most importantly, there were new roller coasters!

One of these, and the park’s main attraction for this summer, was Intimidator 305.  Intimidator is a Dale Earnhart-themed ride (hence the name) and was intended to be similar to Millennium Force at Cedar Point (which we visited last year).  It was a nice ride with a huge first drop, plenty of speed and lots of good G-forces, but dad and I agreed that it was not as exciting as Millenium Force.  A few factors play into this, one of which is simply the sound of the roller coaster.  Millennium Force has a distinctive “roar” that you can hear coming (along with the screams of the riders, of course) long before the train comes into view when you are standing in line beneath the track.  Intimidator, on the other hand, is nearly silent as it approaches (except for the screams, of course) and whooshes past.  It’s a subtlety, I know, but something about that sound from Millennium Force just gives you the impression that this ride means business and makes it seem to be travelling even faster.  Another key difference between the rides is how much of it is visible.  From the line for Millennium Force, you can see the main lift hill, but as the train speeds down the first drop, it disappears from view until at last it comes rocketing down the final straightaway (preceded by that “roar”), flies right over your head at incredible speed, and goes up around one last over-banked turn to pull into the station.  In other words, you have no idea what is going on while it is out of sight and then suddenly it is back, coming so close and going so fast that if you blink it has passed.  With Intimidator, the entire ride layout can be seen as you wait in line, and the train never passes that close to you, so there’s no surprise and no “damn, that’s fast!” as it goes by.  Combining those two aspects, Millennium force gets your adrenaline going with anticipation long before you step onto the platform (no matter how many times you ride it) and then delivers with unrelenting speed from beginning to end.  Intimidator just can’t match that.

One interesting sidenote though, it caught our eye in the station that there were small jets of water spraying onto the wheels as the trains are loaded and unloaded.  We asked the attendant what they were for and he said they cool off the wheels so they don’t wear out so fast.  And then we noticed the splatters of blue rubber on the train body above the wheels.  That’s right, the ride goes so fast that the wheels are literally melting.  Weird.

The other new roller coaster at the park was Dominator.  Dominator is a “floorless” coaster, where you sit above the track, but not inside an enclosed car like a traditional train, your feet just hang out over nothing.  It’s like you take the seats from an inverted steel coaster and mount them above the track instead of hanging below the track.  It’s got 5 inversions and good speed and length, so we enjoyed the ride thoroughly, but after we rode it, dad and I couldn’t shake a feeling of déjà vu.  We later learned that we had been on this ride before, when it was at Six Flags Ohio under the name Batman: Knight Flight.  It’s pretty funny to get on a roller coaster and realize you recognize it from another park you visited about 10 years earlier.  What’s even funnier is that this isn’t the first time this has happened to us!  Two years ago we had the same experience at Kings Island after riding Firehawk, which turned out to have also come from Six Flags Ohio, where it was called X-Flight.  I think this might be a sign that we do this too much, wouldn’t you say?  Either way, it’s a great ride and it was fun to be reacquainted with an old friend, as it were.

There are plenty of other good roller coasters at Kings Dominion as well.  Volcano continues to be one of our favorites for it’s rolling, linear-induction start (that doesn’t whip your neck!) and vertical ascent up and out of the erupting “crater.”  Their three wooden coasters, Grizzly, Hurler and Rebel Yell, are all top-notch and in great condition.  Just like our last visit to the park, we rode Grizzly more than anything else since it is a fantastic ride and always has short lines. And as much as we love it in the daylight, it’s even better after the sun sets because then the train hurtles off into the forest in near-complete darkness!  However, I still think dad’s favorite thing to do at the park is shoot ghosts on the “Boo Blasters on Boo Hill” ride.  We rode that so many times the attendants started to recognize us and ask “who won this time?” when we came back to the station.

As always, we had a great weekend running around riding roller coasters.  We also realized that this was the 10th anniversary of our original “Coaster Quest” back in the summer of 2000.  (Which makes me realize I still need to finish that new roller coaster page on here!  Geez!)  Our trips now are obviously much smaller scale than that massive 40-coaster, 6-park extravaganza (and the 60-coaster one that followed it in 2001!), but I’m glad we’ve kept the tradition alive.  It’s pretty awesome to take a weekend every year to go run around amusement parks with your dad, despite the fact that our childhoods are an increasingly-distant memory.  It’s part of our general refusal to grow up.  And that’s how we roll.

Mid-April to Mid-June is one of my favorite times of year for one simple reason: the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I love hockey, and there is no better hockey than playoff hockey. The best-of-seven format generates instant rivalries that bring a whole new level of intensity and passion to the game. My favorite team, the Philadelphia Flyers, had a pretty impressive run, making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1997.

The fact that the Flyers were in the playoffs at all was actually somewhat of a surprise. They had a very up-and-down season, at one point falling as low as 14th in the conference standings before firing their coach. They fought back after that, but another slump in the closing weeks of the season put their playoff chances in jeopardy. It came down to the final game of the season, where they beat the New York Rangers in the shootout, to finally clinch a playoff berth.

Entering the playoffs as a 7 seed, the Flyers drew the Atlantic Division Champion New Jersey Devils as their first opponent. The Flyers made surprisingly quick work of the Devils, ousting them in five games. This was a major upset, since the Devils’ goalie, Martin Brodeur, who is widely considered to be one of the best in NHL history, was outplayed by the Flyers’ Brian Boucher, who was seeing his first playoffs action in a decade. However, the victory came at a price. Top forwards Simon Gagne and Jeff Carter both suffered broken bones in their feet from getting hit by pucks, while Ian Laperriere was sidelined with a brain contusion, mild concussion, and required 60-70 stitches after taking a shot to the face.  Ouch.

Next up were the 6th seeded Boston Bruins. This series didn’t get off to a good start at all. The Flyers lost Game 1 in overtime, suffered another 1-goal defeat in Game 2, and were blown-out in Game 3, pushing them to the brink of elimination.  The odds were monumentally against the Flyers and the media constantly cited the bleak statistics of their situation.  I sat down to watch Game 4, simply hoping to avoid a sweep.  But there was a glimmer of hope and good news, Simon Gagne was back.  I’m not sure what happened, but it was a different team on the ice that night.  They fought like mad for the entire game, and Gagne scored the game-winner in overtime to extend the Flyers’ season by one more game.  They came out with the same intensity in Game 5, but injury struck again, this time claiming goaltender Brian Boucher with two sprained knees.  Michael Leighton stepped in, for his first ever playoffs appearance, and managed to preserve the shutout started by Boucher en route to a 4-0 victory.  The fans in Boston booed the Bruins off the ice, the cracks were starting to appear in their confidence.  Game 6 featured another brilliant performance by Leighton and the defense, with the Flyers winning 2-1.  In a week, the Flyers had done the unthinkable, winning three straight elimination games to go from the verge of being swept to forcing a Game 7.  As you can imagine, I was becoming more excited and nervous with each passing minute both during the games and in between.  Could they really pull this off?

Very early into Game 7, things were looking pretty bad.  Less than 15 minutes into the 1st period, Boston had scored three times to take a 3-0 lead.  Boston was playing great and the Flyers just didn’t seem to have any answers.  I was feeling pretty hopeless and about ready to hang up my jersey for the summer.  Peter Laviolette, the head coach, called a timeout to try to settle the team down and get them to focus.  I was impressed by his demeanor during the timeout.  He wasn’t yelling, he didn’t even look angry, instead he calmly, but firmly, outlined the things the Flyers needed to do to get back in it.  I couldn’t hear any of the words, but his attitude and body language even made me feel more calm and determined.  Apparently it worked on the team too, because minutes later, James van Riemsdyk scored to make it 3-1.  The Flyers came out on fire in the 2nd period, and scored twice more to tie the game at 3.  The tension was unbelieveable going into the 3rd period: the series tied at 3, the game tied at 3, 20 minutes to go in regulation.  Anything was possible, but it seemed almost certain that the next goal would win it.  And with 7:08 left on the clock, Simon Gagne buried the puck behind Tukka Rask to take the lead.  The final minutes felt like an eternity, I couldn’t sit down, I paced nervously back and forth across my living room watching the Flyers try desperately to keep the puck away from Boston.  When the final horn sounded, the Philadelphia bench erupted over the boards and piled onto Leighton in front of his net, and I collapsed in an emotionally-spent, orange-and-black heap on the couch.  The NHL’s advertising campaign for this year’s playoffs was “History Will Be Made,” and I had just watched it happen.

Two days later, it was time to move on to our next opponent, the 8th-seeded Montreal Canadiens.  Montreal had already knocked off the Presidents’ Trophy winning Washington Capitals and defending Champion Pittsburgh Penguins, so they were definitely a dangerous team to face.  The Flyers, however, riding the emotional high of their incredible comeback, asserted themselves immediately with 6-0 and 3-0 shutout wins in Games 1 and 2.  The fans in Philadelphia, never missing an opportunity to mock an opposing team, serenaded Montreal with the signature “Ole Ole” chant so frequently heard when the Canadiens score on home ice.  Montreal fought back in Game 3, taking advantage of a complacent Flyers squad, with a 5-1 blow-out win.  This swift-kick-in-the-pants was exactly what Philly needed though, as they came back to life for another 3-0 shutout in Game 4 and dispatched Montreal in Game 5 to claim the Prince of Wales Trophy as Eastern Conference Champions.  Onward to the Stanley Cup Finals!

Now, if you’ll permit a short digression, my wife asked me last September, before the season started, who was going to win it all this year.  I replied, without hesitation, “the Flyers!”  She rolled her eyes (“of course he would say that…”) and asked “well if it isn’t them, then who?”  I pondered it for a moment before giving my answer, “Chicago.”

So you can imagine how nervous I was when the Finals matchup was Philadelphia versus Chicago.  That’s just great.  The series got off to a wild start with a free-for-all Game 1, which the Blackhawks won 6-5.  Game 2 was much more reserved, but Chicago again claimed a 1-goal victory.  The series moved to Philadelphia and the Flyers struck back with two wins of their own.  Things were starting to heat up.  In Game 5, it was apparent that the Blackhawks were determined to crush any thoughts of another Philadelphia comeback.  They took an early 3-goal lead and maintained it for the rest of the game to an eventual 7-4 win, placing them one win away from the Stanley Cup.  As in the Boston and Montreal series, would this embarrassing loss be the moment to spur the Flyers on to win?

Philadelphia certainly came out with that kind of fire in Game 6, and Chicago was just as intent on stopping it.  It was an intense battle, but a lapse in intensity and offensive pressure by the Flyers late in the 2nd period allowed the Blackhawks to take the lead.  Philadelphia just didn’t have the defensive depth to hold off Chicago’s skilled forwards, and their top blueliners were getting tired.  Late in the 3rd period, Scott Hartnell scored to tie it and send the game to overtime.  The overtime period started off at a furious pace, as was to be expected.  Just over 4 minutes in, Patrick Kane skated down the left side, faked a pass, shot, and the puck…disappeared?  There was confusion on the ice, behind the benches, in the stands, and in the broadcast booth for what felt like an eternity.  Nobody could see the puck.  Only two people immediately knew where it was: Kane, who raced down the ice, jumping for joy, and Michael Leighton.  They both knew what no one else had seen, the puck had gone through Leighton’s legs and lodged itself under the padding at the back of the net.  It was over, Chicago had won.

I sat for a few minutes in shock and disbelief at the absolutely bizarre ending.  The Stanley Cup was brought out onto the ice and presented to the Blackhawks.  It was a bittersweet moment for me.  Obviously bitter because it wasn’t my team celebrating with the Cup, but sweet because it still is THE Stanley Cup, and it’s such a special occasion to watch a new group of champions skate around one-by-one with the trophy held high over their heads and looks of pure excitement and joy on their faces.  Most of the fans in Philadelphia left at the end of the game, but many stuck around to watch the celebrations for what I would guess are similar reasons.  But they still booed league commissioner Gary Bettman when he spoke. (heh heh heh)

So that’s it.  The season is over and we now enter the long 3.5 months until the next one begins.  The Flyers had an interesting year, for sure, but put on an incredible show at the end of it that I’ll never forget.  They achieved far more in the playoffs than anyone ever expected, and I congratulate and thank them for that.  We came so close this year, and I can’t wait to see what we can make happen next season!  Is it October yet?