My friends Jeff and Deborah of Nashville came to the Big Apple this week for the only two New York-area games on the 2011-12 Predators regular season road schedule. The pair are loyal Preds fans. I’ve long lobbied them to come in conjunction with a Preds road trip.
Back in Nashville, Jeff and Deborah can be found in lower level seats opposite the team benches at all Predator home games. I’ve been out there for a game in their building and was happy when they announced last fall that they’d come here for games at two arenas with strong and contrasting hockey traditions.
Monday’s tilt on Long Island was a special holiday matinee. We took the Long Island Rail Road to Hempstead and then jumped on the bus (route 71) for the short ride down Hempstead Turnpike. It should be noted that Nassau County privatized its bus service effective the first of the year. The buses now are emblazoned with a new logo (NICE) but the balance of the bus experience feels the same. The fare remains $2.25.
There were lots of kids in the crowd announced at 10,755. The Preds scored three first period goals and made its quick pounce hold up with strong goaltending from star netminder Pekka Rinne. The Islanders put 37 shots on net. The only home team score came on a John Tavares tip-in with four minutes left in the game. 3-1 was the final. Rinne is 10-0-1 this season when he faces 35 more shots in a game. The 29-year-old Rinne is 6-foot-five head to toe and has great quickness. His frame alone blocks much of the goal. Rinne signed a seven-year, $49 million dollar extension two months ago. The long-term deal for Rinne may be viewed as a bit risky given its length but the Nashville organization has a consistent track record of loyalty to its bedrock components. Predators GM David Poile and Head Coach Barry Trotz both have held their jobs since the franchise’s inception in 1998.
Cultivation of talent acquired through the draft has been so successful in Nashville, retention of two valuable homegrown players may be impossible. Defensemen Shea Weber and Ryan Suter both on the verge of free agency and it’s likely they’ll command salaries that gobble up too much cap space given what’s already been doled out to Rinne.
Two bars at Nassau Coliseum specialize in the sale of independent craft brews. Jeff is a beer-hound with fondness for IPA and so Blue Point Brewery’s Hoptical Illusion (made in Patchogue, NY) was his choice of cheer as he rooted on the Preds from section 102.
The next night we hit Madison Square Garden. The Rangers have the NHL’s best record and the Preds had won five in a row (8 of last 9) going in. It was a big buzz matchup. Unfortunately, Trotz decided to start backup goalie Anders Lindback. That decision took some starch out of the game. It was for sentimental reasons that Trotz handed the assignment to his backup. The 23-year-old Lindback is from Sweden. So is his “idol” Henrik Lundqvist of the Rangers. Trotz sat his hot, high-paid keeper so his backup could get a kick out of facing his countryman.
The Rangers won 3-nothing and Lundqvist (pictured above) took a bow for the sellout crowd after the game. Our view from section 119 was excellent. Craft brews (unless you count Brooklyn Lager) were nowhere to be found. Jeff and Deborah wore Preds jerseys to both games. The only verbal punishment either one faced at the two venues came from a hostile Rangers fan in the MSG men’s room after Tuesday night’s game. A guy standing behind Jeff in the bathroom line unleashed an ugly and intimidating statement that unfortunately is not completely uncommon at a pro sporting event in the current era. I won’t recite here what was said but it was aggressive, profane and disturbing especially when you consider the hospitality Jeff extends to visiting fans at his home arena.
The addition of Brad Richards to a team loaded with talent makes the Rangers my current pick to win the Stanley Cup. I never pick the Rangers. They never seem to mesh. But this team has lots of toughness. Lots of young, emerging talent. Rookie winger Carl Hagelin is fresh out of the University of Michigan hockey program and gives the team’s PK unit a big spark. Lundqvist is playing great. There’s a legit captain in Ryan Callahan and pretty consistent hard work coming from all corners of this team. Let’s see what happens when the Rangers get into it with Boston, but I think the Blueshirts are going all the way this year.
It was rainy and cold during our sightseeing window Tuesday afternoon. Among our stops was the new 9-11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site. Huge waterfalls pour into the twin tower footprints. The names of 9-11 victims are inscribed on bronze panels along the outer edges of the pools. In all, it’s a beautiful eight-acre space in the middle of what’s currently a massive construction zone. One World Trade is already 90 floors in the air. On Tuesday, fog shrouded upper portions of newly-erected steel. When it’s done early next year, it’ll be the tallest building in the US (if you count the antennae that takes it up to 1776 feet).
A free pass obtained in advance is the only ticket into the memorial site. This was my first time there. It would be my hope that full and open access to the site occurs once construction in the vicinity is completed. That’ll take a long time, but I’d hope the current security screening procedures and ticketing process goes away and that the space becomes more open.
The old World Trade Center plaza was a place you could roam freely. Certain constraints should be expected, sure, but the beauty of the memorial and all it is surrounded by should be open to public inspection on a whim when feasible.
Electronic machines arranged on the memorial’s perimeter help visitors determine where an inscription of a victim’s name is located. Those who designed the site should be given major credit for the emphasis on trees. About 400 White Swamp Oaks dot the site. They’re beautiful, even in wintertime. When those trees reach higher levels of maturity, they’re gonna be spectacular.
The Nashvillians’ visit ended here in my neighborhood with bowls of sopa de pollo at La Abundancia. When I saw them off at LaGuardia, people in the long, slow-moving check-in line for JetBlue were shaking their heads in frustration. There was no such wait for those flying Southwest back to Nashville via Chicago-Midway.