{"id":33,"date":"2012-01-19T10:46:51","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T15:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=33"},"modified":"2012-01-26T11:46:06","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T16:46:06","slug":"33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=33","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 The pair are loyal Preds fans.\u00a0 I\u2019ve long lobbied them to come in conjunction with\u00a0a Preds road trip.<\/p>\n

Back in Nashville, Jeff and Deborah can be found in lower level seats opposite the team benches at all Predator home games.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been out there for a game in their building and was happy when they announced last fall that they\u2019d come here for games at two arenas with strong and contrasting hockey traditions.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s tilt on Long Island was a special holiday matinee.\u00a0 We took the Long Island Rail Road to Hempstead and then jumped on the bus (route 71) for the short ride down Hempstead Turnpike.\u00a0 It should be noted that Nassau County privatized its bus service effective the first of the year.\u00a0 The buses now are emblazoned with a new logo (NICE) but the balance of the bus experience feels the same.\u00a0 The fare remains $2.25.<\/p>\n

There were lots of kids in the crowd announced at 10,755.\u00a0 The Preds scored three first period goals and made its quick pounce hold up with strong goaltending from star netminder Pekka Rinne.\u00a0 The Islanders put 37 shots on net.\u00a0 The only home team score came on a John Tavares tip-in with four minutes left in the game.\u00a0 3-1 was the final.\u00a0 Rinne is 10-0-1 this season when he faces 35 more shots in a game.\u00a0 The 29-year-old Rinne is 6-foot-five head to toe and has great quickness.\u00a0 His frame alone blocks much of the goal.\u00a0 Rinne signed a seven-year, $49 million dollar extension two months ago.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Predators GM David Poile and Head Coach Barry Trotz both have held their jobs since the franchise\u2019s inception in 1998.<\/p>\n

Cultivation of talent acquired through the draft has been so successful in Nashville, retention of two valuable homegrown players may be impossible.\u00a0 Defensemen Shea Weber and Ryan Suter both on the verge of free agency and it\u2019s likely they\u2019ll command salaries that gobble up too much cap space given what\u2019s already been doled out to Rinne.<\/p>\n

Two bars at Nassau Coliseum specialize in the sale of independent craft brews.\u00a0 Jeff is a beer-hound with fondness for IPA and so Blue Point Brewery\u2019s Hoptical Illusion (made in Patchogue, NY) was his choice of cheer as he rooted on the Preds from section 102.<\/p>\n

The next night we hit Madison Square Garden.\u00a0 The Rangers have the NHL\u2019s best record and the Preds had won five in a row (8 of last 9) going in.\u00a0 It was a big buzz matchup.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Trotz decided to start backup goalie Anders Lindback.\u00a0 That decision took some starch out of the game.\u00a0 It was for sentimental reasons that Trotz handed the assignment to his backup.\u00a0 The 23-year-old Lindback is from Sweden.\u00a0 So is his \u201cidol\u201d Henrik Lundqvist of the Rangers.\u00a0 Trotz sat his hot, high-paid keeper so his backup could get a kick out of facing his countryman.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rangers won 3-nothing and Lundqvist (pictured above) took a bow for the sellout crowd after the game.\u00a0 Our view from section 119 was excellent.\u00a0 Craft brews (unless you count Brooklyn Lager) were nowhere to be found.\u00a0 Jeff and Deborah wore Preds jerseys to both games.\u00a0 The only verbal punishment either one faced at the two venues came from a hostile Rangers fan in the MSG men\u2019s room after Tuesday night\u2019s game.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I won\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

The addition of Brad Richards to a team loaded with talent makes the Rangers my current pick to win the Stanley Cup.\u00a0 I never pick the Rangers.\u00a0 They never seem to mesh.\u00a0 But this team has lots of toughness.\u00a0 Lots of young, emerging talent.\u00a0 Rookie winger Carl Hagelin is fresh out of the University of Michigan hockey program and gives the team\u2019s PK unit a big spark.\u00a0 Lundqvist is playing great.\u00a0 There\u2019s a legit captain in Ryan Callahan and pretty consistent hard work coming from all corners of this team.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see what happens when the Rangers get into it with Boston, but I think the Blueshirts are going all the way this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was rainy and cold during our sightseeing window Tuesday afternoon.\u00a0 Among our stops was the new 9-11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site.\u00a0 Huge waterfalls pour into the twin tower footprints.\u00a0 The names of 9-11 victims are inscribed on bronze panels along the outer edges of the pools.\u00a0 In all, it\u2019s a beautiful eight-acre space in the middle of what\u2019s currently a massive construction zone.\u00a0 One World Trade is already 90 floors in the air.\u00a0 On Tuesday, fog shrouded upper portions of newly-erected steel.\u00a0 When it\u2019s done early next year, it\u2019ll be the tallest building in the US (if you count the antennae that takes it up to 1776 feet).<\/p>\n

A free pass obtained in advance is the only ticket into the memorial site.\u00a0 This was my first time there.\u00a0 It would be my hope that full and open access to the site occurs once construction in the vicinity is completed.\u00a0 That\u2019ll take a long time, but I\u2019d hope the current security screening procedures and ticketing process goes away and that the space becomes more open.<\/p>\n

The old World Trade Center plaza was a place you could roam freely.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Electronic machines arranged on the memorial\u2019s perimeter help visitors determine where an inscription of a victim\u2019s name is located.\u00a0 Those who designed the site should be given major credit for the emphasis on trees.\u00a0 About 400 White Swamp Oaks dot the site.\u00a0 They\u2019re beautiful, even in wintertime.\u00a0 When those trees reach higher levels of maturity, they\u2019re gonna be spectacular.<\/p>\n

The Nashvillians\u2019 visit ended here in my neighborhood with bowls of sopa de pollo at La Abundancia.\u00a0 When I saw them off at LaGuardia, people in the long, slow-moving check-in line for JetBlue were shaking their heads in frustration.\u00a0 There was no such wait for those flying Southwest back to Nashville via Chicago-Midway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 The pair are loyal Preds fans.\u00a0 I\u2019ve long lobbied them to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s28tEv-33","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}