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Date: | Wed, 8 Apr 1992 13:47:12 -0400 |
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Thursday April 2nd
I woke up early after a decent night's rest and Tony gave me a call around
8:00 and he graciously offered to give me a ride downtown around 11:00 after
his workout. I had plenty of time to get ready and Tony was right on time. I
was surprised how far out the Wolf Road area was from downtown Albany, but the
traffic was light and it didn't take too long. Tony's got a great car and it
was wonderful to hear some music as the hotel had no radio and I was already
feeling musically deprived! ;-) We did a quick tour of downtown, and drove by
The Fountain Too where the dinner was to be later that day, then dropped me
off at the Hilton to meet James.
First we checked out all the NC$$ stuff for sale then left to wander around,
find the Knick and a place to eat lunch. We sort of got lost, well almost! We
even walked past The Fountain Too on our tour of downtown. There are quite a
few old and very interesting buildings there. A very eclectic downtown area.
We finally settled on the sports bar right at the Knick, called Panfilo's.
This was evidently one of the places to be as it filled up very quickly. The
first person who walked in that I recognized was Goofus, who was there to
cheer on the MSU Spartans. He did a great job of warming up the crowd,
although once he started singing and playing his stick-instrument it became
too loud to carry on a serious conversation. There was also a very stoned
young guy playing some serious air-guitar by the juke box. After a while he
was asked to leave because he hadn't ordered anything.
After lunch James and I went upstairs to the ticket area to wait for Garrett
Lanzy and Mike Machnik, who were going to meet me there and get their tickets
for the games. Garrett was the first to show up and I recognized him right
away from the great description he had e-mailed me. Then the three of us began
the wait for Mike...we started speculating, is that guy him?...are we in the
right place?... While we were waiting, who should cruise by but Dave Espe, a
former Gopher who recognized me in a hot second. After a big hug, pleasantries
were exchanged. Dave is now playing with the Halifax Minor team and he was
waiting for some friends who had his tickets. Finally in walks Mike who saw me
right away! Introductions were made and then we all went to find our
individual seats.
My seat in the arena was "interesting". I was sitting behind the left goal
(from the TV perspective) and in the very first row. The only time that I
would choose to sit there would be if I was taking some photos of the game. In
Mariucci, my seat is 18 rows form the ice and three seats left of the center
line. So this was going to be an interesting perspective to see a game from. I
was hoping for lots of goals at my end of the rink. The boards were really
close to the seats and quite flexible, so I had to make sure I kept my feet
and knees away from them. The players looked HUGE that close up! The MSU
section was to my right and behind me. There was a guy, Dave from Maine who
was sitting behind me and we commisserated on our being there without our
favorite teams! Right next to me were Kevin and Michael, two friends of Mike
Machnik. They both had played hockey, at Dartmouth and Northeastern
respectively. We had some interesting conversations on how the games were
going.
(end of part two)
Carol
U of M
GO Gophers!!!
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