SB Nation User Blog: DanGNR

Perron and Pär Arlbrandt Goals compared. From the description, Perron's came 1st, then Pär A...

DanGNR — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:44:53 -0000

Perron and Pär Arlbrandt Goals compared. From the description, Perron's came 1st, then Pär Arlbrandt's.

When I 1st saw this, I expected detroit fans.

DanGNR — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:46:13 -0000

When I 1st saw this, I expected detroit fans.

Wrapping Up The NHL Premiere in Stockholm, Part 1

DanGNR — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:19:47 -0000

More photos » by NIKLAS LARSSON - AP

Former NHL veteran Mats Sundin makes a celebrity face-off before the game Detroit Red Wings v. St. Louis Blues, an NHL hockey game Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 in Stockholm. Blues Alexander Steen, left, and Red Wings Niclas Lidstrom.

Browse more photos »

[With Sweden already a month behind us, here's a final look back by our own DanGNR who attended the event and provided us all with great pictures and video during the trip.]

I was lucky enough to go to Stockholm Sweden for the NHL Premiere Stockholm, between the St. Louis Blues and the .... the... fan ta detroit. I took LOTS of photos and several videos during our trip, both of the Blues-related activities and the city itself. I tried to make as many fanposts and fanshots to help show what was going on that other media outlets weren't covering. But due to time constraints and the fact I didn't want to spend time indoors reading and typing away instead of sight seeing... well I hope you understand.

By the way, this is the picture I took of the celebrity face off:

After the jump, the story of what we experienced as well as details that will likely make every one of you jealous (and envious) of those that can now no longer afford to make their mortgage payments for the next year....

Starting with a quick introduction, I am known as DanGNR on this site. Long story short: Back in 1997 I attended my 1st hockey game, a Washington Capitals game out in the old USAir arena on the outskirts of our nation's capital. Fell in love with the game, and soon moved back to my home state of Missouri in 1998 and immediately bought Blues season tickets (much to my wife's chagrin).

Jump forward to the recent past, when the Blues finally made the announcement that they were going to Sweden last spring, I immediately mentioned it to my wife. She isn't much of a hockey fan, but she was all for the idea, pending details of the trip, cost, dates, etc, etc. I constantly called my season ticket sales rep asking when the travel package was going to be finalized and what the cost would be. After calling and emailing her every day for two months straight, they finally came out with the details. I looked it up and I simply said WOW. You want HOW much for only four days? What do you get for the arm and two legs they wanted for this trip?

Four night accommodations at the Nordic Light Hotel Stockholm
Check in Wednesday, September 30th and check out Sunday, October 4th
Roundtrip airfare from St. Louis to Stockholm (Flight departs Tuesday, September 29th)
Reserved lower level, between the blue lines ticket to the Blues vs. Red Wings games at Stockholm Globe Arena on Friday and Saturday
Exclusive VIP access to Blues practice
Exclusive Blues player meet and greet following practice
Drottningholm Palace tour with lake cruise, lunch, and local guide
Roundtrip deluxe motorcoach transportation to practice, palace tour, and both games
Roundtrip airport transfers & luggage handling
Official St. Louis Blues Souvenir
Daily breakfast at the hotel
Experienced staff on-site to assist
Lanyard and ticket holder
All taxes paid

Actually, that sounds pretty cool.

But I didn't think the wife would be interested in spending a lot of the time doing Blues-related activities such as the practice and both games. I usually can only get her to four or five games a season, and those are usually when my seatmate can't make the game for one reason or another. But I emailed her nonetheless. Her reply? "BOOK-IT!"

No questions on cost or itinerary. She wanted to go to Stockholm.

Being the good husband that I am, I did what I was told. I called Premiere Sports Travel and booked the package. I then ran around my office telling everyone (whether they wanted to hear it or not) that we were going to Stockholm to see the Blues play hockey. I was as giddy as a ~~schoolgirl~~ .... well... a 10 year old at Christmas.

After booking the trip, we then anxiously awaited the detailed itinerary. They said it was supposed to ship two weeks before departure. Skipping the boring details, it arrived just one week before our departure date. We opened it up and went over it like it was a our 1st NHL contract (it cost almost that much I tell ya).

The 1st thing we said after looking it over was "holy shit, when are we going to have time to site-see?" The schedule was packed full of activities. Most of the activities were Blues related obviously, but the Palace tour was also on the agenda.

Here is a brief rundown of the schedule.

Tuesday: Depart St. Louis the morning of Sept. 29th.
Arrive in Stockholm, Sweden at 7am Wednesday morning.

Wednesday: After arrival, there were no scheduled activities. You could site-see all day long (or sleep).

Thursday: VIP access to Blues practice at the Globen. After practice was the meet and greet.
The rest of Thursday was free of scheduled activities. You could site-see all day long (or sleep).

Friday: Tour of Drottningholm Palace, lunch cruise, and then the Blues game Friday night.

Saturday: No scheduled activities until Blues game Saturday night.

Sunday: Are you kidding me? 6am departure to go back home? Fuck.

Note: there were two flights that were available (but we didn't have a choice) to those that booked the air package. Our flight was on a 757 and arrived at 7am Wednesday, and the other was on a much nicer and bigger 777. While the other flight was on the better aircraft, it didn't arrive in Stockholm until well after 4pm Wednesday. I think we got the better deal there. We had almost a full day of sight-seeing that the others didn't have.

After looking over the paperwork and other materials regarding the trip, I thought it strange that their instructions told us to go to the United ticket counter to check in for our Continental flight. Strike one for the Premiere Sports Travel folks regarding "attention" to details. After calling to double check, we were all good to go (i.e. we check in with Continental, not United).

We then arrived at the airport in plenty of time to check in. Check in was as easy as I have ever had. We showed up at the ~~United~~ Continental area and there were two Premiere agents with signs for us to check in with them. They took our passports and checked us in with the Continental folks. There were approximately 30 other Blues fans going on the same flight. The Premiere agents came back in about 5 minutes with our passports, boarding passes, and custom made luggage tags.

We received four of them. Awesome. (We are using two and keeping two as souvenirs.)

The flights were fine. Little over two hours to Newark, NJ. Then a little over 8 hours to Stockholm, Sweden.

We landed in Stockholm pretty much exactly at sunrise on Wednesday.
What a great way to start our trip. Seeing the sunrise as we arrive.

This may likely be the worst of the many parts I am going to write... but I felt it was important to set the stage for the rest of the trip. I plan to write one part for each day of the trip detailing what we saw and did while on this once in a life-time adventure. I apologize that my writing quality and style aren't up to the GT standards of Juan, Brad or Hildy, but I hope the content and pics make it a worthy read.

Which Blues team for Saturday night?

DanGNR — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:30:22 -0000

I posted on my twitter feed and will soon post on FB that I was wondering which team will show up tomorrow night.

After careful consideration, I came up with WAY too many choices... I don't care. I started listing all the possibilities and the list grew exponentially. I still don't care.

Fuck Detroit and enjoy the poll.

Poll

Which Blues team will show up Saturday night vs the SJ Sharks?

The Dr Jekyll team

0 votes

The Mr Hyde team

3 votes

The Bi-polar team

2 votes

The Schizophrenic team

0 votes

The Crazy Ivan team

4 votes

The Rabid Rabbits

1 votes

Pee Wee Morris

3 votes

Who is that crazy team

0 votes

The Wyld Stallyns

3 votes

The Mr. Campbell's ex team

1 votes

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Team

2 votes

The Vigo team

1 votes

The Lost Boys team.

2 votes

The "You can't handle the truth" team.

3 votes

The team that is under the direction of McMurphy.

0 votes

25 votes | Poll has closed

According to jprutherford Skeet sent down...

DanGNR — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:50:29 -0000

According to jprutherford Skeet sent down...

http://twitter.com/jprutherford

The View from section 117, Atlanta Thrashers vs St. Louis Blues.

DanGNR — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:50:31 -0000

Well, actually, I was in section 108, my brother was in section 319, and Will from STL and WAD were also up in the 300s somewhere. But more on the view later... there is much to talk about, esp. before the game.

While driving down to Hotlanta, I realized how close I was going to be to Metropolis, so I stopped and of course met Superman himself.

Once in Hotlanta, Hildy's local knowledge gave us parking within a block of the arena for only $10, although, SHE said it was $8. Guess I will let that slide. Everything was pretty typical of the trip until then... We packed a few brewskies, (Schlafly's Pale Ale to be exact). So we had a mini tailgate before heading up for the GT meet and greet.

After the break, pictures and a view at some interesting sites and sounds from downtown Hotlanta.

Well, like I said, it was all typical up to the point. We then started our walk up the CNN center for linner (Lunch/Dinner) with the GT crew. To set the scene, I need to describe what was going on in Hotlanta on Sunday.

There was a Shoeball team that was playing another Shoeball team in Hotlanta. I am not a Shoeball fan if you can't tell. I believe the Redskins were in town playing the Atlanta ~~Thrashers~~ Falcons. That game let out approx. half hour or so after the Hockey game started. So parking was actually packed of both hockey and football fans.

While walking across the lot to the stairs up to the CNN Center, we kept hearing this pounding sound. No not that kind of pounding. Kinda like construction (or actually destruction) work was going on. We finally located the source of the noise.

One row over, was a van (parked down by the river comes to mind, but there was no river close) taking up four spaces. The reason the spaces were available next to the van? It was wrecked and heavily damaged. On top of this thing was a kid (no older than 12) with a crowbar beating the shit out of the roof. Perhaps the best description would be something out of Escape from New York. Except it being filmed in the parking lot instead of the Lou.

Words can NOT describe the view. Two pictures are worth a two thousand words.

After passing the spectacle reminiscent of a third world country in wartime, we proceeded over to the staircase to the CNN Center. We then came upon the next spectacle. (no pictures, sorry). This spectacle was along the fence line by the entrance/exit area of the parking lot. It there was approx. 50 feet of trash just piled along the fence approx. 8 ft high. My brother felt compelled to add too it. So he made his way over and deposited two of his empty Schlafly's Pale Ale bottles.

After leaving the Gulch (Hildy's term used for the parking area we were leaving), we went to the CNN Center to meet up with WAD, Will from STL, Hildy, food, and cheap beer (By cheap, I mean I almost had one at only $6 for 36 oz). We all successfully met up and chatted for about half hour (while eating and downing the cheap adult beverages) before heading in for warmups.

We then headed to the arena. After entering said arena, I quickly noticed Thrash was about hassling everyone walking into the arena. At least he was wearing pants. (WTF is a "Thrash" anyway? Shouldn't it be Thrasher or Flash or something?) I made a mental note to go about 20 feet in the other direction while we figured out where to go to meet up with Hildy for warmup stalking. Well, I didn't go far enough. I started feeling someone hitting my head. It was "Thrash." He kept hassling me for a few seconds and then started trying to eat me. I felt violated.

My brother was quick with his cell phone camera and took this pic:

At least I was quick enough to get my GT logo in the mix.

After the trip to the restroom to sanitize my hat, we ventured down to where Hildy was sitting in the 1st row of section 117. This was located right by the Zamboni entrance on the Thrashers shoot twice side close to the Blues bench. There was a family of Blues fans sitting to our right with Legace jerseys on. (I emailed their pics of them to Carnie). There might have been another dozen other folks in the section. Of course this was approx. 30-40 minutes until game time, so I was curious if any folks would fill in after Game Time. (see what I did there?).

We got a couple of pics of the GT folks:

Left to Right: Hildymac, WAD, DanGNR, Will from STL.

After warmups, we stayed in our seats. I guess squatting rules worked as we were not asked, hassled, or otherwise to move from our little corner of Blues nation. Will had NEVER sat down that close for a game. I have on an occasion or two, but never on the road. I was thrilled, as always to sit where you can actually see the players faces and see all the "little" stuff you miss from sitting upstairs (and even on HDTV).

As for the game itself? It was fun, exciting, and hugely disappointing. But you guys already know about the game itself, so I will try and give some kind of sense as to what it was like for us.

I have never sat with any other GTer except for Chris Gift and Sean himself. Sitting with three of them was a completely different experience. Will and I were by far the most obnoxious and loud. WAD and Hildy cheered well, don't get me wrong, but it was sure fun being loud with another GTer. We had all the players nicknames and GT sayings going full on. Most noticeable and fun was "Conk Block ! ! " But we were all over Skeet, Frenchie, Happy Meal, and Capt. Robot. Of course, no one got any of the references except us. But Conk Block got quite a few laughs from the two people in our section.

This excellent pic was from the Atlanta Blogger Virginia Flowers at http://gettingpucksdeep.blogspot.com/ which was taken at the Blues vs Thrashers game:

Other great pics of the game can be found here:

The Thrashers employ ~~hookers~~ ice girls for cleaning the ~~cocaine~~ snow off the ice during stoppages.
I of course just HAD to get a few shots of these gals:

"NHL" attendance is listed at 10,904, but I seriously doubt there were more than about 5 or 6,000 butts in seats. During the latter parts of the 1st period, I scanned the crowd and found two ENTIRE sections without a single person in it. Yep, NO ONE AT ALL in two entire sections. Not the measly little 100 seat sections that are in some arenas, they were in the upper level 300s that had more than 20 rows and 50 seats in each.

While attendance may be low in Atlanta because ice hockey really hasn't caught on, I think the biggest reason for this particular game was due to the Falcons game as well as any number of college games. Hell, high school games may have taken priority.

If fact, we got a big chuckle out of Will from STL regarding his bathroom visit. (ya, I know that didn't read the way it was supposed to). He came back and was all excited about not only not having to wait to piss, but having the 40 urinal bathroom all to himself.

I really wish the Blues pulled out the victory in Hotlanta, but they played well (at least a lot better than the previous couple of games) and deserved the win. But it was an awesome trip and I really enjoyed meeting three more GTers as well as seeing my brother and his family.

Oh and I almost forgot, my brother and I played the usual disc golf challenge while I was in town. The course played extremely difficult for both of us. But I will let the scorecard show the results:

Some departing shots now:

As a thank you to Hildy, I took down a case of St. Louis' Schlafly's Pale Ale.

and of course Hildy put the GT sticker on the back of her car:

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Sorry for the delay getting it written and posted. I think I kinda know how the Game Time paper guys feel after a 3 game home stand. or, maybe not.

GT making its rounds for Truth, Justice and the American Way.

DanGNR — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:16:25 -0000

DanGNR reporting from Hotlanta, GA. I made it safe and sound to my brothers house on the outskirts of Atlanta, GA.

On the outset of my trip, I realized that I would pass pretty close to Metropolis. I figured I would stop and pay my respects to Superman Backes.

It is surprising that I have never made the trip to Metropolis. It is just a couple of miles off the highway. I have made the drive from the Lou to Hotlanta several times but have never stopped to see the Statue.

Enjoy the pics.

Road trip'n to Hotlanta, GT is going to be representin

DanGNR — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:57:32 -0000

Through talking with our very own Hildy, I understand there are several GTers heading down to the Hot lanta area for an ice hockey game between some folks wearing a Bluenote and some other folks wearing something in regards to a bird I think. What the fuck is a Thrasher anyway?

Lets make a point of having a GT get together either before, during, or after the game.

Please post here so we can all get on the same page.

I am going to hit the road (from the Lou to the great white south) in about 5 minutes. Yeah.

Now, for a completely random photo:
(for the record, it was the 4th picture in my google image search)

via img218.imageshack.us

This also happens to be rather appropriate though.

Blues 3rd Jersey Rocks...

DanGNR — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:57:49 -0000

Blues 3rd Jersey Rocks...

via Puck Daddy...

Those Habs "Prison" Jerseys are hideous.

Meeting the Mayor... and that other guy.

DanGNR — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:03:02 -0000

My Family purchased the ticket package for the "Meet and greet a Blues player."
This was after the Hamilton game last Thursday.

I specifically asked Juan if he would mind if I take a couple of GTs for the players as gifts. He said "sure."

I also gave each player a disc golf disc and then, of course, got them to sign my Sweden pucks.
(sorry for that reference again).

There a few pics after the jump. I especially like Ty man's look at GT on the table. Enjoy.

EDIT:

The title of the post was kinda how it went unfortunately. I didn't mean to be rude to Tyson Strachan.

Ya see. Daughter of DanGNR was in front of me. When it was "our turn" to "meet and greet" the players, she skipped right by Tyson and went to Oshie and started chatting it up with him. I was getting my stick signed by Tyson while giving him the GT and discs while she was still with Oshie. I rushed my time with Tyson in order to "be a part" of the daughter/player interaction. I missed most of what she and Oshie talked about. Ya see, she drew a picture for Oshie and had her own stick and jersey for Oshie to sign. So we both skipped talking to Tyson to get to Oshie.

I honestly feel like an ass for "that other guy" syndrome when we were up there. Hopefully he didn't take it personally.. as it was unintentional due to the "rushing" us all through the line. I of course realized that I should have had Daughter of DanGNR behind me while going through the line.

My daughter with her 2nd favorite player. (He may now be her fav. player after meeting him.)

I of course offered up a "free" copy of GT for each player.

Ty man checking it out.

I love this look he is giving after looking at it:

and of course the obligatory pic of us with the mayor.