roncli.com blog: Vacation Roundup

Well, I've been back from vacation for a few days now, and figured I'd update everything that went on.

First of all, this was actually one of my better Christmas vacations. I tell Kathy every year to remind me to take short vacations, because spending extended amounts of time with my family tend to irritate me. So this year, I went for a 9-day vacation, one of my longest.

Truth be told, it wasn't half bad this time around. Aside from one of my mom's many, many dogs using my chest as a spring board the first day there, and plenty of moments of boredom having to sit through watching television when there wasn't anything good on like a Sabres game, I actually enjoyed my stay overall this year.

Speaking of the Sabres, my brother Ryan got me tickets to the NHL Winter Classic on New Year's Day. So we went to Ralph Wilson Stadium after I picked him up from the airport. Took us over an hour and a half for what normally should be a fifteen minute drive thanks to ridiculous amounts of traffic. It was snowing lightly that day with temperatures in the lower 30's. We get to the stadium, pay $25 for parking, and get to the gate. They scan the tickets, and it tells us "Reprinted". They send us to the ticket booth. Uh oh.

Turns out that the tickets were reported stolen, and were from a block of tickets set aside for Penguins fans. After lots of arguing, Ryan finally got a new pair of tickets for face value - $39 each - and we got to see the game despite missing the first half of the first period.

Overall, the game was kind of slow, but the atmosphere was just spectacular. The Sabres really should have won the game, but their 4th straight loss was the same as any of the others, they couldn't score goals. They didn't even allow a shot in the 2nd period until there was less than 3 minutes left, but only came up with one goal. In the end, Sidney Crosby wrecked an otherwise wonderful day of hockey with a shootout victory.

They talk about playing that kind of game every year, but I hope they don't do it. That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and repeating it annually would make it lose the luster and specticle that it was. Really enjoyable.

By the way, Chicago is frickin' freezing. When I got to O'Hare on the 2nd on my way home, it was -6 degrees. Fahrenheit. Brr.

Labels: Buffalo, Buffalo Sabres, Life, Pittsburgh Penguins, Winter Classic

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