PG's Blog: Winter Classic - Boston

Welp, today's the day! I'm of to Boston for the NHL Winter Classic. I was up at 3:45am, left the house at 4am, walked right through the check-in and security and was at my gate waiting by 5:15am. The flight left at 6am.

That would be the moon.

I landed in Washington to catch my connector. While sitting at the gate more and more hockey fans began to show up. Boarding started. After getting into my seat I notice a guy and gal walking up the aisle, one wearing a Flyers jersey and the gal wearing a Bruins jersey. They ended up sitting behind me. I turned to them and said,"So I guess you guys are headed to the game?" They laughed and confirmed. We talked for a while, come to find out they are huge Detroit Red Wings fans but this is something they do every year. I thought that was pretty cool. The flight took off and I dozed for a while.

We start our descend and the airport is east of downtown and I was sitting on the west side of the plane. I got to watch Boston get large and large as we approached. It was a very cool view. Now on the ground with evidence of the day's before snow fall, I was preparing for the cold. I called James for the plane and he was on his way.

Little side story: James texts me late in the evening asking how closely Jason (the guy that got us our tickets) resembles his brother Chris, whom is married to our cousin. I responded with very closely, why? He there? He says, "I'm in the hotel bar next to Brian Propp (former Flyer) and a guy that looks just like Chris." I text Jason and let James know I'm doing so. About 45 minutes later Jason responses, "Yeah I was there with Propp." Crazy, I just missed introducing them through text, ohwell.

I'm standing the freezing cold waiting on James to arrive. He does, we head to the hotel. Now, Boston isn't really know for its great streets and easy access. It was defiantly not built with the use of satellite navs in mind, who'd of thought? We drove around for about, 30 seeing the sites (trying to find our hotel while traveling through tunnels with exits and splits right at the end of them and the nav is to confused to tell us which way to go). We found the X, parked the car and headed in.

The hotel is right downtown about a mile or 2 from Fenway. It's also inside a mall.

We went up to our room, on the 14th floor to get our cold gear on.

We decided taken a taxi would be a good idea, due to the super confusing area plus it allows us both to drink. We hop in a taxi and head towards Fenway, looking for Bill's Bar which is right across the street. There are tons of fans on the street and I was amazed at the amount to Flyers fans. It almost seemed to be equal. We pull up to Fenway and surprisingly are right next to the stadium and the bar. We get out right under one of the most famous sites of Fenway, inside and out.

And just a turn to the right of this picture is:

Bill's Bar, where you can see a line. I give Erinn a call, no answer. I try Jason, nothing. We are standing outside the front door and a radio station employee over hears us talking and asks who we are looking for. I tell him and he comes into the dark bar to find them for us. He comes out asking for there names again and he didn't have any luck the first time. James decides to get in the line while I wait at the door for the radio guy. He returns with the same news, so I jump in line. After about 30-40 minutes we get in. Not in the place more than 20 seconds and guess who comes walking up the hall towards us? Yup, freaking Erinn, haha. We hug and I tell her what happened. She said she tried to call back but had no luck.

James and I grab a beer and head to the back of the place. Man it was super crowded. We find Jason and I introduce him to James. They recognize each other and Jason says, "Man, I wish I knew that was you, I had an extra ticket for the New Year's Party." Later Jason told us it was pretty boring so no harm, I guess. Dave "The Hammer" Schultz is walking by and I introduce myself to him and explain about us meeting in Atlanta at the All-Star game and that I designed his wine label. He said he remembered (I think he was being nice) but that he loved the label.
Later standing by Erinn she introduces us to her brother and his girlfriend. After she says,"Oh you need to meet him." "him" was behind me so I turn around and she says, "Philip this is Brian Propp, Brian Philip Gray." She introduces James and she tells him what I do and Brian asks if we want a card. We said sure not really knowing what it was. He says, "Do you want it made out to you." We both say yeah. He asks if I'm one L, and say yes and he says cool, that's my middle name.

After that Jason comes back over and tells me he has a ton of work for me and says, "In fact, one second." He turns around, makes eye contact with Schultz and calls him over. My heart kicks it up a beat. Dave comes over and Jason introduces me as your [Dave] new website designer. I say we met earlier, Philip Gray, and stuck my hand out for a second hand shake with him. I introduce him to James, which has a huge grin on his face. Dave goes on, saying he doesn't like his site and he hasn't even liked it. I drop a few lines and he seems interested. Jason says, "I just wanted you guys to meet, but we'll talk shop later." Jason says, "These guys are going to come to the after party and say they are with you." Dave, "Ok see you guys there." Dave says bye and goes off to sign autographs. James and I are on cloud 9 and its only 12 o'clock! Jason tells me he wants to get about 150 players a personal sites, if this was a cartoon this is were I pick my jaw up off the floor. And not because I can't do it but because it would be amazing!

I tell Jason we want to let some more people in so we are going to go to the stadium. Jason gives us our tickets and we are off. We walk out of Bill's and our gate is right across the street. We walk in and you can just feel the history soaked up in the place. Our section is right in the gate, prefect. We had to walk further to the bathrooms than so our section.

After a walk around we headed to our seats.

Not the greatest view but yeah, at least we were there! We took in the sights for a while then headed to grab some food. There is a line right at the bottom of the stairs and we hop in. As we get to the front we realize it's a beer only line. We decided to go elsewhere. After walking around a bit we realized that you can't buy beer and food from the same place so we each get in a different line. I was on beer duty while James grab us some food. We wanted hotdogs but somehow the place we were at ran out so he got us pretzels. We then decided to get inline for pizza and by the time we ate our pretzels we had pizza slices and headed back to our seats to enjoy.

Da Green Monster!

After the Dropkick Murphys played and the anthem was sung a stealth bomber did a fly by.

Bobby Orr and Bobby Clark taking the ceremonial puck drop. This was sort of strange cause Clarke took the puck in the faceoff and usually the home team takes it.

After the game started we had the fill of our seats and decided to walk around. We ended up with a good view from right behind the plate.

You'll notice they left the mound uncovered. I thought that was pretty cool as well as the stage is home plate shaped.

Shot of the famous green monster scoreboard

During the first intermission we relocated to a really nice spot and watched the actives. They had chainsaw ice sculptors do some work.

We wondered up to the top and found a bar and had a sit, a few drinks and some interesting convos. Met some brothers from Boston, one of which was wearing a spriderman outfit, head to toe. They told us an interesting little tid bit. The bar we were at (if you click on the image above you can see it better) was made of old candle stick bowling lanes that use to be it the Fenway location before the park was built.