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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I was not prepared to lose it all the moment that I found it
Unlike most of these Weekend Trips Slideshows, this one starts in actual chronological order, in fact on New Years Day (actually the day after New Years Day) itself. We’re in Philadelphia at the Mummers Parade, a seemingly fun and confusingly organized parade right on Broad Street. I would normally try and explain what a Mummer actually is, but gave up after reading the parade’s Wikipedia article and will now just say instead that a Mummer is just whatever a Mummer is, don’t try to overthink it.
Also if you want to read up on Mummers, head back to that Wikipedia article on your own and just skip down to the “Controversies” header. That probably explains it all a little better than it intends to.
Sure the Mummers were actually pretty interesting to watch, but I wasn’t in Philadelphia on the day after New Years just to see some fancy string bands walking around. I was there instead because I had a ticket for the NHL Winter Classic, a spectacle of a hockey game held outside at Citizens Bank Park, where the Phillies normally play. The game was between the local Flyers and the stupid Rangers from New York, and everything about it from the stadium to the giant blow up Flyers jersey was intentionally big.
It was a little warm and sunny that day, something I was thankful for since I remembered how unpleasant it was sitting outside at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony almost exactly ten years ago. However the warm and pleasant part that was good for me was apparently bad for the outdoor ice rink, and the game was suddenly delayed two hours. I headed there anyway, cleared security and enjoyed as much of the outdoor fan fest that I could as I waited for it to cool down enough for outdoor hockey.
Things are looking up inside Citizens Bank Park, and the view from my seats as the players and dignitaries, like the unmistakable bald head of one time Edmonton Oiler legend Mark Messier, with one time US Olympic Silver Medalist Goalie Mike Richter in the background.
I decided to pay for good seats and was really expecting that investment to pay off. Sure they were great in terms of being close to the players and ex players who made appearances, but as for the actual game, not so much.
The fatal flaw of holding a hockey game in a baseball stadium is that the sightlines are impossibly bad. From my very good, expensive, close seats, the ice was really far away and not visible at all, I could only see upper torsos gliding back and forth. And from seats that were high enough to actually see into the ice, you were so impossibly far away that everything was barely visible. What you end up with is s stadium full of people watching the game on a tv screen and just ignoring whatever useless things you could see in person.
My recommendation for anyone thinking of going to see a future NHL Winter Classic is to just watch it on tv and save the money.
Back to something you could actually see, here are some pictures from earlier that day of wistful ex Super Rookie Eric Lindros, watching an on screen tribute to himself or just staring into space and not knowing where he is (a possible result of all those concussions). Lindros actually sat in my section although about ten rows back. He was easy to find because he is freakishly tall, a good head or two above everyone else. And I think that black cap may actually be holding what's left of his head together.
I first saw Eric Lindros play in his Super Rookie season at the only hockey game that I have ever seen at Madison Square Garden, the world’s most overrated arena. If you are noticing some animosity on my part towards either the hometown Flyers or the stupid Rangers, I will come clean and admit that I am a long time New Jersey Devils fan, which means that in a normal situation I am rooting for both these teams to lose. But since that’s impossible this time, I found myself fighting against my instincts and kind of half heartedly rooting for the hometown Flyers, who ended up blowing a lead in the third period 3-2 to the Rangers, or the stupid Rangers as I am inclined to call them.
After the game, I thought that I would walk over to Tony Luke’s Steaks, which in nowhere near the stadium but closer to the stadium than it is to downtown. After getting there, waiting a while (I was not the only genius who thought of this, although I think most everyone else drove instead of walked), I decided to just go for it and walk all the way back to my hotel in Center City. It was about four miles total- from the stadium to Tony Luke’s and back to the hotel- and honestly beat taking the subway or a bus back.
And careful viewers may notice that the cheesesteak pictured below is not from Tony Luke’s, the wrapper and counter give it away as being from Geno’s- the picture was taken the day before and all of my Tony Luke’s photos ended up too blurry to post.
