THE QUEST FOR LORD STANLEY BEGINS....NOW.

The truncated NHL regular season ended in thrilling fashion this weekend as teams battled one another to punch a ticket to the NHL playoffs.  It literally came down to the final weekend for teams to clinch spots and literally until the very last game to decide playoff seedings.  With that being said, now that the smoke has finally cleared, here are the lucky teams who earned a chance to compete for Lord Stanley's Cup:

EASTERN CONFERENCE

(1) Pittsburgh Penguins vs (8) NY Islanders

(2) Montreal Canadiens vs (7) Ottawa Senators

(3) Washington Capitals vs (6) NY Rangers 

(4) Boston Bruins vs (5) Toronto Maple Leafs

WESTERN CONFERENCE

(1) Chicago Blackhawks vs (8) Minnesota Wild

(2) Anaheim Ducks vs (7) Detroit Red Wings

(3) Vancouver Canucks vs (6) San Jose Sharks

(4) St. Louis Blues vs (5) L.A. Kings

While the Penguins and the Blackhawks will go into the playoffs as the favorites to reach the Finals, recent history indicates that being the top-seed doesn't guarantee a spot to the championship.  Just ask the L.A. Kings, who squeaked into the playoffs last season, then went on an epic run to win the Cup.

The playoffs begin on Tuesday, April 30th and we'll be kicking things off with an appearance by HOCKEY THIS WEEK the hockey radio show, followed by three games: Minnesota vs Chicago, L.A. vs St. Louis and Detroit vs Anaheim.   The local teams play later in the week (NY Islanders vs Pittsburgh on Wednesday, NY Rangers/ Washington & Montreal/Ottawa on Thursday).  We were scheduled to raffle off a signed & framed Lundqvist Winter Classic photo on Tuesday, but since the NY Rangers don't play until Thursday, we're going to hold off on raffling it off until then.  We're selling raffle tickets during the game ($5 each, 3 for $10) and the proceeds of the raffle will go towards the One Boston Fund, for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.

So remember, if you are a fan of the Habs, Islanders, Rangers or any other team competing in the playoffs, be sure to know that you can catch your favorite team here during the Stanley Cup Playoffs!

Cheers!

#NHL RIVALRY NIGHT: WHAT A NIGHT!

Last night we found ourselves hosting not one, but TWO huge rivalry games in the NHL; The NY Rangers faced off against their dreaded rivals the NY Islanders, while at the same time, the Montreal Canadiens traveled to Toronto to hook up against the Maple Leafs.  This was a big night for all four teams as both games had playoff implications, which added additional pressure to the night's games.

A good crowd turned out for the games and they were as feisty as the players were on the ice.  As it turned out, the Maple Leafs established themselves quickly and ended up blowing the Habs away, 5-1. Wasn't even close.  My sense was that the Habs had a bit of a letdown after clinching a playoff spot a few days earlier.  Hopefully they will bounce back this week.

In the other game, the Rangers and Islanders battled tooth and nail through three scoreless periods before the NY Rangers pulled out a 1-0 overtime victory, much to the delight of the Ranger fans in the bar and to the disappointment of the Islander fans.  It was an epic battle, with the real feel of a playoff game.  Both teams are still in the playoff hunt and even though the Islanders lost, should they make it to the playoffs, they will be a dangerous team to face.

So overall, if you were a Ranger or Leafs fan, you went home happy.  As for the fans of the Habs and Islanders, tomorrow's another day.  But with less than two weeks left before the playoffs, every game from here on out is an important one.  And the fans know it.  This should be a great stretch run.

Stay tuned!


Cheers.

FUN-TASTIC WEEKEND (long post)

The past weekend was a blur for us, but in a good way.  Between the return of the NHL and the NFL Championship Sunday, it was a great weekend to be a sports fan.

Saturday brought us the long-awaited return of the National Hockey League and to be honest, I was curious to see what kind of turnout we'd get.  As I mentioned in previous blog posts, there was a lot of resentment towards the NHL for starting the lockout and there had be growing rumors of fans staging boycotts and turing their back on the league who, in their eyes, had turned their backs on them.

When the 3pm games started, there were four girls at the bar, anxious to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins/Philadelphia Flyers game.  Nobody else.  I went to the NHL Store to pick up a few things to raffle off for the night games and when I returned an hour later, the bar was full of hockey fans.  That was at 4pm.  By the time the 7pm games started, we were packed with Rangers fans, Bruins fans, Islanders, Devils, Habs and Leafs fans, all excited to see the return of the game.

I guess it's safe to say that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was right: The fans will return, and they surely did. Damn him!

In any case, the crowd was totally into the return of the NHL and the great matchups that kicked off the mini-season: NY Rangers/Boston Bruins, NY Islanders/NJ Devils, and Montreal Canadiens/Toronto Maple Leafs. Lots of good-natured banter throughout the bar, and within a few minutes, it was forgotten that there was even a lockout.  Very encouraging to see.

Sunday was going to be a pretty exciting day for an entirely different reason;  It was NFL CHAMPIONSHIP SUNDAY with two great games on tap: Atlanta vs San Francisco and Baltimore vs New England.

We were already expecting a good crowd for both games, but for added excitement, we decided to host a "Chili Cook-Off".  We have a number of budding "chefs" among our regulars, so we figured this was a good way to have them show off their culinary skills.  So we invited anyone who was interested in showing off their skills to prepare some chili and enter it in our contest.  We ended up with five entries, so we let the patrons sample all five and they got to vote on which chili they liked the best.  The entry with the most votes won, and in this case,  SEXY LEXY was voted the winner, collecting some cool swag from BUDWEISER and LONG TRAIL in the process.  Congratulations!

The rest of the day was capped with two exciting games; The first one being a comeback thriller, won by San Francisco, 28-24, while the second game started out close, but ended up with Baltimore pulling away with a 28-13 win in a mild upset.  This sets up an interesting Super Bowl, with San Francisco facing Baltimore on February 3.  What's more interesting about this matchup is that the two head coaches are brothers:  This would mark the first time that two brothers coached against each other in a Super Bowl.  In any case, this should make for a great (and intriguing) Super Bowl, and we anticipate a good day of football and high-jinks!

PLEASE NOTE: Pub Trivia will take place on Tuesday (Jan 22) this week instead of its usual Wednesday slot, due to our NY RANGERS/BOSTON BRUINS VIEWING PARTY (Wednesday, Jan 23, 7pm).  Make it a point to join us!  

Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post!


Cheers!

WHO SAYS YOU CAN ONLY GET "MONTEZUMA'S REVENGE" IN MEXICO?

Day Two of  Swanfather's version of "OccupyMontreal" comprised of a lot of walking and ticking off items from the "MTL Bucket List".  Of course, when ticking things off the "List", there's bound to be some snafus along the way.  It's me, so it wouldn't happen any other way.

For starters, I have a specific playlist on my IPOD that I play every time I come to Montreal.  It contains a nice mix of "lite electronica", hip-hop, and jazz, which gets my juices flowing when I walk throughout the city (and I walk a LOT when I'm here).  So when I began my walking tour of the neighborhood, I realized that my IPOD battery was dead.  FUCK.  I should have known right then and there that this was going to be a shitty day.

Oh well, I'll just have to be alone with my thoughts during my walking experience.  As it turned out, I was staying near a college community, which ironically enough is named after my alma mater, Concordia College (here it's Concordia University).  Cool.  Let me take some pics.   Womp, womp... my camera battery is dead.  No pictures.   Can it get any worse than this?  Of course, it's me.

I decide to ride a bus to Fairmount Bagels in the Historic Jewish Quarter District called Mile End (which is what that cool smoked meat place in Brooklyn is named after.  I of course, get lost and stumble onto Schwartz's Deli, home of the famous smoked meat sandwiches instead.  It was just as well as this place was also on my "Montreal Bucket List".  This place is always known for being packed but I got there at around 3:30pm and it was practically empty.  Nice.

So I order the medium smoked meat sandwich (half meat, half fat), fries and a Cott's Black Cherry soda (this is what the locals do apparently).  While the sandwich looked pretty good and very reasonably priced ($6.15 for a pretty stacked sandwich- take note Mile End),  I have to say, for all of the hype that came with being the home of the BEST smoked meat sandwich in the world, reality didn't quite match up to it.  While it wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as I expected.  I think with all things being equal, Mile End could hold their sandwich up against Schwartz's any day of the week... except for the portions & price, which Schwartz's wins hands down.

After that culinary experience, I continued on my journey to experience all that I could while on foot.  It began to rain, which turned into snow sprinkles.  Great.  My feet began to hurt at the same time and more importantly, I began to feel a rumbling in my stomach that I'd hadn't experience in a long time.  The kind of rumbling that forces you to make a hasty retreat to the restroom.  This sucked because I had planned on going to McLean's Pub to catch the Habs/Isles game with some Habs fans that I met through Facebook and Twitter.

I ended up having to hail a taxi and making a beeline back to the hotel and by the time I got to my room, I'd broken into a cold sweat and my stomach was doing summersaults.  I sprinted to the bathroom and Womp, Womp... it's was AWWWWN!  And I wasn't winning this battle.  Let's just say that I was listening to the Habs/Isles game (in French) from the humble confines of "les toilettes" Brutal.

Today is a new day and I am in a new hotel.  The last hotel (Residence Inn Westmount) was better than I expected and it served me well though I did have to walk a bit through what might be considered "gritty" blocks to get to some of the bars.  Now I'm going from one extreme (if you can call it that) to another- to the Sofitel Montreal, located on the "Golden Mile".  Talk about lofty!  This was a gift from my staff at Third and Long last Christmas and I've been chomping at the bit to use this ever since.  It's a beautiful hotel from what I can see and I'm on a high floor with great views.  I'm also located a few blocks from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which I plan to visit today.

And then, god willing, I'm going to meet up with some peeps tonight (a lot of them are coming up from NYC for the Habs/Rangers game) and make bad decisions.

Here's a question that I need answered:  Why does everyone here wear black?  Hmmm....

On another note:  How 'bout dem Jets?   Brutal in any language.


That's it.  Done blogging from Second Cup Cafe and going out to enjoy the day!  Keep things safe and fun back in NYC and enjoy the weekend!

ON THE ROAD AGAIN...

After what seemed to be years of yapping and moaning about taking another trip to Montreal Canada, I finally did just that.  One of our bartenders (CHELSEA LATELY) was going to go there with a group of classmates for a student conference and we decided that this would be the perfect opportunity for me to make that long-awaited getaway back north.

So after taking care of a lot of last minute errands for the bar, we hit the road for what would be a six-hour drive through the lovely State of New York and into Canada.  Now I've been to Canada a few times now but never driven there, so I was somewhat intrigued for what I would be in for.  Let's just say that it wasn't the most exciting ride.  Then again, I had been up all night, between packing, doing staff payroll and just the sheer nervousness of oversleeping and missing my ride- I pretty much dozed in and out throughout the ride.

I did, however, wake up just in time to see that we were about to hit the US/Canada border and I was excited like a kid in a candy store.

We pull up to the border and I was expecting to see all kinds of security with guard dogs and such but alas, all we got was a kind lady sitting at the gate.  She asked for our passports and the purpose of our visit and we were on our way within minutes.  Pretty anti-climatic.

In any case, once we left the border gate, we were in Montreal in less than an hour.  It was overcast and  foggy but I didn't care.  All I knew was that I was back and excited to get my "vacation" started.

After reaching our destination, I bid adieu to CHELSEA LATELY and her crew and made my way to my hotel.  Once I checked in and got settled, I took to the streets and immediately began to take in the sights of the old neighborhood haunts of St. Catherine Street.  Now while am making it a point to do more exploring of the city this time around, I had to start somewhere and I figured that I may as well stick close to the Bell Centre, where I had a date with the Montreal Canadiens later that night, thanks to one of our great regulars, Vic Shaio.

I hit a spot called BRUTOPIA, which came recommended to me by one of our Canadian regulars and this place did not disappoint.  A tri-level brewpub that brews its own beers on the premises, it's located on the famous Crescent Street strip.  I got there just as they opened so I had the place pretty much to myself, which was fine with me.  I was able to chat with the lovely barmaid about the place, the various beers they had to offer, etc.

While this was taking place, I was anxiously awaiting a text from Vic about tickets for the Habs game that night.  Everyone knows that I LOVE the Montreal Canadiens and every time I come here, it's imperative that I go to at least one game at the Bell Centre.  That being said, it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to get tickets to a game, unless you're willing to shell out a couple hundred bucks for a regular season game.  I love the Habs, but not enough to blow my budget and eat Ritz crackers the rest of the trip.  I don't ball like that.  So I put out feelers to see what I could come up with and sure enough, Vic came through.  And when I say he came through.. HE. CAME. THROUGH.  He informs me that he put a call in to our mutual friend, SCOTT GOMEZ who plays for the Habs, who in turn, left me a ticket. . . IN HIS SUITE!  I shit you not.

As it turns out, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta (both teammates here in Montreal and former teammates together in New Jersey) have a suite at the Bell Centre that they use for sick and underprivileged kids, in conjunction with the Montreal Canadiens Children Foundation.  It's called "The Scott and Brian Suite" and the suite is child friendly, complete with tabletop hockey games, snacks and they get a visit from the Habs mascot, YOUPPI (who almost caused me to have another meltdown, for those of you who know of my disdain of mascots).

So while I was excited to not only get a chance to go to the game, but to be able to enjoy the game in a suite was a bonus! However, the thing I really enjoyed the most was seeing the faces of the kids who if not for the generosity of two Habs players, would probably never get a chance to experience a game at the Bell Centre.  These kids were treated like kings by the Canadiens staff and it was really cool to see.  And the Habs played what might have been their best game of the season, winning 4-0, which was an extra bonus for everyone, myself included.

After the game, I hit the SPORTS STATION for a nightcap (or three) before going back to the hotel.  Very busy, loud boisterous sports bar.  Food-eh but it's a sports bar so you're not looking for "Joe Beef" quality here.  Beer prices were pretty decent though and they had Alexander Keith's Red, which was very good!  Going without sleep for almost 24 hours finally took its toll and I had a full day ahead of me so that was it for the night.

Got a lot to do and see today and looking forward to catching Habs vs Isles at McLean's Pub tonight!


Cheers!