My First NHL Experience

Blackhawk tickets, can you believe that? Heather’s cousin works for an investment firm and his group had three tickets available in their private box, yes, private box. On Wednesday evening we attended the Region 14 reception, ate coconut shrimp, pizza, ate calamari, then walked out, grabbed a cab and drove to the United Center. If you know Chicago at all you know that the Bulls NBA team and the Blackhawks NHL team share this facility.

Frozen in the cold air outside the center is a bronze statue of the great Michael Jordan. You can’t help stopping and standing. Jordan soaring above, for a moment I forgot about the icy cold wind cutting into our faces. The crowd pushed us into entry # four and the excitement started escalating.

The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last year and it is apparent by the huge crowd that they are expected to do well again. They had won three straight and everyone expected them to be able to hold off the Calgary Flames tonight. This would be my first professional hockey game and only my second professional sporting event ever. I went to see a Seattle Mariners game at Safeco Field once.

Our seats were amazing! They were located just above corner ice in the visitors end. I think that would be considered visitor ice because they were on offence during the first and third period in front of us. But with free tickets, a plush seat, free drinks and hockey less than 30 yards away, who cares which ice you are looking at!
The entire evening was a loud spectacle of flashing lights, music, and the combined noise of 40,000 hockey fans. From the singing of the Star Spangled Banner to the first face off the sound level was incredible.

When the Blackhawks scored their first goal the place erupted. Three long blasts sounded from what sounded like a shift change horn, roared followed by a united singing of a song that everyone joined. You would have to experience it to believe the feeling. I took video with my camera, but it does not do the experience justice.

The Blackhawks won the game 5 to 3 which added to the excitement. It is still hard to think that we lucked into this, or should I say that Heather’s cousin so generously provided us with this experience.

Chinatown and More

The next day the conference was broke up into blocks and we were able to take the afternoon and ride the red line down south to Chinatown to explore and grab lunch. Heather put me in charge of getting us there and I held up my end and we were able to get there without the outcome that we faced yesterday on the trip back from the Sears Tower.

Heather asked a sales clerk where we should eat lunch and she said “ta tipple quan”. She asked what color the sign was and was told to look for green and yellow. We walked down to the street and looked around. We both spotted the place at the same time. Before us stood a big yellow and green sign stating “The Triple Crown.”

Our evening dinner was another experience. We joined our friends from PCC and Lane and walked about six blocks to a hot dog joint. This place had some of the best hotdogs and sausages I have even tasted. We gorged on dogs and onion rings. Obviously I will not be losing weight on this trip

Exploring Chicago

Right now I am sitting in the lobby of the Marriott located on the Magnificent Mile. For a large hotel, in a big city,they sure have slow Internet access. We arrived Sunday afternoon via the subway transit system. It was my first time on that type of public transit, can you believe that? I have been on the MAX in Portland and the Seattle Light-Rail system, but never on an actual subway. We traveled without mishap or any delays changing from subway to bus and finally landing on the Magnificent Mile.

I’ll step back a bit. Heather, Chloe, and I are on a bit of an adventure to the ACUI National Conference. This conference is the big one for Union professionals and is the second one I have ever attended. It’s Heather’s first big professional Union conference, and Chloe is a student who won a scholarship to this event. The fact that she had the scholarship helped us to justify the travel.

We flew out of Spokane, to Seattle and then on to Chicago. The flights were uneventful and during the long flight I was able to watch the movie “Inception“.

We landed at O’Hare and proceeded to the Blue Line, the L as they call it. It cost each of us $4.00 to take the subway, a taxi would have been about $40.00. We had one transfer from the L to a bus that took us directly to the heart of the Magnificent Mile.

We checked into our hotel and then met up with Heather’s Aunt, Uncle and Cousin who took us out to dinner at Gino’s East. We ordered Chicago deep dish sausage pizza. Very disappointing in my view, if this is the best of Chicago man we are in trouble.

We had some time before we had to check into the conference so we put on our walking shoes and headed South to see if we could find the Bean, a famous sculpture in Millennium Park.

As the story goes, the Cloud Gate sculpture was privately-funded piece that cost $23 million and was placed in the center of the park unfinished to meet the celebration of the parks opening. At first everyone hated it. It was nothing but a huge chrome blob and no one could believe that it was purchased with their money. Then they started to visit it. The reflection of the city in the Bean draws you closer and then you see yourself, the people around you and all the smiles it brings. The city began to fall in love with it and now it is one of the ”don’t miss” points of interest in Chicago. We played in the reflection and took pictures.

Continuing on we headed north to find the Lake. We knew it was about five blocks away and could catch a glimpse here and there, but we could not get to it. The freeway blocked our path so we turned east and followed some signs to the Navy Pier. Within about four blocks we were once again blocked, so we backtracked a bit and ended up grabbing a taxi which transported us to the front gate of the Navy Pier.

At the pier we walked out to the end and took pictures of the lake and surrounding panoramas of the city. We explored the interior of the pier facilities and looked through a stained glass museum as we walked. Once through the building and back on the street we were able to make our way back to the hotel. Our first big exploration a huge success.





Conference wise this is a very big one with about 1000 professionals and students in attendance. The first day was programmed with numerous breaks and down times where folks could explore. While most of the folks attending the conference were walking around looking for food, Heather and I grabbed a taxi and went to the Sears Tower to take the elevators up to the 110th floor. The Sears Tower is now known as The Willis Tower, but people in Chicago won't ever use the new name.

If you have never been up in a skyscraper, let alone the skyscraper that lead the tallest building war for so many years, you have to take the time and spend the $17 to get to the observatory and see Chicago like it should be taken in.

We had a blue sky day with a little haze covering the distant landscape. At the observatory level they have added four glass window boxes that allow you to walk outside the original building and look straight down to the street below. It is a real hart stopper to step out onto that see through glass floor. With the four boxes you can step out and take pictures of each other, so of course I had to coax Heather out onto the glass for some shots. We spent about an hour up in the tower and headed back.

To get back to the hotel we chose to take the subway, again for the adventure. We walked down to the Blue Line of the L and road the train to the Loop area, and then changed over to the Green Line and road to the exchange for the Red Line. That sounds easy, but it actually was not. We spent about 45 minutes on the train and platforms and only made it 3 blocks! We could have walked faster! Finally after several trains, some walking and a few very nice folks helping us out, we made it back to the motel.