Had an awesome weekend.
On Friday, I went to a "Newsmakers Lunch". At these lunches, ESPN brings influential people in sports to speak and answer questions, off the record. Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL, spoke at Friday's lunch. He was charming and completely at ease, and generally left an impression that is completely opposite of the one he leaves in press conferences. He has some interesting ideas about the future of the NHL, and one thing I was impressed about was his feeling that it was very important to preserve the Canadian ties to the game.
I had to leave lunch early to catch a train to Philly. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed an opportunity to get my picture taken with the Stanley Cup, which was on campus.
After a hurried drive to New Haven, Sherry and I caught our train with about three minutes to spare. We put back a couple of Sam Adams on the quick 3.5 hour ride down, and made it to the First Union Center after a 10 minute cab ride. Unfortunately, Ali and his buddy Ryan were driving up from D.C. and had run into traffic. They arrived at the beginning of the second period, but by that point, it was clear that the Leafs had not shown up to play.
After a 4-1 thrashing, and a sweet sweet Philly cheesesteak at Pat's (across the street from Geno's), Sherry caught the 11:30pm train back to New Haven, and I hitched a ride with Ali and Ryan down to D.C.
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