hockeymoon in review

our hockeymoon was AHHHH-MAZZZING. there are things we never want to forget. things we'd definitely do again. however, there are also things we'd change. and some things we'd never want to relive. so this is my hockeymoon in review, a review of ALL FOUR CITIES. the best of, the worst of, what we'd change and what we'd keep the same. i'll try to keep it short and sweet, but take all that you want from it. you know, for when you are planning your next hockeymoon ;)

the best of...

hotel: we were split. we loved both affinia and aka. affinia had that manhattan feel to it. you walked up and there was that "wow!" factor. plus we got free champagne and wine. the hotel staff was phenomenal. our room was pure luxury. and the hotel restaurant/bar was also amazing. only negative: we had a balcony that we could not access.
aka was also very luxurious. and plus it was bigger. it designed for the business traveler who might stay for weeks at a time. so our room had a full kitchen. plus the wine + cheese + roses gig did earn the hotel a few points ;) only negative: hotel restaurant was very pretentious. definitely not our style.

game: hands down carolina v. montreal. and no, not because it was a 'canes game! this was the most competitive game start to finish. it was a good game to watch, beginning to end.

arena atmosphere: this one would have been difficult to choose if philly fans weren't such assholes. but MSG took the cake. the fans were having a great time, no matter what was happening on the ice. and there was also plenty of on-ice entertainment as well.

subway system: montreal wins because they had a small system that was easy to navigate with no technological assistance. it is a color system, much like boston. however, NYC and PHI both have subway apps for the iPhone, which made getting around both of those cities easy as pie.

friendliness: toronto was by far the friendliest city. toronto is a huge melting pot, so they were accepting of everyone. probably because you really have no idea of who actually lives there. we never once felt like outsiders.

city atmosphere: toronto basically has it all. it's laid back. there is tons to do. it's walkable. it's on the lake. it has an underground walkway system. what more could you ask for?!

arena: i am beginning to sound like a drum here, but toronto had the best arena. it had the "wow!" factor. it was new, fresh, in-your-face, over-the-top, over-stimulating...it was awesome. plus, they served free samples of alcohol, who doesn't like that?
i will give philly an honorable mention here because their arena felt so much like "home" to us. so we really liked it and felt comfortable there. except when we were being cursed at, of course.

snow village: so this is a little bias considering montreal is the only city that had a snow village. but it was so awesome that it is definitely worth giving a "best of" award to. and if you ever go to montreal, in the dead of winter...you must go to the snow village!

food: toronto. and this may be a little bias only because we ate food for 4 days in toronto. so we got to find stuff that we really liked. however, we did notice that most everything we ate in toronto was fresher, less processed food. and we were down with that.
and NYC gets an honorable mention here too. because how can famous NYC pizza not!?

underground walkway: you guessed it...toronto. and no, it wasn't the only city with one. montreal has one and i would be willing to argue that nyc has one. kind of. but again, we utilized toronto's the most. we couldn't figure montreal's and really had no need to explore nyc underground. so, there you have it.

THE BEST CITY... so, after all of those categories, we picked our favorite city. obviously, NYC is already near and dear to my heart. however, there is a new king in town. toronto really stole our hearts on this trip. as i mentioned in my toronto blog, there are many reasons we now love this city. so much, in fact, we tried to book our first anniversary trip there. too bad airplane tickets now cost your inheritance.


worst of....
luckily we don't have too many categories to discuss as being the "worst of"

fans: philadelphia. these fans were the worst. they cried about everything. the score. being "late" to the game. or nothing at all. one flyer's fan passed by a penguin's fan on the concourse and yelled "fuck you asshole" at him. for no reason. what gives philly?

helpfulness: this means there was a lack of helpfulness. in which case that would be montreal. if you don't speak fluent french, in the local dialect, the locals are not interested in talking to you, much less helping you.
which ties into montreal is the worst city to get lost in if you don't speak french.

arena: it was a tough call. but i guess someone has to be the worst, so montreal it's your arena. it's old and out-of-date. but MSG, don't breathe a sigh of relief, you were a very close 2nd.

game: montreal vs. toronto. montreal won 5-0. it was a total ass kicking. it was embarrassing. and not worth the price of admission. ok, that's not true. everything else was amazing. except for the game.


what we'd do differently....
traveling through to 4 new cities across 10 days, you are bound to hit some snags. after this trip, i can say...there isn't too much we'd change. if we were awesome enough to do it all over again.

less bags. we carried TWO 50+lb bags, one backpack, a rolling carry-on, and my purse. it was wayyyy too much shit to keep up with. i would suggest each person gets one rolling bag and one backpack. AT THE VERY MOST.

spend at least 3 days in each city. we spent 4 days in toronto and 2 days everywhere else. well, the other three cities, we basically got one day there, which was the day of the hockey game. so i recommend at least three days. one day for the game and one day for touristy shit and one day for travel.

Be prepared when you arrive at each city. basically, know how to get from point A (where you are) to point B (where you need to be). don't assume it's going to be as easy as it looks OR as easy as it was in a previous city. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. hailing a cab isn't the worst thing in the world either.

Before you go: review and find local neighborhood bars/restaurants. we enjoyed the walkability of the cities we were in. so we definitely should have used that to our advantage a little more and researched what was in the neighborhoods we stayed in. so that we could have enjoyed what the locals enjoy. you silly.


and last but not least...what we would never change...

the way we traveled. we flew to toronto and then traveled by train to all the other cities. and utilized public transit within each city. OHMIGOSH was it stress free. we didn't have to worry about parking. or where to park. or how much it costs to park. or driving. it was awesome.

which leads into...being in a walkable city. we loved being able to just walk out of our hotel rooms and just GO! we could walk to a deli or bar. or head to the subway station to get across town. the world was at our finger tips. in all four cities. it truly was remarkable.

exploring as much as we could. even though we slept in, a lot (hey, it was our honeymoon!)...we tried to see and do as much as time would allow us to. we have no idea when/if we'll ever be able to do something like this again. so we had to soak it all in!

taking too many pictures. even though we can't get them off the camera. we have over 1000 pictures of our trip. and they will be lasting memories of all that we did and saw. and for now, we know they are in a safe place :)

the games. just doing a multi-city road trip in and of itself would be amazing, but hockey is who we are. it's us. so we could never have imagined doing this trip, or another one like it, without the hockey. we loved every minute of going to new arenas and learning new hockey cultures. it was once in a lifetime. and we hope to do it all over again. in 4 new cities. some day soon.

we loved our hockeymoon. we miss it as much as our wedding. it is another storybook of wonderful memories we will cherish for our lifetime.

xoxo,
ks

city of brotherly love.

it was friday, february 17th. we awoke, lazily in NYC only to check-out of our amazing hotel, head to the train station to continue on our journey. so we go to the amtrak kiosk to check-in and get our train tickets, but for some reason it wasn't reading our confirmation scan correctly. so we headed over to the ticket window. well, it turns out that our tickets were for the wrong date. how the hell did that happen?! ok, ok, so let me shock you to your core right now...i am not perfect. i planned and planned and planned a multi-city road trip. this was my only mistake.
it turned out not being a big deal at all. other than us leaving on a train 45 minutes later than the one i bought tickets for 2 days prior, plus we got to pay for the tickets again. that was fun.
so while we waited we thought lunch might be a good idea.

we said our goodbyes to NYC and hello philadelphia!! in a very quick 1 1/2 hour trip. it was awesome! no 10+ hour train trip here. it was sooo great. once we got to philly, we felt confident in utilizing their subway system to get to our hotel. well, i don't know if you've ever been to philly, but philadelphians aren't the most friendly of people. plus the subway system was stupid. and overwhelming. we couldn't find a kiosk to buy tickets. and the ticket window line was super long. so we said screw and headed out to find a cab. well, guess what? we walked outside and there were just cabs waiting to take us to our destination. perfect! we arrived to our hotel in a quick 25 minutes during rush hour traffic on a friday afternoon.

we stayed at aka hotel in rittenhouse square. when we got there, the doorman helped us with our bags. and of course held the door for us. we were immediately treated like royalty. and i felt like they knew who we were before we even checked in. this hotel also commented about us being on our honeymoon. while we checked-in at the front desk, another man took our bags to our room. whhhaaaaattt?
we arrived to our room, on the 12th room, which was as high as we could go, other than the penthouse. and we were greeted with roses, wine and a cheese plate! i thought "wow! what a hotel!" there was a note in the flowers. keith said, "read it." i was just like...ohhh they even left us a note. turns out it was a note from my husband. he had contacted the hotel prior to our trip and set all of this up. that sweet, sweet man. ♥ :)
i was completely blown away. he never ceases to amaze me. in nothing but wonderful ways.

view from the top.

we weren't really sure what to do with our afternoon. we had plans to meet my oldest friend carly and her husband, sean for dinner. we had a couple of hours to kill. so we were like "should we nap? shower? sight see? go get a drink?"
we decided to get cleaned up then head over to the restaurant, good dog, a little early and grab a drink while we waited for carly and sean. the bar was right up our alley. laid back. good beer, with even better food. and it was wonderful to catch up with carly, 10 years later. and of course, to finally meet sean. :)
plus, they helped us figure out the subway. you don't get tickets. you use tokens. yeah, you give your money in exchange for a token. i told you it was stupid.

saturday, february 18th. this was the day of hockey game #4. pittsburgh v. philadelphia. plus it was a day game. puck dropped at 1pm.
the flyers play at the wells fargo center. which is part of the bank owned stadium complex that also includes the eagles stadium and the phillies stadium.

citizens bank park

lincoln financial field

wells fargo center felt the most like what is now known as the PNC arena. the atmosphere was great in that the fans were into the game. they were loud. they like to cheer, boo and curse...A LOT. we noticed that the fans were either really nice or complete assholes. there was no middle ground with the philly fans. they even booed the youth hockey league that played during intermission. i mean, really?
this was the 2nd best game. the first two periods were great. it was competitive and the score couldn't have been any closer. philly just fell apart in the 3rd period and pittsburgh just ran away with it. FINAL: PIT: 6 PHI: 4

Game 4: PIT v. PHI

yay! more hockey!

it was tied after 2 periods. TIED.

the view from our seats.

FINAL score. what happened PHI?!

the view of dt philly from the arena.

since it was a day game, it kind of ruined any touristy stuff we wanted to do. however, we managed to walk over to south street for a cheesesteak, a philly must have! and on our walk we saw some of the historic row houses. we then walked over to independence hall. we also saw the liberty bell and the first president's house.

the bell-o-liberty.

independence hall

our trip to philly felt even quicker than new york. before we knew it we were getting ready to leave again. this time it was the end. we were leaving to come back home. sweet. home.

xoxo,
ks

hockeymoon

10 days. 8 teams. 4 cities. LOTS of hockey.

keith and i just returned from the most insane honeymoon there ever was. instead of relaxing in a hidden paradise for a week, we decided it would be better to run around in four strange cities for 10 days. all in the name of hockey. and of course, love.
we only had a few hiccups. and we most definitely would do it all over again :)

in order to share our amazing hockeymoon with you i am going to break it up into several blogs. this way you don't have to read through one tremendously longgggg blog. instead you can read many kind-of long blogs. because we all know that i am slightly long-winded about things that make my heart pound.

unfortunately, the blog is going to post everything in reverse cronological order. if i can figure out a way to fix this, i will. so, don't cheat. READ THEM IN ORDER. so fight the temptation to read the end first. SCROLL DOWN. and just in case you don't remember this was the order of our trip:
toronto
montreal
new york
philadelphia

also, in other bad news, the cord that connects the camera to the computer...well, apparently we have the wrong one. so, whereas i do have some pictures to share, most of them are from hockey games. or are are mediocre pictures taken on an iphone. once we figure out the cord situation on the good camera, i will most definitely share more pictures!

lastly, i will include a blog (or two) about our favorite things and our least favorite things. and if we did this all over again, things we'd change and things we do just the same.

i hope you enjoy reading about our journey as much as i enjoy reliving it and sharing it with you! ♥ :)

xoxo,
ks