The Finer Points of Hockey Trip Report (NYNY) ~ 3/18-3/22 ish (Live-ish)

Buenas dias, Dear Reader.

Its been a long time since we've been together. The preceding few months have been a demolition derby on this end. house renovations, shuttling back and forth to Chicago due to a death in the family, and my general disdain for my day job. It's 4:12AM PDT and sleep is a fleeting idea. This evening my son and I are off to Vegas for a hockey tournament. I, nor he, has done a damn thing to prepare for it.

Now before you tune this out as some over achieving parent living vicariously and pushing their kid into a sport they don't care about or worse yet a TR lacking of gambling and general debauchery... I assure you that's not the case here.

First, I've spent far too many shekels on orthodontics to push my kid in a sport where he's likely to loose a chicklet or two. Secondly, my baby momma and I have gone through great pains to raise well rounded sons. What do I mean by that? Well, they could be those kids with straight As that are hustling the kids on the play ground over a 3 card monte game and then juicing them further when they cant pay up. The first warning is subtitle, miss a payment suddenly your bike has two flat tires.

As for the gaming and debauchery, I expect plenty. In general the tournament life is as rough on the parents livers as it is the players bodies. I see the preceding year of house arrest that we've all be through as a compounding factor, meaning all the parents are itching for a good-old-fashioned-drunken-shitshow.

Don't know a thing about hockey, no problem. This will tell you everything you need to know



Our port in this storm is NYNY. It's certainly not my first choice in lodging, or even top 10. The casino is certainly serviceable though and I will be servicing it. My disdain is compounded by the fact that the tournament is something called stay to play. Simply translated, I am actually paying for a meh room in a property where I could have been comped to just about anything I wanted there and with FP/RC galore. Oh well, just happy to be out an about with some good ol father- son time. Well the father- son time usually lasts until about 47 seconds after dinner is complete, where my son ditches me to run around with the buddies and the parents and coaches convene around the nearest watering hole.

Dinners have been arranged around his cuisine choices:
Steaks this evening. I am holding two provisional reservations, one at Gallagher's and second at Craftsteak. Which one we use will all depend on how fast we can get through the car rental center debacle at LAS.
Italian- Piero's Friday.
Saturday and Sunday are open. He has mentioned with burgers, tacos, or sushi.

So expect food porn and hopefully VP win porn. There will be sun at the pool. There might be an odd box score and certainly a funny story or 3.

Oh, and if I should rambling in some unfamiliar phraseology, you can probably find the translation here:
https://hockeyanswered.com/top-100-nhl-slang-words/

The preamble complete, please rise and remove your hats for our national anthem.

 

This will be great. Hockey and Vegas, what a great combination!!

 

Minor hockey isn’t about the kids....been there...LOL.

Have a great time!!!

 

Well...this outta be fun.

 

Following along!

 

Do you need bail money @Hockeylade?

 

My dear VMB friends,

First, I apologize because, well, “ live update” went sideways when a 14 year old was placed in charge of his father by his baby momma.

Secondly, we had a Covid scare. Tests are all negative, Which basically means- post tournament tournament colds for both of us. Ya know too much fun too little sleep.

While I am not trying to be tease, trust me I am easy. Give me 48 hours to mend.

I have great food and VP winnings porn. If you don’t like my finale, I’ll buy everyone here a beer. Before you get your hopes up, I am just getting a Keg of Miller lite set up at our cabana at Aria for our May Boys Barnburner trip. Well, it might night not be in Aria proper either, just the parking deck. First come, first served.

 

So the morning was a mad dash. Fortuitously, I decided to audit his hockey bag for little things like gear and stick tape, mouth guards, etcetera... and WHOA I am glad I did. The stench was HORRRENDOUS. Since we're going to be sharing a room for the next 96 hours, I made him run all his gear through the wash before school. I like my own brand, but not his, in spite of him being the fruit of my loins.
On to cutting his rails

Today was also the first day back to school, you know real school- in the first person and three dimensional. There is a jubilant mood in the kitchen from all. As is tradition in my house, I drive my sons to school on the first day. We load up, will 3 out of 4 of us load up for school. I walk back into the house to find my wife, baby momma, accountant and +1 talking with my penultimate son. While I cant be certain the full content of the conversation, I am certain I overheard her say, "remember, don't bail him out right away."

A quick pack for me and it was a fine day of work. At 2:45, its time to jump in the car to collect penultimate son as the final bell rings at 3:00pm. You may be asking yourself, why do I refer to him a penultimate son. Well, middle son or any middle child has such a stigma. But as I type this and we are heading to Vegas, Deuce has a much better ring to it for the purposes of this TR. Deuce jumps in the car lets out a primal roar and says--" Dad lets go, fast, step on it." When it comes to driving with purpose, I need no encouragement. We meander our way to OAK airport arriving a perfect 70 minutes before the flight. Gear checked and we are at the gate just 10 minutes later. He has a couple of teammates/buddies on this flight, and the dads are standing at the bar adjacent the gate enjoying a few pops. "Hey Lade, you want a beer?" For a second I though about being coy or even taking a pass, but my primal mind took over and belted out a hearty, "EFFF Yeah!" One and a half lukewarm, yet oddly delicious, Coors lights later we are wheels up and on the way. Off the plane, bags collected, car rented and at the hotel all in 45 minutes flat. For Vegas this has to be some record. I am giddy because we will just make our Gallagher's reservation a mere 10 minutes late. On the way up to the room, I see this and carnal thoughts fill my mind, yet Deuce seems unimpressed and even apathetic.


We dump our crap literally in a pile just inside the room, and I clap my hands together whilst grinning ear to ear while rhetorically asking, "steak?"

Deuce looks a me with sorrowful blue eyes and says, "Dad?"
"Yeah pal," I inquisitively retort
"uhhh, well... ahh...... my friends want to meet up and I had that sandwich in the airport"

I hold my index finger over my lips to make the silent shhhhh. I then release him from his parental obligations for this night only. He bolts off screaming, "Best dad, Ever"
There you go ladies and gentlemen, dumped by my own son and we have been on the ground less than a hour.
I should have named him Judas

In all honesty, in normal times this would be a major breach of father son tournament protocol. However, its hasn't been a normal year for anyone. He's probably seem more of me in the last year than they previous 5 accounting for the amount of travel I do.

Okay, OKAY, I am weak with hunger and frankly had no energy negotiate. I am happy to console my wounded fatherly pride over a nice hunk of red meat.

I roll into Gallagher's. I flush our reserved table for two and swap for a bar location for one.
West coast oysters, YEEEEESSS


Bone in strip, rare.. double YESSSSSSS



I highly recommend the spicy cauliflower side, as well as, the vodka. The later is purely for medicinal purposes in these COVID times.

more to come....

 

So I hesitate to share this portion of the evening. I've even typed it up, deleted, and pasted back. Meh, No judgement please.

It's been studied that the amygdala is this primal portion deep in your brain that is responsible for your fight or flight response. The problem with mine is its wired more for the former, and its coupled with quick wit (perhaps dim wit) and a chirpy mouth.

So take you folks back a bit, I blathered something about house renovations. This very afternoon the glass company had installed the glass enclosure to our master bath shower. Somewhere between oyster number 3 and the main event, I am on the phone talking with the baby momma. She is smitten as she will be the first to use the new master shower. Think car wash for two bodies, plus I had installed a steam system. Based on my crooked nose (see previous conversation on my ol' amygdala) steam is practically a necessity to breath normally in all but the hottest months. Anyway, all is right with my world, I am even getting some dirty talk from the misses. As it is NCAA weekend, lots of sloppy brahs are staggering around. Now while you may doubt me ,and I don't blame you, the misses is my witness. I like that, it kind of rhymes...

Anywhooo...
The 4 sloppy brahs saunter up to the bar in Gallagher's. The one guy is right on top of me. In spite of the big sign saying "ORDER TO GO DRINKS DOWN THERE" they somehow are expecting service.
I ask really nicely, "hey bud, do you mind sliding down a bit?"
That's it. I said nothing less- nothing more. I have a witness, scroll down.
Maybe it was my midwest patois
Diamond Jim Dry Humper becomes indignant.
While he's spewing bunch of profanities in my face. I have already sized him up in a split second.
He's 6 inches shorter than me
I have better reach
I have superior reflexes.
He has at least 60 pounds on me and holding him up with my left will be exhausting.
Worst case, I get a shiner from a lucky shot, oh yeah and I'll probably spend the night in the pokey.

Ladies and gentlemen, my mind flashes with the classic ending from Wargames..... "The only winning move, is not to play"

Baby momma, overhears the whole thing and asks what wrong with that guy.
The staff advise the brahs that they cant stand at the bar. They stagger out into the passageway between Gallagher's and the boozy slushy stand.

Diamond Jim Dry Humper is flipping me off from there and talking smack. I sincerely hope his parents did spend any of their hard earned dough on his education.
I pass them off for what they are and proceed to enjoy my steaky goodness.

Toward the end of my lame attempt to eat more than 5oz of my beautiful steak, the brahs get their table.

As they are walking to be seated, Diamond Jim Dry humper again chirps at me, " eff you, you effing effftard" (less efffs but more ucks)
I quip immediately back, " You sir are embarrassing yourself, and consider the salad"

Don't ask me where or why I come up with this stuff.
Met up with the other parent and coaches told the story whilst laughing. One of the dads was already trying to buy broom handles from the cleaning staff and wanted to go find them.
We had a round and I encouraged everyone to move on.

I was in the room at 10:30Pm and Deuce was already in bed.

Friday----

 

You answered the main question I was going to ask - managing a small hotel room with hockey bag stink.

 

Glad you survived! And are posting the report. That steak at Gallagher's looks AMAZING!

 

Friday - 6:05am- I rise refreshed and frankly happy as a clam.

I need my AM fix and I know Starbucks has just opened. I throw on last nights outfit plus a lid and head down.

Deposited on the main level I swim quickly like salmon in the fall.. pushing upstream to spawn... quickly, instinctively, for my morning go juice. Boom, I am quickly dismayed. There is quite the line and Starbucks isn't open. I ask one of my fellow interlopers what is the deal. I am told there was a power outage just before opening and everything is out of whack. I gaze across the casino floor and observe that at least half the machines need some sort of intervention and the slot crew making there way methodically across the floor. Meh. Well, I suppose I could stand in line and wait. The better idea that prevailed was find a weak machine that somehow had found its random number generator jostled and see if I could make a few bucks.

As a creature of habit, I slide on over to one of may favorite top dollar machines.. $20 in... zilch out..
I move over to it's brother machine, perhaps it's just a distant cousin.. anyways. $20 in and bam.....

Not an amazing win, but hey... I'll take free coffee this fine morning and even bought a pack of smokes because in Vegas I am a creature of habit.

Starbucks is by now online, free coffee secured and deuce has now arisen. While he's not quite hungry, he wished to walk the strip and hear about what Vegas was like when I started going, which was shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct.

We did a good 4 mile walk, walking and talking about what was here and there, what long gone places were like, the mob, slots that spit out coins or tokens and you had to carry this plastic bucket around. In essence, what Vegas was like when I had no money, yet still a blast.
Walk and trip down memory lane completed, we pop back to NYNY for breakfast. Hit Starbucks again for some egg sandwiches, juice, chocolate milk and more coffee respectively. Its nearly 9:30am. He has 11:30AM dryland for a 12:30PM game meaning we have 90 minutes to kill before we roll out. The second half of his team are AM arrivals including a couple partners in crime. He wishes to catch up with the new arrivals, I send him on his way. with a strict meet time of 11:00AM. For purely relaxation purposes, I sit at a BJ table for a bit. I have a few cats and dogs worth of wins and decide to see what VP has in store for me. I make my way to the circle bar in the center of NYNY. I notice there have a few new bar tops that I've never seen before.

Why not, I think. I slide in a quick hundo, pick something called Aces Kicker Poker... and this is my dozenth or so hand.


This little hit filled my sails. its also 10:50am and thank god I didn't have to wait for the handpay and tax form.

 

Great report so far. Looking forward to more!!

 

Off to the game. There is electric in the air. The parents are happy for my good fortune, although its probably more due to I pledged to cover the evenings bar tab with my winnings. Puck drop and ugh. they look like a team that hasn't played I game in a year, well I guess that's a fact. 2-2 tie in the end.

Back into the hotel just before 3. This is prefect as I had a call to take, so Deuce heads off with the pals, and I go slave away in corporate America. My call was mercifully quick, and around 3:45pm, I decide a quick power nap is in order. What I didn't realize is somewhere we scored a very large room in NYNY. Far larger than the advertised 400 square feet and it definitely wasn't a suite. I am sure you can guess what happened next. Around 4:05PM, I am jostled from my power nap to find the entire team is funneling into our room. The have pizza, chips, Panda Express, cans of pop. I am groggy but still impressed they we were able to scrounge up such a veritable smorgasbord. I remind Deuce that a table awaits us a Piero's and we will leave the hotel a 5:45PM. I also ask that he not spoil what will be an epic meal. He replies, "got you dad, I just got a fruit cup to hold me over." We watched Casino a few weeks ago and he was impressed the Nicky's Leaning Tower Restaurant was actually shot a Piero's. I stroll down the to casino. I played 3 card for maybe a hour and I am down $50. No Big deal. A dad texts to see what I am up to. I offer that I don't have a lot of time as we are bouncing out shortly, and if asks if was interested in an aperitif in the bar. Why not, I thought.

6:02PM on the dot we roll into Piero's.

Deuce is impressed and is studying all the memorabilia. We sit and he's says, "Dad, I love this place- so old school and awesome."

Manhattan for one

Garbage Caesar for two


Sweet delicious Veal parm


My son had spaghetti and a very large meatball. Its his thing during tournaments. He said might have been best he's ever had, and for sure top 3. He reserved the right to eat there again this weekend, Oh twist my arm why don't ya.

Back to NYNY after 8. I decided to Bounce around machines and high limit for an hour. Meet up the parents and coaches in the bar. In bed just before 11, deuce is already fast asleep.

 

Of course you fee no shame you have watched Slapshot 25 times and Youngblood 10!

 

Loving the TR thus far. My only question is did the guy actually consider the salad???

 

Nice writeup. That hockey equipment smell is the worst!