Friday, April 15, 2011

Observations from the Bar 4.15

Sitting in my bar watching the Phillies game and reflecting on the Flyers rather inauspicious start to the playoffs. After having the best record in the NHL for most of the season the Flyers went into an end of season funk, losing 5 of their last 6 games, and slipped to just 2nd seed in the Eastern Conference. They lost their playoff opener at home 1-0 to the Buffalo Sabres. I only hope that hit them like a hard slap to the face and they hit back with a win Saturday.

What made the loss worse was a bad case of torn loyalties between the Flyers and Penn State. Penn State alumnus Terry Pegula purchased the Sabres in February for $189 million. Pegula is also the force behind the new Penn State men's and women's NCAA division 1 ice hockey programs. Along with his wife Pegula donated $88 million to the school to start the program and build a new multi-purpose arena, the Pegula Ice Arena.

Now I see nothing wrong with spending your money on a sport you love, there are far worse things to spend it on, but during the game I was reading tweets from PSU ice hockey and PSU sports and this is where I got irritated. It seems Pegula's box at the Wachovia Center was filled with Penn State alumni and hockey people all wildly cheering the Sabres victory. This is somehow just wrong and I plan on boycotting Penn State ice hockey for a few years, maybe till they begin Big 10 play in 2012.

For the record Terry Pegula is a 1973 graduate of Penn State with a  bachelor of science degree in petroleum and natural gas engineering. You can guess where he made all that hockey money.

And the Phillies lost too. Perfect.