So we got there - meaning Cortland 120 miles or so down I-81 and when we discovered that the pool area of a 70 USD a night hotel is no place for man nor beast, it was off for another 18 miles to Cornell's campus in Ithaca, one of the great small cities in eastern North America, to see if we could get tickets to the hockey game against Niagara. I had in my mind that it would be like going to Canton, NY and seeing another NCAA match up like when we saw the SLU Saints against Vermont in February 2004.

Well, it turns out we only had a hope of seats because it was American Thanksgiving. Still, I had to wait for 40 minutes and got 4 rush tickets for 60 USD. Mind you we were able to get some nice views 8 rows back of the net but I think the kids got in Canton for a buck each. But the guy on the zamboni wore a top hat and sparkled white jacket as illustrated above...and they had a brass band in the far corner [here is an uncompressed clunky 7.9 MB .MPG format short short movie]...and the crowd certainly got into it, with a sweet celebration when the hometeam won [another uncompressed clunky 7.9 MB .MPG format short short movie]. It was all his fault, by the way. Cornell won 5-4. We had to head out a little early but got to listen to the game end on 870 AM as we drove back to Cortland, home of the smelly pool in an otherwise decent hotel. Click on any picture as usual.