The last time I saw my friend Megan was Christmas 2012 at an ugly Christmas sweater party that she hosted in her home. Needless to say, it had been too long. You can imagine my excitement when not long ago, Megan told me that she had never been to a Checkers Hockey game and wanted to go. Last night, we finally got together for a game.
I was so focused on "Old Time Hockey" night at the game that it didn't even occur to me that people would be out celebrating St. Patrick's Day. Turns out it was Charlotte's 14th Annual St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl. Now get this, not only did I not even know about this pub crawl, it is known as the "World's Largest Pub Crawl" and has even been featured on the Travel Channel's show "Extreme" on an episode called "Extreme Parties"!!!
Let's back up...I had taken Blossom and Balto to the groomer yesterday. Due to an overbooked schedule, it took them much longer to get to the "Barker Twins" than it should have. Fast forward, I picked Megan up about 30 minutes later than I had anticipated. To try and make up for lost time, I decided not to take the train downtown and drive instead. The closer we got to downtown Charlotte we realized that may have been a mistake. Traffic was gridlocked by a sea of green t-shirts.
As it turns out, over 19,000 tickets (shirts) were sold for yesterday's event and well over 20,000 people attended. Here is a picture of the ticket purchase area...
From the French Quarter....
(All of the above photos are from the @RichandBennett twitter account)
If we had arrived "on time" we were going to grab a bite to eat at The EpiCentre. It's probably a good thing that we didn't because this tweet was found on Twitter....
@ClevelandViking posted the above picture from The EpiCentre with this tag:
"That #awkward moment when you come downtown for a @CheckersHockey game and have to deal with this. #StPatricksDay"
So...back to our night. It is Old Time Hockey Weekend with the Checkers and the Hanson Brothers from the 1977 Paul Newman movie Slap Shot attended again this year. If you've seen the movie, you'll remember the Hanson Brothers. The "brothers" have aged well and almost look the exact same as they did in 1977.
On to the game... The first 4,000 to arrive received special glasses for the game. Here's a picture of Megan and I. Not only did Megan rock her glasses but she even made the shirt she is wearing!!!
PS. Doesn't Megan look like a superhero in this picture?
OMG, now that's a pub crawl! Wouldn't you love to be on the beer-selling end of that one? Or to have the tee shirt concession.
ReplyDeletePlease tell me that is fake blood on the Hanson brothers' faces.
Glad you had a great time.
That picture was from the movie so I'm sure it was fake. :-)
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