Remember The Titans

I was checking Twitter on my phone this afternoon when I read a tweet from Brian Compton, a writer at NHL.com and a former sports reporter at the Trentonian. His post stated that the Trenton Devils, the ECHL affiliate of the NHL's New Jersey Devils, had announced their intention to cease operations for 2011-2012. Though the news wasn't unexpected given the team's declining attendance in recent years, it still tore at us Trenton hockey fans.

Back in 1999, a friend and I were in the River View Plaza offices of the T-Devils' predecessor the Trenton Titans as season ticket holders # 144. We were able to pick out our seats from a huge seating diagram of the still-under-construction Sovereign Bank Arena. I still remember the seat numbers; Section 114, Row GG, seats 1-4. 7 rows off the ice in the end the home team attacked twice. Great seats. Opening night 1999 found 8,000 screaming fans watching the home boys beating the Johnstown Chiefs; the building ROCKED. The first season was great fun; a bunch of scrappy kids with a young coach taking an expansion team to within two wins of the Kelly Cup finals. Every night was packed, every night the crowd cheered and booed lustily, and it seemed like it would be like that every game.

The first 5 years of the team's existence were good times. Good teams, good coaches, some future NHL'ers on the roster (Fedoruk, Fedotenko, Smithson, Valliquette), two appearances in the finals and one championship. Passionate fans like Puckhead, the gang in Section 113, and the Trenton Signman made every night entertaining even if sometimes the on-ice product wasn't! My wife and I looked forward to the 36 nights each season we got to go to SBA. We met lots of great people there; seatmates, seat neighbors in our section, ushers, arena staff and executives, NHL scouts and front office personnel in town to see what their kids were doing "down on the farm". When the Titans were on the road, the voice of their first radio play by play Joe Zydlo called the games on 1680 AM (Wham Bam Boom! The Titans score!) Like I said: good times.

After the 2004-2005 season of magic that ended with a parade down Broad Street with the Kelly Cup, things started changing. You heard the whispers regarding the team's financial problems, and that the local owners were interested in sellling the team when it was at its highest value. When the New Jersey Devils completed their purchase of the team in 2006, at first it was seen by the fan base as a positive move. At last, the team would have an ownership group that had the wherewithal to properly market and advertise the team. Truth be told - by 2006-7, the attendance had slipped into the high 4000's and nobody in management seemed to be advertising the team with any degree of aggressiveness. We all thought the deep pockets of an NHL owner would stop the slow downward attendance trend.

Instead of improving, things got worse. The Devils decided after one year of ownership to rebrand the organization to the Trenton Devils with logos and colors consistent with the parent club. Bad move for a hockey team located in Flyers territory. The attendance nosedived and couldn't be corrected with marketing the team in the Monmouth, Ocean and Somerset county areas. It was as if your little town was invaded and occupied by a polite but alien power and they wanted to teach your children a foreign culture and language. Little kids from Hamilton and Bucks county were asking their parents for Martin Brodeur bobblehead dolls for sale at the gift shop, and NJ Devils jerseys started to be seen walking the concourse during intermissions. The season ticketholder base dropped from over five thousand in 1999 to less than a thousand last year. It was pathetic the few times I went down there in the 09-10 season. One night in February that season, I counted about 1100 people in the arena; the building was quiet and had zero life or energy.

Sorry to say, last season we didn't attend one game. Every time we thought about going down there and catching a game it was too easy to do something else. We no longer felt that we HAD to attend and support the team; we had no emotional attachment to the T-Devils as we had to the Titans.

And now, there will be no more games. The Devils own the ECHL franchise that the T-Devils played under. They will probably move the AA team to another city and become the Podunk Devils or the Smalltown Devils and continue play in the league. Hockey in Trenton, though, appears to be finished after 12 years in the league. So sad.

A nice day on the bike.

After more than a week off my bicycle, I got out for a long ride today. I joined friends Tim Quinn, John Murray, Bob Lawyer and the young gun Dave Kimmel on a leisurely tour of some of Hunterdon County's finest hills.  Now, come June I'm usually out on the road several times during the week but I was laid low by a summer cold Tuesday and I've been rough since then.

Today was an exercise in hanging on. The legs had nothing, the breathing was hard, and the coughing was "productive" to put it politely. Thanks to my riding buds who waited for me on several occasions!

Now its time for a well-earned nap!

Help me help the kids of Anchor House

Hello friends and family,

This July I will be boarding a bus to Jamestown, NY near the shores of Lake Erie to participate in “The Anchor House Ride for Runaways”.

Anchor House was founded in 1978 to provide emergency housing, food, clothing and hope for runaway and homeless youth, ages 10 to 17. The shelter provides for the immediate needs of runaway and homeless youth, while seeking to reunite youth with their families, strengthen family relationships and help youth decide on a constructive course of action. Services are available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. The mission of Anchor House has grown since it was founded and now also includes the Angels Wings Program for infants and young children and the Anchorage for older teens. For more information, visit:http://www.anchorhousenj.org/ .

At the same time those dedicated volunteers founded the shelter in 1978, a small group of equally dedicated bicyclists started the “Ride for Runaways”. Now in it's 33rd year, the ride has now grown to over 200 bicyclists who get together annually to raise the funds needed to keep the doors of Anchor House open.

As I said, we will begin in Jamestown, NY and pedal for 7 consecutive days for a total of 500 grueling miles all the way back to Trenton, New Jersey.

Please consider supporting the kids of Anchor House (and me as a rider) with your donation. Now, more than ever the kids need us. I will be bicycling for 7 days in the sun, heat, rain, wind, whatever the weather offers. We will be climbing mountains and peddling 70 plus miles per day. While it will be a challenging week for me, it is a very challenging daily existence for the kids of Anchor House. Help us keep the doors of Anchor House open to these kids.

Your donations are tax deductible and you may make them online securely by clicking here: http://www.anchorhouseride.org/Donate.aspx?participantId=898

Thank you! I'll keep you updated on my progress as I train for my ride.

Brian

One of my favorite times of the year

I love this time of year. Late spring / early summer still has the cool nights and hot days, but the dog days haven't arrived yet, driving us inside to the air conditioning. The nights are the longest, the road cycling is great, the Thunder and Phillies ballgames are enjoyable evenings out and pro hockey winds its season down to another Stanley Cup finale.

Tonight's Stanley Cup final game 3 is turning into a real nasty, edgy, entertaining hockey game. A seven game series starts to become entertaining when the participants (both on and off the ice) are chirping at each other and the officials. When the "game hate" gets dialed up, things get interesting.

Boston seemed to sleepwalk through their first two losses in Vancouver, but the Canucks have truly woken the bear tonight. Memo to lip readers: do not watch this game if you are easily offended. With 10 minutes left, the B's are leading 4 zip, and Tim Thomas just stoned a Canucks forward on a clean breakaway attempt. Wheeewww. I can't wait until game 4 Wednesday night.

GPS files for the 2011 Anchor House Ride for Runaways

For the last several years, the Anchor House Ride daily routes have been available for upload to Garmin cycling computers. As more of our riders use these devices each year, the interest in using the route files has grown as well.

Garmin route files (as well as daily elevations) for the 2011 Anchor House Ride can be found on RideWithGPS for the first time (rather than MapMyRide which still hosts the 2009 and 2010 ride files). RideWithGPS has improved tremendously in the last year or so and is the route creation website I find myself using most often. I encourage everyone to set up a free account and try it out. Cullen King (the sites owner) has created a great resource for the cycling community and it just keeps getting better and better.

The link to my RWGPS page where the 2011 AH route files are located is: http://ridewithgps.com/users/10598/routes#. You have to have a free account to RideWithGPS in order to download the route files, so create an account first.

Garmin 205 and 305 owners should download the files in .tcx format and import them one by one into Garmin Training Center (thats the free software you got with your unit - available for download here). Once they are in GTC, you can export them to your device per the instructions in your user manual (available here).

Garmin 605 and 705 users should download the files in the .gpx format and follow the instructions on the RWGPS website available here on the RWGPS FAQ page under "Using a Garmin Edge 705". Another resource is Frank Kinlan's blog post here.

Garmin Edge 500 and 800 owners should read the following and follow the instructions to the letter as these devices are a little more problematic when navigating a previously designed course! You can find the instructions on how to use the route files here. I would also suggest you read Frank Kinlan's blog posts on the Edge 800 for useful tips and advice. I found the instructions essential when I tried to enable turn by turn navigation on my 800 during the 2011 Cory's Ride. The Garmin user manual is of no help whatsoever, so thanks Frank for doing the research on how to use these devices. 500 owners; the same directions apply to you - only thing different is that you have no map showing on your screen.

Here is an informative video on YouTube showing the route creation and uploading procedure on RideWithGPS. Although a 705 is used in the demonstration the information is applicable to all Garmin units.

Disclaimer: although every effort is made to ensure that these route files completely match the cuesheet instructions, the only "official" route directions for the Anchor House Ride For Runaways are the cuesheets supplied in your ride packets. Cuesheets you may develop based on these route files may or may not be completely accurate, and may be more confusing than helpful. Our official cuesheets are written from the perspective of the rider on the route, not from mapping information on a database. Street names, intersection shapes, etc. may appear different on the map than in the real world which makes any cuesheet generated solely on map data potentially flawed. Carry, read and follow the cuesheets!!! Use your Garmin as your secondary navigation source.

A figure-8ish "full circle"

Today was the 14th version of Cory's Ride, a bike ride to commemorate the life of a young man who lost his life on the 1998 Anchor House Ride for Runaways. Cory was just 15 when he lost his life tragically on that Saturday in July 1998, and the tragedy was obviously the worst day I've ever experienced on the ride. I joined the ride planning committee the following winter partly because of Cory's death and because I realized how important the Ride was to the kids of the Anchor House community and that one more similar tragedy would seriously threaten the Ride and the House's existence. I was actively involved in planning the inaugaral version of Cory's Ride in 1999 and planned the debut route.

This year I was asked to come back and redesign the 50 mile route. My route went northeast out of the starting point at the Tall Cedars picnic grove in Crosswicks NJ. After a few warmup miles, the route it its stride with rolling hills through the Central New Jersey horse farms, McMansions and quiet country roads. I designed the loop with an emphasis on quiet roads that would (traffic permitting) allow riders the opportunity to ride two abreast and carry on a conversation. I've found that some of the best conversations occur on a bike ride; subjects tend to run the gamut of human concerns and when possible a planned ride route should allow for that.

Although the sky clouded over somewhat, the event was successful with a (to my eye) large turnout and was a fitting commemoration of a life that though taken tragically, has lived on through the legacy of the event.

Many happy returns

Normally I like to do my yardwork with the headphone radio set on and tuned to the local talk radio station. It helps to keep the drudgery of mowing, trimming, etc. to a minimum and helps keep me concentrated on the tasks at hand. For some reason, while performing the weed whacking last Saturday, I looked up and saw a young woman in a SUV driving slowly past my house and waving her hand out the window in an attempt to get my attention. I walked over to her car and she told me she was looking for her lost dog. She told me how whe had just adopted the lab / border collie mix from a high kill shelter in Ohio and drove it all night to her parents house just down the block from me. The dog got spooked, broke leash and ran into the nearby woods where it hid, frightened and hungry. She had spent the afternoon trying to catch the animal, but to no avail.

Her story touched me, and I took her card with her contact info and wished her good luck.

I saw her dog yesterday morning; hanging at the edge of the woods just across the street from the woman's home; frightened, hungry and confused. It ran into the woods as I approached with my dog and I saw it jogging into the trees, while stopping to glance back at me a couple times. I called her and reported that he was still around, wanting to trust but afraid to. I gave her some advice and hoped for the best.

I got a call from the young lady this morning with good news. Last night, she set up a trail of food that led from the woods where the dog was hiding all the way across the street to her house. Around 2 am, the dog started barking at her back door; hungry and scared but wanting in. At long last, the dog has a home. Nice things do happen sometimes.

I'mmmm baaack!

Hello, all.

Yes its been awhile since my last post here at the ol' blogosphere. Almost a year to be exact. But I'm back.

I'm watching game one of the Stanley Cup finals and I have to say how impressed I am with the intensity both teams displayed right from the opening faceoff. Hard hits, facewashes, great goaltending and even a hand being bitten have all been a parto of the evening's festivities!

More later.

Nice to be back.