I just got home from attending the New Jersey Devils 4-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Prudential Center in Newark. The game was quite sparsley attended, officially
Getting there the blizzard made absolutely no difference. We left the house at 4pm the A train was running totally fine we got to Chambers Street and walked up the tiny narrow staircase at Vesey Street that is closest to the temporary PATH station, walking the block to it before going down the escalators into the station that feels much more temporary than the original one when you could actually see daylight (it’s been built around already), going through the turnstiles and ending up at the front of the platform, waited maybe ten minutes for the train and it came wrong-railing through what is normally the tunnel for Jersey-bound trains. Inside WTC the train reversed directions, we got on it and were out in front of the Prudential Center at 5:30 stopping at the Brick City Bar and Grill for quick too large and greasy burgers before the game, we looked for a place on Market or Broad Street but noting really was open.
During the game first during the First Intermission (it was at 8:00) it was announced that at 8:30 all NJ Transit Bus Service would be suspended but train service would continue to operate. At the first stoppage of play during the Second Period this was announced again and also that as a thank you to fans who made it to the game in the blizzard to feel free to move closer down to glass if in the lower deck and that those in the upper deck were free to move down to the lower deck. Unfortunately the only seats this applied to were those behind the goals, not those in the center of the Lower Deck that are premium club seats. The announced attendance ended up being 5329 with plenty of Maple Leaf Fans in that count, it seemed more empty than that though. Are seats were in the lower Upper Deck center ice and only two main concession stands were open instead of all of them. It was a ghost town.
The game ended at 9:30 and we trunged into the mounting blizzard with its deepening snow back down Market Street to the train tracks and Newark-Penn Station. Here it was a toss-up between NJ Transit and PATH to get back to Manhattan. NJ Transit listed major delays with some North Jersey Coast Line Trains cancelled. We opted for PATH noticing just a simply warning scrolling on PATHVision (its TVs along the platforms) that trains were operating with 5:10 minute delays, we waited maybe fifteen minutes for a train (it’s scheduled at this time of night for every 20) and one finally came. At Harrison we had a first delay a door wouldn’t close (they all kept recycling, We were on a new PA-5 and I was surprised that he couldn’t recycle only one door), he finally got it shut and began to move very slowly stopping quite a few times the one-stop albiet it is a distance to begin with ride to Journal Square took at least twenty minutes (scheduled to take ten), at Journal Square a 33 Street via Hoboken train closed its doors right after connecting passengers were allowed to board from our train and we waited a bit in the cold again. At the tunnel portal it was extremely slow running again going underground but once the entire train passed through it was smooth sailing all the way as we wrong-railed beneath the Hudson River and into World Trade Center and walked the block down Vecsey Street (the Exit Only 8AM-10AM sign towering over the narrow and close subway entrance) to the Subway and walked up to the A train platform we believe just missing the train. Amusing myself with a recently installed faucet inside an I-beam probably for power washing the platform. A C train came shortly thereafter but there was no sign of our A. It finally showed up 25 minutes later, signs saying 8 Avenue Express but at Canal it was announced we were running local and we got in our front door at Midnight, two and a half hours after the game had ended the same amount of time it took for the game to be played, an hour longer than it should have taken to get home.