When I found out that Public Image Ltd. was touring in the US, I was determined to make one of the shows. We ended up picking the New York show because we knew someone else who was making the trip for that show. For a number of reasons, we dropped our original plan to fly up and stay in a New York hotel for a full week and instead decided to drive up, make some stops on the drive and stay in New Jersey. At first, our plan was to leave on a Friday, drive up to Charleston and stay there for a day before heading back up towards New York.

We had too much to do before leaving, so pushed back our start to Saturday morning. Truth be told, I was a bit pleased because it meant I could watch the Flyers take on the Bruins in game 7 of the quarterfinals at home rather than looking for a sports bar on the road. I was worried in the first period, as the Flyers went down 3-0. But, somehow they came back and won the game and the series, in which they had also trailed 3 games to none. I immediately began planning where we could stop on the drive to watch the game. I had been thinking of stopping around Fredericksburg, VA, which is only a couple hours from Philadelphia. When I realized this, I thought maybe we could see the game in person.

I went looking online for ticket sales. The site, unsurprisingly, was busy. I was put in a queue for access. After a few minutes, I thought I'd never get through, but after about an hour I was in. It took several searches to find a pair of tickets, but I got them. We were going to game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Although I grew up in Sabre country, I've been following the Flyers for about as long as I've been following the NHL. I adopted the Panthers after moving to South Florida, but my first team is the Flyers. I was very excited not only to see my first game in Philly, but for it to be the opener of the Conference Final put it over the top.

We had just enough time to get checked into the hotel and get over to the arena when the doors were opening. We were directed to park over by the old Spectrum. The building is closed, but they still have the banners up from the Bruce Springsteen shows that closed it. We took some pictures and walked over the Wachovia Center. I saw a ton of old jerseys in the parking lot, all different players from the late 1980s to the current team. At Panthers games, one mostly sees the same couple of players from the 1996 Cup run and the current team.

The mood inside was exhilaration. The Flyers won the game 7 in Boston and the fans were ready to welcome the team home. We saw a security guard walk by with a confiscated Stanley Cup replica with a Canadiens logo on. Liz started counting Canadiens jerseys. I think she got up to around 50 by game time.

The Flyers came out tentative. The guy behind us kept talking about the team and how well they were playing, as if to reassure himself. The Canadiens spent a good bit of time in the Flyers' end, but the Flyers managed to get the first goal, which got the crowd going. From then on, the Flyers started playing stronger and the crowd was into the game, shouting and chanting. The "USA!" chants were a bit lame, especially given the make-up of the Flyers team, but otherwise the crowd was a lot of fun.

There was some drama in the next section, as a Canadiens fan was thrown out by security. It appeared that the security was telling him to calm down and he kept shouting at some Flyers fans in his row, so they finally escorted him out of the section. On the ice, the Flyers dominated, keeping the Canadiens to the outside and beating them 6-0 with 2 goals per period.

On the way out, we hit the Fan Gear store. Liz bought a piece of the glass from the Spectrum and I got a puck for our hockey display at home. I was looking at a sweat shirt I liked, but didn't get it as I don't often need them where we live. (As it happened, it would get a bit cold while we were in New York and I wished I had bought it). I was surprised at how small the store is. It's the smallest one I've seen, and like the Lightning, they have the jerseys and the number press in another part of the arena as it won't fit in the small store.

After the game, we hit Geno's for cheesesteaks, as did a lot of other fans. Having now had both, I definitely think Pat's King of Steaks is better, but I'm told Jim's Steaks is better than both. We would have gone there, but it was closed. The steaks were still enjoyable and a nice end to a great night. We drove back to the hotel tired and happy.