Before the last and final NHL expansion, Houston was guranteed to be awarded a new team, with one condition - build a new arena.

But city failed to get votes for new arena before dead line, and NHL team as well.

Only one year (or two years) later city of Houston and Rockets came with new arena plan and got approval, which became Toyota Center...

After that, there were a couple of attempts to bring other financially struggling franchise team (Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins) to Houston, but both failed. Understood, you know, nobody wants to lose Wayne Gretzky's championship team and Mario Lemieux's championship team...

With the increased BF upgrade fees just announced, it looks like I will be buying my EWR-CDG/BRU-EWR ticket for MLK weekend 2009 sooner rather than later...

I see your point re: revenge, but I don't think that level of hatred can be kept up four ways, or more. It is, IMO, too emotionally draining while already in the context of a playoff race. The revenge games that I'll enjoy watching for the next few years (on Devil off nights, of course) are PHL-PIT. This past year, they shoveled off ice chips, teeth and congealed blood in the TV timeouts. :cool: :cool: ^^^ I'll even demean myself by listening to that godawful PHL announcing team for those games. I'm a devout Mike Emrick fan, as has been noted here.

I do absolutely adore the "Rangers Suck!" chants at Devils games. The best part is that the fans don't care who the opposition is. Anaheim could be there, and you'll still hear at least 4 of those Ranger hatred calls. I'm still trying to figure out what cues them to do it - you just hear them out of nowhere.

As of this post, 4h19m until schedule. :D

ETA once again: IAH = no hockey, solely from the weather. That would be the league's single worst sheet of ice unless that building was kept ridiculously cold year-round. It's no kwinky-dink that players on all teams almost universally praise EDM's ice as being the easiest and least challenging to skate on.

CDG?? :confused:

Looking to add a line to your Flight Memory? Or just looking for any open seat that you can upgrade in to? Tix are in the $700+ range to BRU right now for a Friday/Monday schedule. That's not good.

I've been thinking of going over a few days early to check out Paris and then taking the train over to BRU for the mini-DO. I've never been to Paris and another FlightMemory line never hurts. ;)

You might as well just buy BF - those copays are a waste. $700-ish for a mid-level coach ticket, plus $900 or $1000 copays, plus 40k miles just for BF to Europe is not a good deal, IMO. I would rather buy the ticket outright and keep the miles, burn a standard reward, or just fly coach - EWR-Europe is not very long.

Guy on my hockey team open bottles with his wedding band. Just grabs the top of the bottle and pries it off.

The door mechanism always works, but the bottle is tilted so there is always a little spillage.

I think I might use BMI for the Brussels DO, and a get a chance to burn my gold certs.

Nice idea, though I'm not sure it makes much sense for me to fly NYC-ORD-MAN-BRU instead of EWR-BRU. And my wife is probably coming along for the beer, so she would likely veto the routing. Of course, I'm much more likely to requalify for BD gold than for CO platinum in 2009, so maybe I should.

Or I'll just cash in 50K points and fly on the CO non-stops for free. Actually, I'll probably book them now as rewards and know that I can still cancel for free as a Platinum still. Looks like decent Y and J reward availability right now for the whole weekend as well as a few days on either side. The Y rewards are actually coming out of G, not GN, so they are available for non-elites, too. Only $57 in taxes for the r/t.

I'm still trying to work out when I'll use my 4 GUVs. Perhaps over Thanksgiving...

I really wish BD would offer a Friday (rather than Thursday) LAS-MAN nonstop. I don't like the idea of connecting via ORD during the winter (which is when I generally travel to Europe).

How is Europe in winter? My wife and I want to go to Italy the end of Feb. through the begging of March. It's her birthday, plus I figure off season there will be better deals to stretch our dollars, and less crowds. The weather may be a bit of a bear (for VCE maybe), but that doesn't bother us.

IMO, Europe in the winter is fantastic. The weather may not always be ideal (although, my trip to London in February was full of sun and temps in the mid-50s!) but airfare is cheaper, hotels are discounted and you get to experience the cities without large crowds.

Friend of mine does this too...titanium band. :D

Indeed. It's great being able to visit the sights you want to see without huge crowds making getting around difficult. Also, after spending three winters living in Scotland, winter just about anywhere else on the European Continent (except Scandinavia) is rather tame. I don't go to Europe for its beaches... so, to me, a cathedral/brewery/landmark is the same, regardless of whether it is July or January.