Wednesday, April 22, 2009


I was doing some research and I happened upon a website that serves to organize Penguins fans at a New York sports bar in hopes of rooting their team on to victory. The fact that whoever organizes this thing chose one of the absolute worst bars in the city in possibly the stupidest location is not surprising, but the whole concept got me thinking.


Every once in a while about 8 of us Flyers fans will get together and watch a game at the bar, but we all knew eachother before we moved to New York. As far as I know none of us has ever tried to find or organize a viewing party. But say we did. Say we found out that Flyers fans were meeting up at (let me pick a bar that's on the same level as Foley's) Planet Hollywood in Times Square. Say that we were actually nice extroverts who enjoyed meeting new people in this dangerous, disgusting city. How does it work?


So we e-mail and join an attendee list like an e-vite? I guess maybe each of us would write something a little funny like "I'll be the one naked painted in orange body pant!" Just to be clear we would write that but would not be naked. So we'd wait until the night of the game, meet up beforehand, and then we'd walk in. I'd expect to see like 20 or 30 people in some form of Flyers gear, from a subtle hat to an obnoxious Hartnell wig. But what do we do? Start walking right up to people and introducing ourselves like we're a bunch of long lost relatives? Like they're expecting us and know who we are? Does the fact that you support the same team mean that you can just start talking to anyone in there? I guarantee that if we did come in a group we would go sit at our own table. Sure we'd cheer at the same time as everyone else. Maybe we'd make a joke to someone at another table....but what else happens? Are there a bunch of single people in there? People who might use hockey as foreplay and are going to end up taking shots at the bar long after the game is over and then start banging eachother?


Is New York the only city that has this phenomenon? It's fairly common to see a gaggle of soccer hooligans dressed up in Premiership jerseys any Saturday around 11AM, but this is easier to understand because the games aren't on tv and aren't even being played in this country. But hockey...I was surprised to see this was happening.


Is there a Pittsburgh bar in Philly? If so, is there are reason it's still standing?

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're lucky to even get a hockey game on a tv in manhattan bars, let alone a Flyers game. If you do, it's always the shittiest, smallest tv available... and it's the Rags. I watched the Rags get beaten by the Bruins in the city and it was on an old 17 inch tv where the colors all bled. Everyone else got to watch the Skanks and the Mets preseason ass crap on giant flat panel beauties. fucking pricks.

April 22, 2009 at 4:39 PM  
Blogger AmyB said...

Penguins fans have the best ideas ever, don't we?

April 22, 2009 at 5:57 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I lived in DC for six years, and there were definitely ex-pat bars there, and in the surrounding suburbs of Arlington and Alexandria VA.

I think you'll find them in cities that have transient populations like NYC, DC, LA...big cities that are temporary destinations (months or years) for people who are from all over the country.

It seems like in general, most transplanted residents of Philly are from PA or NJ. So there's no real market for ex-pat bars.

April 22, 2009 at 7:22 PM  
Anonymous Zach said...

This has nothing to do with the post, but did you know that FGSB is also a law firm?

I wanted to check out the blog so I googled the acronym and got "Faust, Goetz, Schenker & Blee was founded in 1998. A wide range of litigation experience is brought to the practice by the attorneys of the firm."

April 22, 2009 at 10:04 PM  
Anonymous James said...

Try Wogie's in Manhattan. Nice Philly bar.

April 23, 2009 at 7:13 AM  
Blogger Ryan said...

Zach you caught us!

I am Faust Goetz and Fran's real name is Schenker Blee!

(It's funny you wrote that yesterday, as we were discussing moving to a new domain for next season...tell the deleware valley!)

April 23, 2009 at 8:12 AM  
Anonymous E Bell said...

There is a bar in Philly for Pittsburgh fans...It's called Woody's, check it out!

April 23, 2009 at 10:25 AM  
Blogger demimyke said...

@ E Bell awesome

They come out in droves to the Fox and Hound, had to put up with them last year during the finals. The gaggle of them all together looks like NASCAR threw up all over the bar.

April 23, 2009 at 12:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is club Shampoo still open? I hear the Pens fans like it there, too!

April 23, 2009 at 12:53 PM  

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