Travelogue: Back to real life

HAMDEN, Conn — Neil Ravin and I have landed back home and have finally unpacked. It is time to return to “real life,” as some have deemed it. There is no doubt that what we experienced the last four days was dream-like. Every day, all we did was eat, sleep and breathe college hockey. From the minute we got up to the second we went to bed, the Frozen Four was always in the back of our minds.

As much as we loved the games and the atmosphere inside the building, we could not think of a better town to host the Frozen Four. The Consol Energy Center is among the NHL’s finest, the citizens of Pittsburgh could not have been nicer and there is no doubt that Jason Grilli is one of the funniest athletes in professional sports.

Sure, the weather could have been a bit nicer, but a little cool weather never hurt anyone. We highly recommend visiting Pittsburgh; it is not the unwelcoming steel city we thought it was. Philadelphia has a lot of work to do to match what Pittsburgh did this year and, judging by the boos inside the arena this weekend when the 2014 Frozen Four logo was shown on the scoreboard, the Pittsburgh fans don’t think Philadelphia can!