First-hand report

Loyal blog reader and Section 316 season-ticket holder Dave was in attendance Friday night as Sean Avery opened his new Tribeca nightspot, Warren 77. I would have been on hand, too, except I wound up assigned to the Yankee game against the Twins that night. Dave was nice enough to e-mail his experiences of that night so I thought it might be something of interest.

Before I get to that, though, random quick thought. I was re-watching "Mystery, Alaska" the other night and I noticed at the end, after the fictional Rangers beat the Mystery pond-hockey team, 5-4, and the at-first-silent home crowd starts cheering for the upstarts, the Russell Crowe-led players skate by their bench, then salute their fans by raising their sticks, as the Rangers do now at center ice after home wins. That movie was made in 1999, the real Rangers started doing their European-styled salute in 2006. Hmmm.

Anyway, click below to read Dave's account of the Warren 77 opening. And my thanks to Dave for taking the time.

"My wife and I showed up around to the bar around 11:30, thinking there was no way we were going to get in. There were a couple of hot Euro looking girls smoking outside so I figured we must be at the right place. We waited til they're done smoking, and went in behind them expecting to be stopped by a bouncer telling us it was a private party, but instead got right in. It looks like an old building that was renovated, with flat screens all around with some hockey paraphernalia (old & new) scattered about. The best one was a picture of him scoring on Brodeur situated above the bar, waiting to be framed. When you walk in there are three U-shaped lounge seats that seat about six people each, and just enough room to walk by to get to the bar. Once you get by the seats, there is an L-shaped bar in the back to the left with a few tables in the corner. Like I said its a real small place, it only has two single bathrooms.

Anyway, so we walk in and the first person, and first cool moment of the night, we see is Shanny standing against a wall talking playoffs with someone. The place was crowded, but not too crowded. So, as we make our way towards the bar, we pass Avery, who was chatting with some of the people. He was all Vogued up with his outfit, too. A nice, button down with a zipper kind of vest. He's about 5-feet-10 but real stocky. We get to the bar and standing right in front of us is Henrik. I didn't notice him at first because he had a black fedora on but my wife, who is madly in love with him and would've left me there for him, noticed him right away. He was talking with Larry "Ratso" Sloman and a few other people about music and hockey. We got there late, so we didn't hear him play. Someone said that he played an acoustic set earlier in the night. So, we bellied up to the bar literally right next to him. He was really nice, talking with everyone, and even signed someone's CD. We introduced ourselves to him and, like I said, was really cool. He's tall, about 6-1. We even met his girlfriend Therese.

It was amazing that no one really knew who he was - it seemed they were all there for Sean. Funny thing was one of his friends introducing two hot girls to him and saying, "This is my friend Henrik". The two girls looked like they were going to melt right there, that is if my wife didn't get to punch them out first :)

We were standing right at the bar where the waitresses would come so every now and then Avery would come by and check on things and we would have quick, 10-second conversations with him. I thanked him for having Molson on tap and he said it wouldn't be a hockey bar without it. We wished him luck on the new bar. He even accidentally elbowed my wife and kept apologizing, which was kind of funny. He was really cool as well. Shanny walked by. I asked him if he had one more year in him and he said that he wasn't sure yet. From the looks of it, I am not too sure.

It definitely seemed like a private party because it seemed everyone knew everyone - but we were just happy to be there.

Later on in the night John McEnroe came in with a NYR hat on backwards, which looked kinda funny. Looked like he knew all the players real well. I know he is a huge fan. At one point in one of those U-shaped seats was Shanny, Johnny Mac, Henrik and Avery. Imagine getting in that picture?? Another cool moment was Avery and Shanny alone just sitting next to each other laughing and looking at one of the TVs showing hockey highlights and commenting on them.

Brad Richards of the Stars was there, too. I guess he must've been the only guy on the Stars who liked him.

Avery played DJ for the music coming out of the laptop around 2:00 a.m. and started "dancing" a little bit. We stayed until they kicked us out around 2:30 and it was just me, my wife, Henrik, his girlfriend and a few of his friends and Avery and some of his friends left. I wished Avery good luck again with the bar, and he said thank you for coming. If he only knew..."

Me again. Again, thanks to Dave for supplying that account, it was a fun read.

It's funny that he mentioned how Lundqvist was not noticed. I had a similar experience during the season in Nashville, a rare instance in which the team stayed the night in the town they played in. Me and a couple of other media types were at a bar listening to music when some of the Rangers wandered in, Avery and Lundqvist included. Nobody in the bar really seemed to notice them, even though there were several fans walking around in Ranger jerseys. In fact, at one point, I was chatting with Henrik at the bar while a guy with a Lundqvist jersey was right next to us with his back turned to us.

Comments

[TK]

Thanks for that, Andrew. Rangers updates are few and far between across the net.

[Jim]

Wow great story, props to Dave for getting in there.

[Godwin]

That sure as hell beat my Friday night.

Does anyone know if any average joe like myself could get in on future nights or is it appear to be strictly guestlist/vip type?

[jpg]

i believe the salute started as a combo of Jagr/Kaspar because it was a European tradition.

[Jim]

I honestly thought the salute was Straka's idea, but I don't quote me.