Mark Twain….Pudgie’s Pizza……signs of Ernie Davis on every other block, with a Jackals game to top it all off.

Yep, sounds like I’m back home again. Our road trip started last night with a visit to First Arena in downtown Elmira for an ECHL matchup pitting the homestanding Elmira Jackals and the Texas Wildcatters.

For those of you who may not be aware I was raised in nearby Horseheads. Graduated from Horseheads HS and earned an associates degree from nearby Corning Community College before eventually making my way up to the Buffalo area.

While it’s been over a decade since I’ve called this area home, its safe to say that in some ways that it’s a place I’ve never left.
Spend more than a few moments with me and it’s only a matter of time before I bring up something related to that part of the world. Be it my self deprication about growing up in a town named Horseheads, or the way that I pimp the area’s sports teams in a far too overzealous fashion.

Hence the term in the title of this post. To everyone else out there, the Elmira Jackals are just your basic nondescript minor league hockey club. But for me, well…yea, I’m going overboard but so what. People get it that I’m being silly yet getting that I’m simultaneously pimping the part of the world that I grew up in.

Which brings us to last night’s game on the pink ice surface of First Arena(typical minor league promotional stunt with heart shaped faceoff circles). Texas came into the game as THE juggernaut of the ECHL with only four regulation losses in fourty nine games this season. For Elmira a win would certainly be a daunting task, yet if any team had a crack at beating Texas it would be the Jackals as they had taken two of three from the Wildcatters earlier in the season.

But it wouldn’t happen on this night as Elmira would fall 6-3 as Texas showed who was boss on this night. The game turned for the Wildcatters early in the second period holding a 2-1 lead. The Jackals had gained a two man advantage and had appeared to be in prime position for the tying goal, yet Texas completely dominated the power play and controlled the puck consistently and eventually lighting the lamp while still down one man.

Texas kept the momentum in their favor throughout the game, where every Elmira goal was quickly negated by a marker for Texas. On a night where couples newly wedded on a local radio station were brought to center ice via limousine it would be the Wildcatters getting the love on this night.

For me still a successful night, hanging out with folks I hadn’t seen in a while and wolfing down a bit of the Pudgie’s Pizza(local chain that area folk tend to be ambivelent about yet any out of towner seems to love.). What more could one possibly want!

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