Sunday January 20. Truly a "red letter day" for Northern New Jersey in so many respects.
The first Regional Hockey Night Out event was a great success. Over 150 of us braved the cold and came down to Newark's new Prudential Center ("The Rock") to see the Devils take on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The home team won, 3-2, before an arena crowd of 15,291 in attendance. The win propelled the Devils back into a first place tie in the NHL Atlantic Division.
Then there was this other team that still plays in the Meadowlands at Giants Stadium. In something like Arctic conditions, the New JERSEY Giants...well, there is no need to cover that here except to say that New Jersey breeds champions. During the hockey game, we were able to watch both contests on two TV screens just outside our seating sections.
After the hockey game, the NFL Giants-Packers playoff game was shown on the 30' screen above the arena's center ice. We stayed until halftime when the game was still up for grabs (Green Bay ahead, 10-6). The Fire and Ice bars stayed open. By the time I got home, the best part of the game was still on! The best of both worlds, a hockey game and football playoff all in one day.
But the real reason for January 20th being a red letter day for the Northern New Jersey Region of FJMC goes beyond sports. It has to do with words like bashert and ruach. Here are some personal stories from the day which go to show how powerful dwelling together in unity can be.
(1) The Region had a picture taken at ice level with Devils player Mike Rupp (a member of the 2003 Stanley Cup winning team). Four clubs were represented in the photo, including Neve Shalom of Metuchen, Temple Israel Brandeis Men's Club of Ridgewood, B'nai Jeshurun of Staten Island and Shomrei Torah of Wayne. The picture will be made available to us soon. Mike also was nice enough to stop and sign autographs. We are not sure, but it also looked like Joe Wechsler of Ridgewood (also known as the NNJR Yellow Candle Chairman and our most devout Devils fan) tried to jump on the Zamboni for a free ride. GO JOE!
(2) We conducted a lower level seating raffle for the January 20th game. The two winners came from Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston and Congregation B'nai Israel in Tom's River. When both "separate" winners got down to their seats, they discovered to their mutual amazement that they were cousins! Neither had known that the others were coming to the game, not to mention that they would both win great tickets to see the game up close.
(3) An attendee from Temple Beth-El Mekor Chayim in Cranford noticed a name on our email distribution list. He had known a childhood friend by the same name in Linden. The other guy, our Club President from Fair Lawn Jewish Center met the Cranford attendee. You guessed it, childhood friends were re-united at a regional program!
(4) The second hockey game raffle (February 13 vs the Ottawa Senators) was won by the Honorary Past MC President of Beth El Synagogue in East Windsor. He brought his family to the game. Seeing the happy faces among his kids was tremendous. In fact, East Windsor had a fantastic turnout at the game - 24 attendees. Many of our southern clubs were able to come by train. Had this been a Meadowlands event, would FIVE of our southern clubs have come up?
What else to describe about this day? There was the FJMC name up in huge letters at center ice, on the scoreboard. Not only did the Devils publicize FJMC, but also our individual synagogues were listed. There were SO MANY comments about, "Hey, when are we going to do this again?" You know that a program is working when everybody wants more. Stay tuned.
Thanks go to a number of guys in the region who really made this work. Stu Kaplan, David Landsberg, Joe Wechsler, Harold Geller, Steve Ginsberg, Rob Blitzer, Steve Ginsberg, Peter Gotlieb, Joel Kurtz, Jeremy Saferstein, Brian Frisch. Thanks also are due to the Devils, in particular Christine Myers, their Group Sales Manager, for her terrific assistance at making our event so enjoyable.
Finally, I want to focus on one word. Yachad - togetherness. This event, like our Man of the Year Dinner, our Shabbat Retreat and FJMC Convention show that clubs get more out of Jewish life by working together. That is what our region is all about. You want more? Post to this blog and let's work on doing more together. Just like a catchphrase from FJMC...
"WORKING TOGETHER, WE CAN DO SO MUCH MORE!"
Kol Tuv
- Eric Weis
Member of International Kiddush Club
Founder of NNJ Regional Hockey Nuts
Friend of 1st of 5ths (GO TORONTO ARGONAUTS)
(1) The Region had a picture taken at ice level with Devils player Mike Rupp (a member of the 2003 Stanley Cup winning team). Four clubs were represented in the photo, including Neve Shalom of Metuchen, Temple Israel Brandeis Men's Club of Ridgewood, B'nai Jeshurun of Staten Island and Shomrei Torah of Wayne. The picture will be made available to us soon. Mike also was nice enough to stop and sign autographs. We are not sure, but it also looked like Joe Wechsler of Ridgewood (also known as the NNJR Yellow Candle Chairman and our most devout Devils fan) tried to jump on the Zamboni for a free ride. GO JOE!
