CSE’s blog Feb. 23 2007 through Jan. 2006

February 23, 2007

February 23
(PDR) The King of Buffalo, aka DMay is nice enough to invite yours truly to the last Sens-Sabres game of the season in Buffalo. And what a game! Ottawa’s Neil drops Buffalo’s Captain Drury with a dirty (though technically legal) bodycheck. The very next shift, all heck breaks loose. Buffalo sends out its enforcers. Even the goalies are into it! Ottawa G Ray Emery first fights Buffalo’s G Martin Biron. Once Emery disposes of Biron, he then takes on Buffalo tough guy Andrew Peters! A goalie fighting twice in the same melee??? A goalie taking on the other team’s top enforcer??? Crazy stuff.

That actual hockey game was great, too. Maybe the game of the year. Sens led 2-0, Buffalo came back to take a 3-2 lead, Ottawa tied it 3-3 before Buffalo scored two more to make it 5-3 early in the 3rd. However, the Sens came back to tie it again 5-5. Overtime solved nothing. Buffalo won the shootout 1-0 on a sweet deke by Drew Stafford.

The KOB is noticeably upset after the game, in spite of the victory. I guess I’d be pretty pissed too if our captain got smoked the way his did.

Oh yeah, and it just so happens that we had already planned a road trip to Ottawa for the return match-up this Saturday. That should be a doozy!

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February 15
(PDR) Believe it or not, yet another flight is cancelled! This is getting a little ridiculous. Fortunately, we are re-booked on a flight to Boston, where we will be able to make it into Buffalo.

Finally arrived back in Buffalo just before midnight. The 1-hour flight from NYC to B-lo ended up taking us about 65 hours! DMay aka The King of Buffalo, greets us with some Duff’s wingies and “Buffalo salad” before the 1.5-hour drive back to Canada (eh!). Thanks, as always, KOB.

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February 14
(PDR) Well, today is Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, due to the weather, we are still in New York. Our flight to Buffalo was cancelled yesterday due to freezing rain. Not good. Girlfriend understanding, though understandably not thrilled. Hoping to fly out this afternoon.

UPDATE
D’oh! Flight is cancelled again. We took the subway/bus for nearly 2.5 hours only to find the flight again cancelled. We’ll try again tomorrow, I guess. Back to Brooklyn for another night. Man, our we grateful to have our aunt here!

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February 12
(PDR) Today was our last day at Toy Fair. Ran into Filip of Versus, the inventor of an awesome new scoreboard/audio player (not to mention Toronto resident), whom we first met at the Canadian Toy & Hobby Fair a few weeks ago. Sounds like he had himself a great show. Canada represent!

Being that we are huge sports fans, we’re always interested to see what new sports games/products are out there. Saw lots of great stuff, including a mini football/universal remote! Met some great people and saw some really neat stuff.

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February 11
(PDR) First day at Toy Fair is excellent. We were able to spend some time with Jeff Berndt of Reveal Entertainment, one of our distributors on the US side. They have one heck of a booth. We also had the pleasure of spending some time with Trey Reilly, program manager at GAMA. She was most helpful in on all the great benefits of being a GAMA member that we totally overlooked last year. We’ll be sure to take advantage of all these things in 2007.

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February 10
(PDR) Arrived in New York today for the American International Toy Fair, which begins tomorrow. New York can be a heck of an expensive city, so we are most fortunate that our aunt lives in nearby Brooklyn. No crazy snow storm like last year, which is a good sign right off the bat.

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February 6
(PDR) Thanks to our “good friend” Hersh, I have made a couple of adjustments to some entries below. The NHL All-Star show actually started on Saturday, not Friday. I guess in our road-weariness (is that a word?), the days got a little confused.

Another correction from a past entry: the restaurant is called Buffalo Wild Wings, not Wild Buffalo Wings.

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January 30
(PDR) Just back in the office after our 3rd consecutive weekend at a show. This one was the 67th Annual Canadian Toy & Hobby Fair. Show went great. Got to see some of our favourite (and “favorite”) retailers, like Dave & Cindy Guercio of West Seneca, NY’s AAA Table Games, and the whole team from F.G. Bradley’s in the GTS. We also got to introduce lots of new folks to our fun little card games. Also had the pleasure of meeting Claude Alary of Alary Games, Canadian distributor of several great game titles, including the very popular Blokus. Next stop: New York Toy Fair. No booth for us this year, but looking forward to meeting up with some folks.

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January 26
(PDR) We have today confirmed participation in the 1967 Leafs Reunion Sports Autograph and Memorabilia Show, to be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (in Toronto) from March 23-25. The show, organized by our buddy Hersh at Frozen Pond, should be a great celebration for the nation of Leafs fans in Toronto – even if most of them weren’t born the last tme the team won the Stanley Cup.

The big question for us right now is whether or not we should wear our Sens jerseys at the show, as we often do. I’m thinking probably not.

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January 24
(PDR) Arrived back in Buffalo late on Tuesday night. And, once again, Mr. D-May, the undisputed King of Buffalo, was kind enough to help out a couple of Del Rio’s by picking us up at the airport, taping the NHL All-Star Skills Competition and YoungStars Game (which was pretty brutal), and setting us up with some good eats. You really don’t know hospitality until you’ve spent some time with the good folks in the B-lo. We’ll definitely have to take Mr. May out to the Drury for a couple Brieres. 🙂

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January 22
(PDR) We were lucky enough to get on the list of attendees for CCM/Reebok’s press conference of the official unveiling of the NHL’s new jerseys. Lots of big stars on hand, including Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Lidstrom, Marty Turco and Jason Blake. Of course the commissioner Gary Bettman was there, along with a host of TV personalities. Oh, and Garth-freaking-Brooks even made a cameo appearance, as he is doing lots of charity stuff with the league. It was a very cool event and I will go on the record in support of the new style unis. They look sharp. Can’t wait to see what the new Sens jerseys look like!

We were also lucky enough to score a couple of tickets to the “Generation of Stars” event at the American Airlines Center (or the “AAC”). Besides the chance to see both NHL All-Star teams practise, the event was hosted by Pierre McGuire (of TSN and NBC) and Cuba-freaking-Gooding, Jr. And to top that, they brought out a total of 11 recently retired superstars, including Mario Lemieux, Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille and Mark Messier. It was a pretty neat event. Well attended too.

By the way, the AAC has got to be the nicest hockey stadium in North America. Great looking concourse, very clean and good eats, too.

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January 21
(PDR) Sunday at the show was again excellent. Met lots of great people. Had a great time demo-ing the game with a bunch of kids from a local competitive hockey team.

Went over to Blake & Rebecca’s place for some Texas-sized barbecue and football. Glad that Peyton and the Colts pulled it out vs. the Pats. Played a lot of catch with Cooper, Blake’s 2-year-old superstar-in-the-making. Texas sure makes some good folk.

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January 20
(PDR) The NHL All-Star Memorabilia & Trading Card show opens at the NorthPark Center, probably the nicest shopping mall I’ve ever seen. Not only is this mall full of high-end stores, it is built like a castle with very high white brick walls.

The Saturday at the show is the longest show day we’ve ever gone through, as we got started at about 7:30AM and the show closed at 9:00PM. Couple that with the fact that we didn’t get to our hotel until about 3:00AM the night before and it made for one heck of a marathon. Good thing Starbucks wasn’t too far away from our booth.

But it is well worth it, as we had great response from those in attendance. NHL Ice Breaker makes its debut in Texas to rave reviews and we now have a great new customer in the Dallas Stars.

Met up with a couple of good Texas boys for a night on the town. Blake, a friend of Fab’s through a previous employer, and his buddy Marty, and his friend Lane met us at Bone Daddy’s – a true landmark in the city of Dallas. It is here that I learned what it means to be “straight Texas”. It is also here that I found out just how hilarious it sounds to Texans when Canadians say the word “raccoon”.

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January 2
(PDR) Happy New Year everyone! As you may have seen on the home page, we were named a Top 10 Card Game of 2006 by Erik Arneson of About.com (also a contributor to Knucklebones magazine). A very nice honour. Pretty cool to be in the company of some major publishers like Mattel, Playroom and Rio Grande Games.

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December 4
(PDR) Forgot to note that on Wednesday, November 22nd (I think…), Dave & Cindy Guercio of AAA Table Games (West Seneca, NY) featured NHL Ice Breaker on Buffalo’s ‘A.M. Buffalo’ morning news show.

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December 1
(PDR) NHL Ice Breaker and Card Football Premiere Edition will be featured on A-Channel Barrie’s ‘Toy Week’. Also, Wayne Wagner of Wayne’s Sports Cards in Edmonton, AB, will feature NHL Ice Breaker on an hour-long segment on hot Christmas items for A-Channel Edmonton on Dec. 6th.

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November 30
(PDR) I must go on the record and say that Bryant Gumble is THE WORST commentator I have ever heard. He literally makes the game unwatchable. With all the good commentators out there, the NFL Network HAS TO make a change. It really is painful to listen to. No emotion + no personality + squeaky voice = bad commentator.

On a totally unrelated note, have you ever typed “failure” into a Google search? You’ll be surprised to see the #1 search result.

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November 19
(PDR) NHL Ice Breaker is featured in this year’s ‘Hot Toys’ supplemental section in Sun newspapers (among others) across Canada. This special feature was put together by the Canadian Toy Association.

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November 16
(PDR) Partial shipment of newly updated copies of NHL Ice Breaker arrived in the warehouse today. Everything looks awesome! For those of you that don’t know, we updated some artwork, the playing deck, improved the rulebook, etc. And the timing couldn’t have been better, as we have a record sales day for the game. By the afternoon, the shipment is all but sold out and another shipment scheduled for delivery next week.

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November 13
(PDR) Just finished up our first-ever NHL Ice Breaker Challenge tournament at the Fall Sportcard & Memorabilia Expo in Toronto. Had a great time with all the kids that took part each day (special thanks to Tyler and Daniel, the first NHL Ice Breaker ‘veterans’). For the record, the winning teams were: Friday – Anaheim, Saturday – Anaheim, Sunday – Ottawa (nice). We also ran a successful redemption program with some of the dealers at the show. Thanks to Rick the Mailman, Superstars Sports Collectibles (MB), Kard Sharks (SK), Raxan Collectibles (QC) and Game Breakers (ON) for your support.

Great to re-acquaint ourselves with some old friends, including Jeff Morris – new owner of the newly-named Canadian Sports – The Magazine (formerly Canadian Sports Collector, which was formerly Canadian Sportscard Collector), Wayne Wagner – one of the true good guys in the Canadian hobby, Baron Bedesky – the hobby nomad, and all the boys at Universal Distribution. Special thanks to T-dot, LePage and Gregger for helping us out at the booth – we sure needed it.

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November 2
(PDR) Had an awesome time with a few Blue Jays and Dr. Dixon in Windsor/Lansing. Managed to track down a scalper for tickets to Michigan-Ball State at ‘The Big House’. Great game, great experience. Never been in a stadium with 109,000+ in attendance. Probablty a good thing they don’t serve any alcohol in the stadium…

Mustn’t forget to mention the angry, embittered young man at the border. Mr. Personality gave us a hard time about not having passports or birth certificates. A little consistency would be nice. We’ve crossed through Buffalo, Niagara, Detroit, etc. with just a drivers license and never heard a peep about needing any other ID. Whaddaya gonna do, I guess. “No habla, God.”

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October 29
(PDR) Erik Arneson, About.com’s Board / Card Games editor, today posted an interview with yours truly on the topic of Card Football Premiere Edition. Have a read. (Click here to read on About.com) We met Erik at Gen Con Indy this past August. Erik is very highly respected member of the board game community, and his opinion carries lots of weight. Thanks for the plug!

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October 17
(PDR) One very minor silver lining of having my laptop stolen is the fact that my new one has a good enough video card to run EA Sports’ NHL 06. And, thanks to “Rylan’s Dad” at the NHLPA, Fabio and I were featured in the game. You can find us on the Free Agent list. Have a look >> FABIO | PAOLO

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October 16
(PDR) This week’s sign of progress: Card Football is now listed on Wikipedia. I didn’t do it. Neither did Fab. Thanks to the good soul(s) that took the time.

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October 14
(PDR) Have a look at Fab’s number retired at Community Park (home of the University of Brock Badgers) in St. Catharines, ON.

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September 30
(PDR) Apologies for lack of updates over the last little while. Main culprit was the theft of my laptop in August. Outside of Dave & Buster’s Restaurant of all places, too! Anyway, finally got a replacement machine and hoping to catch up for lost time.

LOOKING BACK:

September 9: Left TGIF Con a day early to make it back for Fabio’s induction into the Brock University Baseball Hall of Fame. Had his number retired and everything. Nice little ceremony and good speech, Fab!

September 7: Arrived in Orlando for TGIF Con. Great conference. Learned lots of useful stuff about the industry. Many thanks to Bob Keegan for not giving up on us and convincing us to take part.

July 1: Spent Canada Day at Origins. Actually, there’s a very nice Canadian community at Origins, including Art from L2 Design Group and Greg, creator of XIG – The Four Elements.

June 29: Games arrived late for the show, which caused some early stress, but arrived by 1:00 pm. Celebrated Fabio’s birthday at the first day of Origins. Awesome dinner at a Japanese steak house right across the street (I think the name may actually be ‘Japanese Steak House’…)

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July 18
Have been neglecting the blog recently. Will be filling in some details from our trip to Columbus for ORIGINS in the coming days.

Got the September 2006 issue of Knucklebones magazine and saw that NHL Ice Breaker is featured among the New Releases on page 18-19. Pretty cool.

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July 5
Art Lupinacci of L2 Design Group, a fellow Italian-Canadian and game manufacturer, will be carrying both Card Football and NHL Ice Breaker. Be sure to check out their website.

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June 18
At Italian Week in Ottawa, met Songwriter/Singer/Performer/Producer Sal Piamonte and his new band. They put on an awesome show on Preston St. These guys have an extremely bright future. Looking forward to seeing them play again in the Toronto area. Check out SalPiamonte.com for more info and a sampling of Sal’s work. Recommended track: Friends Don’t Come Around.

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June 17
Our new friends Dave & Cindy Guercio of AAA Table Games in West Seneca, NY, and Shop-Games.com are now carrying both Card Football and NHL Ice Breaker. American customers can order by phone or online. Make sure to tell them we sent you. 😉

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June 11
Just added yet another new page to the site. The Buzz page is a summary of some of the things we’ve heard and/or been told about our games. Some might call the page shameless self-promotion. We prefer to think of it as a great way to recognize the people that have encouraged us along the way.

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June 7
Found a few more good people selling Card Football and/or NHL Ice Breaker online. Here’s the updated list:

CANADA
VolumesDirect.com (both)
Hockey Hall of Fame (NHL Ice Breaker)
Imaginaire/CTM Ste-Foy (NHL Ice Breaker)

USA
Boards And Bits (Card Football Premiere Edition)

We will be updating this list as often as possible. Look for a new store listings page in the near future.

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June 5
NHL Ice Breaker is now available at the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Hockey Hall of Fame Cyberstore! Click NEW ARRIVALS on the Cyberstore homepage and scroll down (9th row).

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June 3
For those of you that check up on the blog periodically, you have also noticed the new header for csegames.com. For those of you visiting our site for the first time – trust us, it’s new. We think this is a little more attractive, fitting and streamlined look for our website. It also provides us with the flexibility to add content to the very top of the page. Hope you like it. Feel free to send us your comments. Your feedback is always appreciated.

We have also confirmed our booth for the Origins International Game Show 2006 in Columbus, OH. Fabio & Paolo walked the show last year (after waiting about 45 minutes in line for a ticket) and were thoroughly impressed by the number of attendees and manufacturers that took part. We were also impressed and, at times, scared to see all the people in costume. We’re really excited about having a booth this time around.

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May 26
Found a couple of neat things related to our games while wasting some time online:
1. Google’s directory of sports board games
2. Game listings on BoardGameGeek.com – Card Football | NHL Ice Breaker
A pretty nice first review on Card Football, scoring it 8.5/10. Lots of real nice things to say, which is pretty cool.

In defense of Penalty cards (all 2 cards) in Card Football:

a. In almost every card game we know, 2 is the weakest card you can get. Therefore, in Card Football, the same holds true. You want to avoid playing them unless you absolutely have to.

b. The ‘Prior to the Snap’ Penalty card (2 of spades) can be very effective in the right situation. Sure, playing it will cost you 5 yards, but it can keep your opponent from playing a strong card or strong hand against you. For instance, if you think (or know) that your opponent is going to throw down something good, the 2 of spades will stop the play and negates any potential gain against you, since the penalty has occurred prior to the snap.

A little constructive criticism never hurts, though. Thanks to user ‘fenway5’ for taking the time.

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May 11
Really upset about the Sens’ OT loss in Buffalo last night. Unfortunately we were on hand to witness it. It always sucks when your team loses – especially in the playoffs – but we wouldn’t have felt right even if the Sens had pulled it off. They wouldn’t have deserved it. Game 4 tonight. Hopefully not the last time I throw on my Sens jersey this year.

Added an entry retroactive to Feb. 28 on Fabio’s lecture at UMass. See below.

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May 9
UPDATE TO ENTRY ON MAY 4 – Confirmed Apple Martini count: 6

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May 7
Last day at the show. Our cousin Tony helps us out at the booth this morning, as Fabio is pitching for our baseball team in Dundas, ON. Tony also shoots some video at the booth for our upcoming NHL Ice Breaker demo video. Have a look at his previous work on our demo for Card Football.
Fabio joins the fellas from Card Corner Club/Sportsology.net (Russ “David Cone” Cohen and Jon “Waldy” Waldman) for a little interview and a chat about Sandy Koufax.
Show ends at 6:00 PM. We manage to fit our entire booth into Fab’s Honda Civic. All those years of playing Tetris have finally paid off!

SEE CONTEST WINNERS

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May 6
After a busy first day, we call on the services of our friend Marc LePage at the booth for part of the day Saturday. Though he’s a relative NHL Ice Breaker rookie (he did proudly whoop Fabio in a 7 game series back a couple months ago, however), he’s quickly demo-ing with any and all that come by the booth.

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May 5
Great first day at the Expo. Lots of old friends/colleagues stop by for chat. Good to get re-acquainted with some familiar faces, too.
Met the great guys from Jersey Chair Co., our ‘next-door neighbours’ at the show. One of their chairs is featured on Hockey Night in Canada’s Coach’s Corner (clip to be added ASAP).
Lots of great kids come by for a demo of NHL Ice Breaker, which we have officially unveiled. Tyler, Nick and others can’t get enough of the game.
What’s most rewarding for us is to see those same kids teaching the game to other kids that stop by over the course of the day.

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May 4
Arrived at the International Centre in Mississauga to set up for the Sportcard & Memorabilia Expo May 5-7. After getting the booth erected and ready to go for Friday, met up with Wayne & Sarah Bailey of Bailey’s Sportscards and Chuck St. Martin (the biggest Damien Rhodes fan we’ve ever met) at The Keg. And for those of you keeping score, the unofficial Apple Martini count for the evening was five (5).

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Apr. 25
Been busy with a million things the last little while, but we’ll be adding some good stuff in the coming days and weeks.
Confirmed our participation at the 2006 Spring Sportcard & Memorabilia Expo in Mississauga (Toronto), ON. We will be unveiling finished copies of NHL Ice Breaker for the first time.

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Mar. 18
Back home after an awesome week in Vegas. Didn’t get to take in any of the sights, but GAMA was better than we could have ever expected. Met so many great retailers and distributors just as excited about our games as we are. Nothing like a successful trade show to rejuvenate a tired mind and body.
Paolo drives directly to Ottawa on the evening of the 17th for the Coldplay concert.

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Mar. 12
Arrived in Las Vegas for the GAMA Trade Show 2006. Worst travelling day of our lives – cancelled flights, ticketing problems. We got through it all in one piece, but our luggage and booth didn’t. Fortunately, the show doesn’t start until the 13th. We will never fly with that airline again (don’t want to name names, but it starts with “U.S.” and ends in “Airways”).
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Feb. 28
Fabio makes the trip the Amherst, MA to do a guest lecture for students of the Sports Management department at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Link to story coming soon.

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Feb. 14
Valentine’s Day at Toy Fair, though not much love for Paolo, as he experiences what he calls a ‘flash flu’ on day 3. Though he plays through the pain, tonight will be an early night. Fabio, meanwhile, hits the town with Greg of Big League Manager, Medeleine from Blue Orange and some friends.

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Feb. 13
Meeting some great people at Toy Fair, including the minds behind Top Trumps card games. Our good buddy and acclaimed journalist Russ Cohen of Sportsology.net also stops by for a chat and a demo. Following day 2 of Toy Fair, we meet the good folks at Blue Orange Games who treat us to a couple of adult beverages while demo-ing some of their newest games.

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Feb. 12
American International Toy Fair 2006 begins at the Jacob A. Javits Convention Center in New York City. We are promptly greeted by the largest single-day snow fall in nearly 60 years! The walk back to the convention center from the parking lot just a couple blocks away is akin to an arctic trek. We are literally knee-deep in snow.Impressed by the road conditions by the end of the show. A job well done by the NYC snow removal team. Score after first day: New York 1 – Us 0.

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Jan. 29
Vincent Booth, owner of Sir Games-A-Lot in Barrie, ON, calls Card Football and NHL Ice Breaker “the games of the show.”We have the good fortune of meeting Shelley Markwart, founder of World Respect Marketing, Ltd. and inventor of Zany World Family Game. We take her up on her offer to set up at February’s American International Toy Fair. The show runs Feb. 12-15 in New York, NY.

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Jan. 28
Canadian Toy & Hobby Fair begins in Toronto, ON. Fabio & Paolo are surprised by how well-received they are, even though both are wearing Ottawa Senators jerseys at the booth. Several television stations are on hand at the show, including CTV. And wouldn’t you know it, NHL Ice Breaker made an appearance in the nationally-aired news bit. Have a look (keep an eye out at the 10:11-mark of the broadcast).

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Jan. 24
Meeting lots of great people at Super Show. Card Football and NHL Ice Breaker are very well received. ”This is the best game ever,” says Chris Edwards of Pro Nebraska, a six-location retailer from Pennsylvania , of Card Football.

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Jan. 23
None other than Randy Moss is signing autographs for Super Show attendees at his booth, Randy Moss Clothing Co.After a long first day at Super Show, we check out the Blue Martini bar. And wouldn’t you know it, none other than Steve Nash is seated not 40-feet away. Pretty cool to see Steve there. Not only the best Canadian basketball player of all time, but the reigning NBA MVP. Didn’t want to bug him, but we had to say hello.

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Jan. 22
After seven solid hours, SportFX booth is ready to rock. Yet another reservation at Wild Buffalo Wings, where we see the Seahawks dominate Carolina in the NFC Championship game. Harry and Paul from Lucky Toys and Gifts, manufacturers of The Collegiate Box, arrive at half time.

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Jan. 21
Arrived in Orlando, FL at 5:00 PM, two days prior to the start of Super Show 2006. Couldn’t ask for better weather. Met up with the SportFX gang at Wild Buffalo Wings. Staff is nice enough to put the Leafs-Sens game on one of their five big screens. Sens win 7-0.

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Jan. 18
Our demo video of Card Football Premiere Edition is finally done! Have a look.