In case you missed it, two lucky BSB readers were provided with a pair of tickets to the 11/29 game in Boston and a pair of tickets for a tour of the NBC production truck prior to the game. It was part of a giveaway, sponsored by Discover, that we were very happy to be a part of. Our winners wrote a recap of their experiences below. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. We hope to run more of these in the future.

Jared:

The Thanksgiving Showdown was awesome minus the Rangers losing. We started with a quick little tour of the NBC Production truck. There we saw the control room with all the different cameras NBC has access to and where the producer would switch to the different cameras in different situations. It was also cool cause we saw a guy in the corner who was working on all of the templates for the score and game clock that shows up in the corner of the tv and then there was another person updating the leading scorers template that would show up during the broadcast. It was really cramped in that truck and I imagine it gets pretty heated while the game is going on.

Next a rep from the Bruins gave us a tour of TD Garden which was really cool. We first went to the floor where the locker rooms were. There we got a close up look of a bunch of the Bruins players playing some two touch. Off in the distance down the corridor, we were able to see Zucc, Boyle, and Stralman warming up which was cool. We were able to go into the tunnel where the zambonis come out and see the ice. After that we went to the elevator to go up to operating room for the scoreboard and in house stuff. We saw Bobby Orr, I was going to say hello but didn’t think he would be too receptive to someone wearing a Stepan Rangers jersey. We went up to the operation room where the media and the scratches for the game sit. It was cool we saw where they operate the score board and the sounds bits that come through the speakers. We also saw the organ player going absolutely nuts on the keys while the stadium was barely open. On the way out we saw Jim Cerny from Blueshirts United and gave him a “lets go rangers.” We got a goodie bag which was cool the only thing is that it is all Bruins gear, I can’t complain though. I might try hit EBay and make a few bucks to turn that into some new Rangers apparel. That was the tour.

Then the game we had nice seats about 15 rows up in the corner (section LOGE8) on the end where the Bruins shot twice so we didn’t see either rangers goals on our end but we did have an awesome view of the McDonagh goal in the first. With the exception of the loss, it was an awesome game (the Boyle fight wasn’t too pleasant to watch either as Chara went on to complete the Gordie Howe hat trick). It was awesome though.

Matt:

The tour started with the production truck, which was exactly that, a cramped SEMI with about 15 people working inside.  Impressive they are able to broadcast a nationally televised game in that thing.
We then took a tour of TD Garden.  That began with a goodie bag of Bruins swag, with the discover/NBC tour guide apparently surprised a few Rangers fans would be on the tour.  The tour itself was informative, went to production room and organist room as well as getting to step foot on the Garden ice.
The seats were great, got to chat up Jared a bit.

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