A Great Weekend for Hockey
Forget your Final Four bracket woes by enjoying the Frozen Four this weekend at the CONSOL Energy Center.
Photo by Dave DiCello
The other marquee college sports tourney comes to CONSOL
We know you love your brackets. We’ve done the research, and we’ve discovered that for every Pittsburgher who actually watched a game in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, 7,256 ’Burghers filled out a bracket, convinced they would win an office pool. We also know you love hockey, for reasons that should be obvious. So with all that love of seeded tournaments and frozen action going around, Consol Energy Center is the perfect host for this year’s NCAA Men’s Hockey Tournament finals — aka the Frozen Four.
The semifinal matchups (Massachusetts-Lowell vs. Yale and Quinnipiac vs. St. Cloud State) get started today at 4:30 p.m.; the championship game will take the ice at 7 p.m. Saturday. Limited tickets, good for all three matchups, are still available; meanwhile, the NCAA has a long list of free-and-open events, including practices, autograph sessions and more, posted on its website. Can’t make it down to see the action? Tonight’s games will be broadcast on ESPN2, and the championship matchup will air on ESPN.
(Full info at ncaa.com) —Sean Collier, PM Associate Editor
Vintage valor
Feeling nostalgic? Prep for the perfect weekend at the Heinz History Center as Vintage Pittsburgh brings relics, fashion and more to life. If you’re particularly fascinated with the 1960s,tomorrow night's for you: Event admission covers entry to the "1968: The Year That Rocked America” exhibit at 5 p.m., followed by a DJ and cocktail hour at 6 p.m., and a ’60s Fashion Show (of over 100 chic local and national retailers) at 7 p.m. — plus a few other perks.
And be one of the first to walk through the door for Saturday’s Pittsburgh Vintage Mixer vendor fair (enjoy a half-off regular admission Early Bird Special from 10 to 11:30 a.m.). The six-floor fair will showcase fashion, décor and artwork (to name a few) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sure to inspire, the vendor smorgasbord includes providers like Charmed by Nature and the Pittsburgh Craft-O-Tron, East End Book Exchange, Pittsburgh Vinyl Convention, Swank Cat's Psychedelic Relics and Wildcard. Oh, and did we mention that you can have your picture taken with vintage cars?
(1212 Smallman St., Strip District; $30 on Fri., regular admission on Sat.; 412/454-6000, heinzhistorycenter.org) —Krystal Hare, PM Fact-Checker
JFilm Fest brings world-class Pittsburgh premiers to the Manor Theater
Some of my favorite trips to the movies sent me to Squirrel Hill’s Manor Theater, dating back to my teenage years. And given Squirrel Hill’s longstanding status as the center of Jewish culture in Pittsburgh, the theater couldn’t be a more fitting home for the 20th annual JFilm Festival, opening tonight and running through April 21. The festival showcases 18 films, all of which are receiving their Pittsburgh theatrical premiere; none are currently available through video on-demand services or DVD, making the festival fairly unique in its pursuit of brand-new offerings. Get the full story, and our talk with JFilm executive director Kathryn Spitz Cohan, in this week’s edition of After Dark!
In Theaters: New films coming to Pittsburgh screens this weekend include: hotly anticipated Jackie Robinson biopic 42; thoroughly unnecessary horror parody five-quel Scary Movie 5; Danny Boyle’s bizarre art-heist drama Trance; and Ryan Gosling in The Place Beyond the Pines. PM Film Editor Sean Collier recommends that you educate any children in your immediate and/or extended family with a trip to 42; baseball aficionados, however, should be warned that the flick doesn’t aim too high.
Join the final weekend of the University of Pittsburgh’s Repertory Theatre’s groundbreaking play about the strife of refugees sheltered by Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum (the first such institution in the country). The play is written by exiled COA writers from Venezuela, China, Burma and El Salvador. Click here for more information.
Saturday at 8:30, join Pittsburgh comedian Amy Capiross for the third annual Forever Strong Comedy Show at the Praha Hotel in Tarentum to help local Matt Taylor and his family pay for badly needed medical expenses. Admission is $5; the event is for ages 21 and up. Click here for more information.
Washington's Tanger Outlets will host A Taste & Style Experience on Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m., offering a variety of food (gourmet food trucks, to be exact) fashion, entertainment and artisan merchandise from the I Made It Market. Click here for more details.
