Fall is here, but there's still time for Ice Cream - check out NYC Huskers favorite spots in NYC

We're only 3 days away from football, the official start of fall, plus Pumpkin spice lattes have already been available at Starbucks for weeks, and soon it will be time to start working on our chili recipes. However, it's still crazy hot outside and the end of air conditioned days still feels like a far off dream, so for our very first edition of NYC Huskers favorite things we're bringing you a list of our top ice cream recommendations in New York City.

Aside from a love of Nebraska, it's hard to get the NYC Huskers board to agree on much of anything, but when tasked with the question of where to find the best ice cream in the city, we were surprisingly unanimous on our two top picks - Big Gay Ice Cream and Ample Hills Creamery.

In my early years in New York City there was just one location of Ample Hills Creamery on Vanderbilt Ave in Brooklyn, and once upon a time a group of NYC Huskers trekked all the way there to buy pints of ice cream to take to a baby shower in an entirely different party of the city. Over the past 4 years they've been popping up everywhere with 8 locations currently in the Boroughs, and they are expanding nationally as well. According to the Ample Hills website - " We opened Ample Hills Creamery in the Spring of 2011, terrified no one would show up, and wholly unprepared for when they did.... We dedicated ourselves to making ice cream the old-fashioned way, slowly, by hand.....(our) playful, whimsical flavors reflect the creativity of our Amployees, the vibrancy and spirit of our community, and our daily pledge to not take life too seriously – or at least ice cream." We took a trip to the Gowans location after the B1G cornhole tournament where we picked up some of our favorites flavors - Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, The Munchies and Snap Mallow Pop! - but if you asked me to pick my favorite flavor, I'd still trek to the original Vanderbilt location for The Commodore, one of their "inspired by the neighborhood" flavors only available at individual locations.

After starting as an Ice Cream truck in 2009, Big Gay Ice Cream currently has 2 New York City locations, one in the East Village, one in the West Village, with another opening soon at the South Street Seaport. According to their website - "Big Gay Ice Cream spins a new take on the old school ice cream parlor experience by mixing high quality ingredients with guilty pleasures, traditional flavors with the unexpected, and a youngster's imagination with an adult's know wink and satirical tongue. It's both for kids and for those of us who are kids at heart." Their names are punny and creative, the dipped soft serve cones are very instagram-able, and best of all, it's delicious! NYC Huskers did not make a group trip here specifically for this blog post (though now that we've been talking about it, a trip is definitely on the to-do list) but our consensus on the must-try items are the Salty Pimp and the Bea Arthur.

If you're heading for ice cream before the summer is over, these would definitely be our top picks, but if you're looking for more off the beaten path options (and one equally as mainstream), here were our runner-ups for our NYC Huskers favorite things:

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream - Multiple Locations - You can also pick up pints at most local grocery stores (Big Gay Ice Cream and Ample Hills Creamery are also available in pints at many local grocery stores). The Honeycomb is EXCELLENT!

Mikey Likes It - East Village and Harlem - Try the rotating flavor of the month

Taiyaki NYC - Chinatown and Williamsburg - Fish shaped cones make for the best ice cream photos

NYC Huskers Football 2018

We're officially in the single digits on our days-left-before-football-starts countdown, and it's time to give you the rundown of what NYC Huskers has in store for this season! Visit us every week at Hudson Station - 440 9th Ave, New York, NY 10019 - to join in on all the fun, and follow us on social media for updates throughout the season.

Season Kick-Off Party

Join us at 5pm on Saturday Sept 1st for a pre-game kick-off party. We'll have our tailgate games out, we'll be playing huskers trivia for fun prizes, and if you join our e-mail list or show us that you follow us on social media between 5pm and 6pm, we'll give you one free drink ticket! We'll also have all of our merchandise for sale.

We expect the first game to be packed, so coming early for the kick-off party may also help you secure a first-come-first-serve seat!

NYC Huskers Champions Club

New this year, Hudson Station and NYC Huskers are partnering to offer a great deal on special "Champions Club" Seating. There will be a limited number of reserved seats available at the basement bar for a VIP experience. The seats will be $50 each and will include unlimited beer, wine, soda, wings, and sliders throughout the game. If you would like to reserve one of these seats, please purchase the ticket through the individual game event on our website. E-mail info@nychuskers.com if you have additional questions. This is a GREAT deal, and we expect them to go fast, so make sure you purchase ASAP for any games you want to experience the Champions Club!

NYC Huskers Gear

Once again, we have some great NYC Huskers t-shirts and other merchandise available for purchase at all games. We have a great new design with a Scott Frost meets Broadway twist on a super comfortable 3/4 length shirt, plus the return of our classic "I Blackshirts NY" design.

We'll also have returning favorites like sunglasses, bags, hats, scarves, and koozies every week. Stay tuned as the weather turns colder for an announcement on sweatshirts as well.

Visit us each week at the t-shirt table at the front of the bar, or purchase online on our Merchandise page.

Game Day Activities

50/50 Raffle:

Every week at halftime we have a 50/50 raffle to help raise money for the NYC Huskers scholarship fund. Tickets are $1 each. Spend $20 and get a free koozie. Half of the money raised each week will go to the winner, the other half goes towards our scholarship. The winner will be drawn at the beginning of 3rd quarter, and the winning number will displayed on the TV screens and posted on our twitter feed so you'll never miss the winning number.

Food and Drink Specials:

Hudson Station will once again have a special NYC Huskers menu with the best prices in town!

Hudson Station Policy

All seating on the main floor of Hudson Station is first-come-first serve. Please note that your entire party must be present in order to be seated.

Limited reservations are available at Hudson Station in the 2nd floor sky deck only. Your entire party must be present 15 minutes before kick-off or your reservation will be forfeited. Please contact Hudson Station directly at 212-244-4406 to make a reservation.

If you want to sit at the basement bar in the NYC Huskers Champions club, you must purchase a seat ahead of time for $50 from nychuskers.com. Seats will only be available for purchase at the game if they have not all been filled.

Welcome to the new NYCHuskers.com!

If you've been around for a while, you might have noticed that NYCHuskers.com recently got a face lift! In addition to a fresh look, we'll be adding some great new features that will hopefully keep everyone more engaged with the group throughout the year.

The first big change is the return of our online store! You asked for it all last year, so we're bringing it back. Beginning this week, you can order all of our NYC Huskers gear through the Merchandise page on the website. Shipping will begin the week of August 27th. Please allow at least 2 weeks for shipping of all online orders and note there will be a $5 shipping charge added to each items. We have a great new t-shirt design this year that we think everyone will love, plus the return of some classic favorites!

One of the big goals for NYC Huskers in 2018 is to work on networking among our members. To that end, we'll have 2 new features on the website to help you connect with and get to know your fellow NYC Huskers. The first is our new Resources page - this is an online forum where you can interact with other members to help each other with jobs, apartment hunting, recommendations on things like doctors or dentists, as well as restaurants or activities.

There are 4 message boards separated out by topic and anyone is welcome to join the conversation. Simply create an NYC Huskers login by clicking the "Login" button at the top right of the website - you can join with your e-mail address, or link with your Google+ or Facebook account. From there you'll be able to post as much as you'd like. We hope that you'll all get as engaged as possible in the online community - the more people we have participating in the conversation, the better opportunity it will be!

Sneak peek of one of NYC Huskers Favorite Things

Finally, we'll be revamping this News feed to feature weekly blog posts. In addition to featuring up to date NYC Huskers news, our goal is to have several monthly blog series. Series will include profiles of your NYC Huskers board, Alumni Spotlights of NYC Huskers members, tips for those who are new to New York, features on some of the NYC Huskers' board members favorite things to do, and Neighborhood Profiles written by residents of different parts of the city. We have some fun ideas already in the works, but to make it really great, we'll need your help! Do you know someone you'd like to be featured in our Alumni spotlight? Do you have a recommendation for the best steak in New York City that you're dying to share with the group? Do you love your neighborhood and want to tell us why? Please reach out to info@nychuskers.com if you're willing to write a blog post for us, or if you have an idea you think we should feature in a blog post. Also please reach out to nominate yourself or someone you know to be featured in our Alumni Spotlight. Again, the more people we can get involved, the better our tips and tricks for networking with each other and conquering New York can be!

Here's to a refreshed outlook overall in 2018!