We took eldest child to his first live hockey game last night, Devils vs Penguins, Devils won. Husband scored some excellent tickets - 17th row, center ice. We also brought a kid from youth group who had never seen a live game. Everyone had a great time, and EC really behaved, quite a feat for a hyper 5 year old. His favorite part was the fan-o-meters, where they have you scream and yell and they supposedly measure your enthusiasm. He is told hundreds of times a day (literally) to keep it down, stop yelling, please be quiet, and then he was allowed to yell and scream, inside, as loud as he could.
We bought him a set of flashing devil horns (o how fitting) and a Zamboni matchbox car.
The playing was really sloppy, on both sides. I'm not sure what the players did during their season off last year, but it certainly wasn't practice. They seemed to get the hang of it in the last period, but they have definitely played better. The Devils got themselves some cheerleaders, which apparently is a growing trend in hockey. They came out on the ice 2 twice for the silly games between periods, and into the stands once for a small dance routine. I know that cheerleading is considered a sport, and is populated by some pretty good athletes, but neither could be said about these young ladies (wiggling is not cheerleading).
The youth group kid volunteered to open my Reese's Pieces bag and it exploded. I do mean exploded, picture a confetti bomb going off. The poor guy in front of us was showered in candy. He had a good sense of humor, and when we warned him later that we were going to open a package of Swedish fish, he tilted his head back with his mouth open. The poor kid was mortified, but I really didn't need those extra calories anyway, and a little public humiliation can be good for the soul.
We had a fun time, and would love to go more often. Note to Devils: most of the rest of the teams dropped their ticket prices after last years canceled season, if you tried it, maybe the arena would be more than half full.
They added nets above the glass, behind the goals. This really kept the pucks out of the spectators. It was a simple concept, and was probably the result of litigation - fear of or pending. I don't know why they didn't have them before. Sometimes we can get caught up in what we do now, and miss the why? why not? and the how can we make this better? Of course, for some, the puck eating potential may have been the draw.
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