Baby's first NHL game
Sep. 25th, 2011 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
syllepticSo, sometime last spring, I managed to pimp myself into hockey RPF fandom (I am...easy like that), which revived my dormant sports fan tendencies, so I started actually watching hockey again. Unfortunately, I have terrible timing, and all of this happened right at the end of the playoffs. I did manage to catch the Stanley Cup Finals! And I was home for the summer by then, so I even got to watch them on my parents' nice big screen TV. Now I'm off in grad school and have no television, so I can't watch very much. But! I also now live in a city with an actual NHL team! A pretty good one, at that.
Late Wednesday night, I decided on a whim to check out the student rush tickets my housemate E had mentioned. And it turned out they were selling them online for the preseason (no waiting in line and risking not getting in, very nice), but there was only one home game left. Which was, of course, the next night. Did that stop me? Ha.
Which means that on Thursday, Housemate L and I went to see the Chicago Blackhawks play the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was so much fun! Almost none of the real Hawks or Pens were playing (and by "real" I of course mean the small subset of players whose names or numbers I've learned from fic), but the game was still really cool. And the Pens won, 4-1, which was nice for the home crowd, though I'd have been fine either way. I have some pictures, but I can't figure out how to include them here -- if anyone wants to advise, that would be awesome!
We had fairly decent seats, up in the upper deck but right in line with center ice, so we could see almost everything. Unfortunately, we were also surrounded by the bitchiest fans ever. They kept griping about how it was the preseason and the game wouldn't be any good. And speculating alarmingly about the effects of Crosby's concussions on his career, eep. They did give me my favorite quote of the game, though: at one point early on one of them said, really fiercely, "Jesus, I hate Carcillo." Like most of my reactions to the game, I suspect I would not have found this nearly as amusing without fandom. (He was playing for the Blackhawks, but apparently Pittsburgh fans carry grudges?)
I think Jordan Staal was the only starting Penguin I knew anything about. He had two goals in the game, so good for him. One of the other Penguin goals came from Matt Cooke, which kind of startled me -- he also had a penalty for high-sticking earlier in the game, which was more what I expected from him. The fourth one (well, the third chronologically) was by Tyler Kennedy, and Frolik scored for the Blackhawks.
I also recognized Pirri and Leddy for Chicago, from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
doctor_denmark's excellent A Simple Complication, though I didn't notice if Morin played. But none of the players who usually show up in fic played, so clearly I'll have to go back during the actual season.
I swear 80% the fans at the game were wearing Penguins jerseys. Mostly Crosby and Malkin, with a smattering of other players. I was thinking about buying myself one (Mario Lemieux was my first hockey crush, if you can call it that when I was about 10 at the time), but they were ridiculously expensive. $180 is way, way out of my budget.
Commercial breaks are really strange when you're actually at the game. At least with baseball games there's an obvious stopping point and delay -- here they just randomly milled around the ice for a little while.
The funniest moment of the game came when one of the Chicago players fell over the boards during a line change and somehow ended up on his ass right in front of the boards....I'm not sure how that even happened, and I wish I'd managed a picture to prove I didn't imagine it.
I managed to suppress most of my fannish geeking out, so Housemate L didn't think I was too weird. Except when I commented sadly on them still having Talbot jerseys in the souvenir store....
Housemate E, who couldn't make it, texted me before the game "Ogle at Sidney Crosby for me please". I promised I would ogle for both of us, but had to text her after and tell her I was forced to settle for ogling Jordan Staal, since Sid was nowhere to be seen. She responded, "Staal is an acceptable substitute." Housemates: not fannish, but still awesome.
(Also, apparently I do not understand the Dreamwidth posting interface. I hope this works right this time.)
Late Wednesday night, I decided on a whim to check out the student rush tickets my housemate E had mentioned. And it turned out they were selling them online for the preseason (no waiting in line and risking not getting in, very nice), but there was only one home game left. Which was, of course, the next night. Did that stop me? Ha.
Which means that on Thursday, Housemate L and I went to see the Chicago Blackhawks play the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was so much fun! Almost none of the real Hawks or Pens were playing (and by "real" I of course mean the small subset of players whose names or numbers I've learned from fic), but the game was still really cool. And the Pens won, 4-1, which was nice for the home crowd, though I'd have been fine either way. I have some pictures, but I can't figure out how to include them here -- if anyone wants to advise, that would be awesome!
We had fairly decent seats, up in the upper deck but right in line with center ice, so we could see almost everything. Unfortunately, we were also surrounded by the bitchiest fans ever. They kept griping about how it was the preseason and the game wouldn't be any good. And speculating alarmingly about the effects of Crosby's concussions on his career, eep. They did give me my favorite quote of the game, though: at one point early on one of them said, really fiercely, "Jesus, I hate Carcillo." Like most of my reactions to the game, I suspect I would not have found this nearly as amusing without fandom. (He was playing for the Blackhawks, but apparently Pittsburgh fans carry grudges?)
I think Jordan Staal was the only starting Penguin I knew anything about. He had two goals in the game, so good for him. One of the other Penguin goals came from Matt Cooke, which kind of startled me -- he also had a penalty for high-sticking earlier in the game, which was more what I expected from him. The fourth one (well, the third chronologically) was by Tyler Kennedy, and Frolik scored for the Blackhawks.
I also recognized Pirri and Leddy for Chicago, from
doctor_denmark's excellent A Simple Complication, though I didn't notice if Morin played. But none of the players who usually show up in fic played, so clearly I'll have to go back during the actual season.I swear 80% the fans at the game were wearing Penguins jerseys. Mostly Crosby and Malkin, with a smattering of other players. I was thinking about buying myself one (Mario Lemieux was my first hockey crush, if you can call it that when I was about 10 at the time), but they were ridiculously expensive. $180 is way, way out of my budget.
Commercial breaks are really strange when you're actually at the game. At least with baseball games there's an obvious stopping point and delay -- here they just randomly milled around the ice for a little while.
The funniest moment of the game came when one of the Chicago players fell over the boards during a line change and somehow ended up on his ass right in front of the boards....I'm not sure how that even happened, and I wish I'd managed a picture to prove I didn't imagine it.
I managed to suppress most of my fannish geeking out, so Housemate L didn't think I was too weird. Except when I commented sadly on them still having Talbot jerseys in the souvenir store....
Housemate E, who couldn't make it, texted me before the game "Ogle at Sidney Crosby for me please". I promised I would ogle for both of us, but had to text her after and tell her I was forced to settle for ogling Jordan Staal, since Sid was nowhere to be seen. She responded, "Staal is an acceptable substitute." Housemates: not fannish, but still awesome.
(Also, apparently I do not understand the Dreamwidth posting interface. I hope this works right this time.)
