Hockey

Last night, I was invited to see the hockey match - one of my work colleagues had a couple of spare tickets, and wondered if I was interested.

It was the second one I've been to see - the first one was the day before the break-in, so I was a little too distracted to think about it much at the time. The arena is a good few miles to the west of Ottawa, and is pretty impressive; I think the seating capacity is around 20,000. There are a number of concession stands dotted around, including more than a few branches of Tim Hortons. Because you never want to be more than a hundred yards away from Tim's.

I enjoyed the game quite a lot - Ottawa lost, but it was pretty close; they were 1-0 down for quite a lot of the game, and the tension towards the end was getting unbearable. I vaguely understand the rules of the game - it seems to involve hitting the puck in a random direction, and then trying to punch a passing opponent, from what I understand - but I'm pretty sure there are subtleties that escape me. I wonder if I'll ever manage to pick them up?

It also took me a long, long time to realise what seemed to be missing... The tickets were up towards the ceiling (I mean, they were free tickets, so they're not going to give the good ones away), so I could see pretty much the whole rink. I realised part way through the second period that I was half expecting commentary - I've seen a few games on the TV, and I'd really gotten used to having voices there explaining what was going on. There's also a lot less audience interaction than I think soccer generates - the only chanting was "Go Sens, Go" (the local team are the Senators, hence the chant), and a couple of rousing choruses of "You suck!", interspersed with "You suck referee!" after what I'm assured was a particularly poor penalty decision.

But boy, is the game fast - it can shift from one end to the other in a couple of seconds, and I've really got to hand it to the players - they take quite a beating, for one thing (the seats were perhaps fifty yards from the side of the rink, and if a player is crunched into the wall loud enough to hear from that distance, he's going to be hurting); and they can definitely skate well. My experience with skating is such that I'm incredibly happy to not fall over; the players were happily skating backwards, all while busily trying to swing at the puck or opponents.

I'm also a tad put out that last night's seats were just a couple of blocks around from the seats I bought for my first game. Especially considering how much I'd paid for them, and that apparently the seats a few dozen yards away were being given away....