AHL - I'll Take What I Can Get

American Hockey League. Well, it's not the NHL but that means you can get nearly rink-side seats for a lot less money. And being close to the players is a really cool thing.

I got the opportunity to see the Roadrunners while I was up at the Arctic Circle. They were playing against the Rochester Americans. I was torn... root for the US team or root for the team that actually lives in the city that I am visiting. My decision was to root for the best plays no matter what team they might come from. These were not common occurances so it was not too taxing on my vocal cords or my brain. This left me plenty of time to visit with the person I went to the game with. This person is the wife of my bf's good friend.

She called me up and asked if I wanted to go out and see something of the city where I was staying. I thought this was an excellent idea as I had spent the last few days in the condo preping/cleaning for new years eve and then painting. I was ready to get out - even if it was cold enough to contemplate peeing your pants to try to stay warm (if only momentarily).

There were a bunch of things that she had come up with for activities in which to spend our time doing. We both like hockey and decided that that would make for a fun evening out. We were also planning to have dinner too. Great. Sounded like we had a plan.

Most of you who know me, know that I am almost never ready early. Even when I try to be. This time, I wasn't even trying. I figured that she would be at the condo at the time we agreed. Ooops. She was, um, a tad early. We all had a good laugh about it because she had worked a full day and commuted home, then come by, and I, on the otherhand, was still in my paint clothes even though we had finished well over an hour before. Shite. Well, I'll try to plan better next time.

The hockey game, as I mentioned before, was cool because we were in row 9. I haven't sat that close since the time I went to a Grand Rapids Wolves(?) game back in '99. I didn't even get to sit that close for our college games at MSU. We were also right behind the players bench, nearly on the red line. Sweeeet seats. The game was a lot of fun. And I got to gossip about the bf and friends. I won't devulge what was said (because the bf reads this and that just wouldn't be right). Suffice to say, he is a complete corruptor of friends (as is well known) and a great catch (which is also well known). Good to know that nothing is being hidden from me. Some of you will know the double meaning of that statement. Hardy har har.

Dinner was good too. I got this huge-ass beer and was just a little giggle-y by night's end. I hope the bf friend's wife wasn't too annoyed. Overall, I had a great time.

You really have to love hockey. It is a bunch of men that look twice their size running (skating)into each other in order to hit at a little black thing on frozen water while a bunch of other men cheer them on. In fact, most all sports are great for this reason. Take a bunch of people really intent on achieving something that will in almost no way affect the world and add to it a bunch of people who paid money to watch this process take place. It's even better when it is out of the context of anything you might run into in the everyday... like, put the sport on ice or in the water. This is probably the same reason I like watching ice skating, sychonized swimming, and waterpolo.

Well, anyway, go Roadrunners! (Oh, and I don't even think I need to get into how funny it is that the hockey team's mastcot is a bird who would never live somewhere that there was ice for an length of time)