The Puck You Putz

Sometimes in life you take one for the team. Like attending a hockey game on a Friday night. This wouldn’t be lame if the team plays well, you enjoy toothless smiles or you know more about the sport than ‘guys on ice’ (not to be confused with figure skating).

Actually when my roommate asked me to be her date for the night I felt a little twitter in my heart. She lives with me, sees me nearly every night and passes by my room every morning. She knows my eating habits and my intimates; in fact she's had to change my laundry a few times. Yet she still wanted to spend her night of fun with me so I did my best to be a wonderful date. I showered.

Not the quick I'm-in-a-hurry-but-shouldn't-be-this-greasy shower, but an I've-got-to-make-an-impression-if-this-is-going-to-go-anywhere shower. Feeling fresh and disturbed at my need to feel pretty I accompanied Stacey to the E-Center. Once we passed through the metal doors I felt troubled with the knowledge that my high-heeled boots clanked too loudly on the aluminum floor. I also worried that my eyeliner looked a little too glam and not nearly enough like a black eye. Awkward.

Stacey got the tickets to support her career. She works for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and hockey was the event of choice for the week. We sat in the general JDRF section and we thought the seats were great. Then we realized that if you sit behind the goal you don’t get any of the free stuff they tried to shoot from air guns. It was a challenge for some of the volunteers.

Back to Stacey and I because the game lacked in excitement—judged by the empty stadium seats and crowd quality. We moved around a bit and comfortably settled in seats behind friends who joined us in mocking the fans to our left. The enthusiastic foursome had a penchant for dancing and cheering but sadly no rhythm. When they attempted to join a cheer they were about two beats off resulting in a duet round instead of uniform chant.

We laughed and bit our lips in horror. Then the unbelievable happened. In a stadium with 85% of the seats open a young looking man-child looked at Stacey and I in disgust as he told us we were sitting in his seats. I guess we looked dumbfounded because he asked us to move as if we didn’t understand. So we moved down two seats in shock. For all the things hockey fans are not one thing they are, sticklers for their seats, even when plenty of better seats are available.