Inside the Cave –
Regular season kick-off for 2014 NFL Football is still 161 days away…
We’re in College Basketball’s March Madness, but it still isn’t quite the same. I need to shake thing up. My wonderful daughter Jessi (and member of 3P) provides a great temporary solution – A Las Vegas Wranglers HOCKEY GAME!
Ordinarily I wouldn’t put too much faith in someone who is a die-hard Oakland Raider fan (their “Commitment to Excellence” has long been replaced with “maybe next year”…) but time after time she proves her “smarts”, and I love her totally hilarious sense of dry humor (which I like to think both of wonderful daughters got a little bit from me…..)
She also lived in L.A. for quite some time and became a fairly vocal L.A. Kings hockey fan, so she knows the game. However, I don’t…
3P: Jessi, being of true 3P training, prints me a list of hockey rules and terms (gotta love her.) She scopes out ticket options, I pay for the tickets which she gets on-line, and she offers to buy dinner (really got to love her – now how often do kids buy dinner??) Anyway, it’s off to a Hockey Game!
Outside the Cave –
OK, 6 guys on the ice for each team including one goalie; PENALTIES: off-sides, holding (sounds like football), but then – high sticking, slashing, hooking, and ruffing. I look at the scoreboard and ask Jessi – what’s “SOG” stand for?
“Oh, that’s shot on goal, it’s when they take a shot at the goal, but miss.”
WHAT? They track stats for “nice try?”
My Canadian friends (and son Gavin) are all about hockey, and it’s funny when we visit with any of them during the season, their favorite sport is on EVERY NIGHT. I seriously doubt Brenda could handle NFL games on every night, she still hates the league for inventing Sunday night football and even worse for Thursday night.. But, I digress..
(Photo by: Jessi Meehan)
Jessi knows every L.A. King player and lot’s of stats. During the first quarter (I mean period, there’s three) it’s all new to her with this team and she’s unusually quiet. This starts to change midway through the second period as she’s getting to know the players and who to root for. By the third (and last) period, she’s starting to really get into it, but thankfully not as much as some of the hard-core cases two rows behind us with cowbells and all kinds of very colorful things to loudly chant and say to and about the opposing team – the Colorado Eagles.
Unfortunately, Jessi must have felt right at home at the end of the game when the Oakland Raiders, I mean Las Vegas Wranglers lost the game with less than one second to go! OUCH! Final score 3-2. But she stayed in great spirits!
Bottom line, we had fun talking about going, planned a really great evening, and it all worked; plus as we like to say in the family, we had “quality time” together!
In fact, we had such a great time that evening that we decided to do this more often.
And now the world will have one more hockey fan too….. SOG!
