I Don't Give a Puck

Sports fans, I tell you the truth - I am not an athletic supporter. It's true. I don't like sports. At all.

The reasons are varied, and mostly uninteresting, but generally centered around how I believe that your time should be spent profitably and not given to idolatry. If you like sports that's just fine - I'm not trying to change your mind - sports are just not my thing.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when my husband announced yesterday morning that we were going to a hockey game. It goes without saying I don't give a puck about hockey.

Me: Are you sure I agreed to this?
He: Yep.
Me: Was I drunk when you asked me?
He: Nope.
Me: So what's in it for me?
He, knowing me well: Ice cream before the game. And there's fighting, and it involves blades, and sticks! And..... a cannon.

I grabbed my least pooped on jacket and hopped in the truck.

We drove about 97 hours to the nearest big city. Maybe it wasn't that long but it was a long way. We had a nice meal that I didn't have to cook and then made our way to the arena.

My past is checkered with being hauled to various and sundry professional sporting events - almost always these forays ended badly. It would seem my superpower is to attract foul balls. So some of my dude friends used to make me go to baseball games just so they could catch stray balls. I was the bait, as it were. They never went home empty handed and thought it was great. I hated it.

To be clear, another one of the reasons I don't like sports - especially professional sports - is because of the fans. As far as I can tell sports fans are really just a distracted mob with no clear leader. I don't like the noise of the crowd and I really don't like to be around loud, drunk, yelling people. And for some reason they do not like me. At all.

Apparently my complete disinterest and rabid disregard for their game angers drunk sports fans. I've had adult people scream at me for reading a book during their stupid game. For reading! And I guess falling asleep or wondering aloud, "For the love of pork and all that is holy is this thing over YET!" just really makes them all mad. There was almost always some kind of altercation every time I went to some kind of professional sports event.

So I paused as we walked into the Hallowed Temple of Sport. The Big Man tugged at my hand but I stood my ground and looked around nervously. I was unarmed and dog-less....and surrounded by crazy people. I voiced my concerns to my husband. He reassured me by saying that if violence broke I was "the perfect size" - because he could carry me over his shoulder with one arm and swing with the other.

I was not amused.

Just then a troop of smiling school children passed us. My dear husband started to snicker. The afternoon games are mostly for families.

"It's going to be fine." TBM said and pulled me deeper inside the Thunderdome.

I can honestly say that I am not afraid of heights but our section was really far up. Extremely far up. Those people on the ice looked like ants. I clung to my seat.

Then a whole lot of who-knows-what happened. It just seemed like a big mishmosh of people skating around in circles with the crowd randomly reacting to whatever was going on.There was not as much hand to hand combat as I expected and the blades turned out to be only on the skates. I had a feeling I had been Shanghai'd. So I shouldn't have been surprised at what happened next.

"I thought you said there weren't any cheerleaders." I said pointing to a gaggle of boobilicious young girls in very short skirts skating around during one of the breaks. TBM just shrugged and looked off feigning complete surprise like he had no idea.

There was more who-knows-what then suddenly the crowd was very excited and everyone stood up and cheered. I guess we scored a basket or something but what happened next was amazing.

They fired the cannon.

It was awesometacular. I immediately resolved to get a cannon for the farm. Then I realized that they fired it because our team scored. I wanted them to do it again. So I decided to take an interest in the goings on down on the ice.

Our team obviously need encouragement but I guess you aren't supposed to yell, "Come on, (insert Viking or Russian name), my granny skates better then you!" or "Hey Ref where's your seeing eye dog!" at these kinds of things.

I sat quietly and wished for a big foam finger because we were #1.

Eventually we reached the half way mark and that was plenty of hockey for the both of us. Turns out it was really only about an hour to drive home and we got here just in time for chores.

So all's well that ends well. We had exceptional ice cream at Jeni's, we saw ice skating cheerleaders, and were amazed by artillery.

Happy Sunday everyone! Any body else see cannon fire yesterday? Do you know where I can get one for the farm?