Hockey Night!

Today I'm tapping into a subject that doesn't get touched upon a lot here, and that's sports. Granted, I'm an idiot when it comes to most sports, gaining minuscule bits of insight on various cameraman gigs. But I'm an absolute hockey rat. I'm not the only Wench either that's a hockey fan, either, as it seems. So indulge me a bit as I go on a sports tangent.

As a young lass I won tickets from a newspaper contest to the local ECHL team the Huntington Blizzard. From that moment on, I was a hockey fan. I went to at least two games a season for several years before the team folded in 2000.

Anyway, last weekend I went on a hockey weekend roadtrip to catch the Wheeling Nailers. It's the first live hockey game I've seen this century. I definitely rooted and rallied for the Nailers when they were under financial difficulty a few years ago. And I have to cheer for them, since they're the only semi-pro team in the state now. But I can't totally get behind them, and here's why:

1) They were one of the Blizzard's rivals back in the day
2) They're the ECHL affiliate of the Penns, and I'm Red Wings all the way (sorry Janelle)
3) Their theme song on the ice is "Machinehead" by Bush? Really? Lame.

Anyway, Saturday's game wasn't that epic, with the Trenton Devils winning 6-3 and scoring the last goal of the night with the Nailers' goalie nowhere in sight. It seems like the main strategy of the night was "shoot the puck through the air to the opposite side of the rink or into the crowd," work worked out for at least three super pumped wee hockey fans in the crowd (free souvenirs!) Still, during the second period, it was pretty close and exciting. And Trenton had a hell of a goalie, so the odds were tipped in their favor before the game even began.

In addition to being the obnoxious Wings fan, I'm also the obnoxious fight fan. I fondly remember some epic fights from the Blizzard's heyday, one of which resulted in a ten-minute time gap when every single player was pulled off the ice, and about five from each team were thrown in the penalty box (including one of the goalies). The Nailers weren't as fight-happy as the Blizz; they had a few "roughing" calls but no gloves-off, bloody-nosed honest-to-blog fights. They did seem to have a pretty sweet spitfire in #23 Mitch Ganzak, who seemed to spend more time in the penalty box than on the ice.

At any rate, the trip and the game really renewed my love of hockey. Plus, Wheeling was a rad city, and I'll talk about it a little bit later. And did I mention how nice the people that work at the Nailer's office are? We had to reschedule the original trip because of an epic snowstorm, and they were pretty easy going about it. Definitely going to make it a repeat experience.