Friday was spent on a run, some time with the little bro & extended family, then off to a football game at the local high school with my best friend from that time, her hubby (a teacher) and their adorable little girl. After halftime, we packed G (who was really really upset that she was so sleepy and bound and determined to run until she dropped) up in the carseat with her daddy, and then B and I went to one of the local watering holes. Ran into another old friend there (after a bit of confusion b/w me and B on his identity), and unfortunately a drama king decided to join us at our table and cut our night a bit shorter than we wanted as we had to pull a "Hey B, how come K isn't here yet? Wasn't she coming? We should call her now!" to get away from him. We ended up going back to her house and chatting with her hubby for a while before crashing for the night.
Saturday, though...we packed Mom, Dad, & Bro into the car and headed back up to Chicago. That's when the spoiling really started. We got to the United Center before the gates opened, so we wandered around and happened to find the lot the players park in. Most of them were already there, I guess, but we watched Pat Foley and Marian Hossa park and go in - my brother is now madly in love with the Bentley that Hoss showed up in - and we watched one of the employees start moving cars around. We saw him move a big SUV to right in front of the Mustang Pat Foley had shown up in, and just as my dad joked “Wouldn’t it be funny if that was Eddie O’s car they just used to block in Pat Foley?” Eddie O himself came out to put his bag in that very car! We about died laughing. Mom also wondered how many car-moving pranks got pulled, and it turns out at least one - Kaner’s car apparently got regularly moved on him during his rookie year, according to the game program! =)
Mom about had a heart attack when she saw our seats - I refused to tell them where we were sitting beforehand. She teasingly complained about it to the guy at the gate, who snickered and told her she better be happy with such horrible seats. We walked almost straight from the gate down into the rink, where the usher, of course, does his job and says “oh yeah, just keep going down the stairs, you’re the second row up from the ice on the other side of the aisle from the bench” and after we picked Mom’s jaw up off the floor and made it down, I don’t think she stopped saying “Oh my gosh!” until the first intermission. My brother got hooked during warmups; he’s been tolerant of our hockey adoration but I think this is the first time he actually got it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him grin so much!
2500 mile plane ticket: $250
4 Blackhawks tix @ the UC: $X
Sharing a hockey game with your family for the first time: PRICELESS!
More pics of the game up on my Facebook & Flickr accounts (same pics, just different places). Unfortunately they lost, but hey, they've played 10 times in 16 days, with only a max of one day off between games and they looked fairly exhausted. I hope they're taking advantage of their couple days off now and getting some rest! But both of my favorite players scored goals, we got to hear "Chelsea Dagger" and the National Anthem UC-style, and we were thisclose to our guys!
(Why yes, that trio of hockey awesomeness is Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, and Captain Serious - Jonathan Toews - sitting there all in a row. Right Next To Us!)
Sunday, we got some breakfast, then headed to the airport. Got a bit of knitting done on the flights - I'm finishing up a Puck This! swap package - drove home from LA, and crashed pretty hard after getting chewed out by a thoroughly ticked off cat.
It was very cool to see my first home game with my family. I can't wait until next month when the Hawks come out to Cali!!
No comments:
Post a Comment