My First Hockey Game

My R.A. in my freshman year in college was a big hockey fan, and she awoke in me an urge to see a hockey game. Not an I-must-see-it-now urge, nor even a I-must-see-it-before-I-die urge, but more of a feeling that this would be something fun to do some time with friends.

But in all the years since, though I floated the possibility from time to time, I got no takers. (Z did promise to take me to a hockey game, one of several unsolicited promises he made.)

This Thanksgiving, however, I happened to mention to my parents that I'd never been to a hockey game. We went from talking about it to buying the tickets within 30 minutes! Two days later, we were at a UNH hockey game: UNH vs. Merrimack College!!

It was a blast, and the UNH band was one of the real highlights of the occasion - great spirit and great tunes. My favorite was their cover of a Lady Gaga song:

Although a close runner-up was the Darth Vader theme they played at another point in the game:

The UNH goalie Matt DiGirolamo made an amazing 41 saves over the course of the game, allowing Merrimack College just one goal. As this statistic may suggest, the rest of the UNH team didn't quite have its act together in the first half of the game. It seemed like every time they tried to pass the puck to each other, it went to a Merrimack player! But luckily UNH pulled it together and got two goals in the third period, leading to a 2-1 victory.

All in all, it was an exciting game, especially in the final 2 minutes when Merrimack replaced its goalie with another player and put all their efforts on offense. They kept the puck near the UNH goal and kept going at it, again and again - but to no avail. (Hooray!)

One interesting phenomenon - the crowd chants. It seemed like part of the UNH fans' team spirit involved telling the opponents "You suck!" Really? Seems a little unsporstmanlike, but maybe I misheard.