The most important thing to know- the two fans in red were the last to leave the bar.
Last night's epic game 'tween the Wings and expansion Sharks was attended by myself and LJR, in our Wings finery, surrounded by 17,000 fashion victims in teal. There's no way not to turn this into a one sided bash- think Sunni/Shiite without the IEDs.
We started with beverages at the elegant DeAnza hotel in San Jose. Beautiful old hotel, big glasses of red wine, perfectly cooked calamari and snotty glares from the general populace. Mostly in good fun. And why not. For us, we're playing for our 11th Stanley Cup and in our 17th straight year in the playoffs. For the Sharks, they're playing for their first Cup and even more importantly THEY'RE PLAYING THE DETROIT RED WINGS, Y'see, Goliath didn't sell out his home games against David either.
Our seats cost a bundle. This isn't bragging- this is insane. The cheapest seats were $80 (there aren't many), tops were over $320, most topped $150. This isn't just Sharks paying off their league entry fee, all sports have gone nuts and I hadn't realized how bad it'd gotten. But, since I was bending over a chair, it might as well be in the front row of the upper bowl directly behind the goal. These were orphaned season tix I picked up on the PPTicketExchange that were cherry. With all the love in our hearts we sat down to enjoy a game.
We had a lot of good natured back and forth heading into new HP Pavilion. Everything was fine until we sat down. Four minutes in, LJR got approached by an usher to please not lean forward. I'm not one to stereo-type, it would be wrong to draw conclusions by her squaresh shoulders, bad side-parted mullet, and silver wire frame glasses . . . so let's just giver her a name . . . say, Doug. Doug was all in LJR's face and this is never wise. It was obvious to see that with the Wings first early flurry, we'd both just perked up in our seats. We didn't stand, block anyone's view, drop trou, we just did the same thing everyone does when their team is on the edge of scoring. Only there were two of us doing this when it was the Wings against 17,000 fans clinched up sitting back. Also, all around the rink people in the front rows had their beers, nachos and whatnot on the shelf over the barrier. Only way to get that was to, what, lean forward. Doug came back over and tried to give LJR a "be kind to Shark's fans" card. This is how they warn you that you might get kicked out. Five minutes later Doug had another usher come over and try to talk to me and give us a final warning. The exchange went like this
Emergency Back up Usher: Sir, we don't want to have to warn you . . .
LJR: Hey, Headset, you're abusing your little bit of power so just back off.
When there was a stop in play, I sought out the Head Usher, a lovely woman named Pam. She told us that Doug was in her second week and had already had problems being overly zealous. I caught something in the way she spoke and asked where she hailed from. Turns out Pam grew up in Farmington, not more than a few miles from where my folks live. "Don't tell anyone," she whispered, "I'm a Wings fan."
Doug disappeared for the second period.
The game was awesome. Seriously. Despite their lack of history and experience, you have to give it to this expansion franchise, they've put together a team good enough to skate with us and, maybe, even win the series. Which'll be nice for them, they've only been to the third round once before, you know.
The only other confrontations came after the game. Some post-adolescent face painter ran up and shouted in LJR's face:
PAFP: Red Wings Suck!
LJR: Yeah, so does your mom.
Left PAFP just stunned, she did.
We went back to the DeAnza for a cocktail while the traffic sorted itself out. Some 6' 3" fratboy, started asking what J-Lo was doing in a Red Wings jersey as his buddies tried to pull him back. I got right up in there and told him, "You know, it was a great game, both sides skated great, there's no reason to be rude. And, it's not me you gotta worry about. How you gonna feel getting your ass kicked by a woman in Red Wings jersey?" He backed right down, and his friends picked up our tab for the rest of the night.
Of course, mostly everyone was cool. It really was a great, enjoyable game and we talked to a bunch of solid Joes and Janes out for the night. One couple we nattered with was really great. He's a head brewer from a small beer company down the peninsula and lives right near LJR. I think we're having a BBQ with them sometime soon. But they too went home leaving only the two in red to close up and head home.
Go in Peace
