It was COLD tonight... we're in the middle of a Wind Chill Advisory until noon tomorrow. I totally expected an empty arena.
Wrong - 12,022 in attendance. My guess - mostly groups. Still, a great turnout considering the weather.
Unfortunately, because of the group sales, again, they were a bunch of "amateurs". They just weren't paying attention, getting up during play... and then ANOTHER one of my oh-so-many pet peeves: parents just not paying attention to their children, as evidenced by the kid next to carol that kept kicking her as he was crawling all over the seat during the game.
We haven't actually seen the Manchester Monarchs before (great colors - a royal purple and gold). It seems that all of these teams that we don't see often (because they're in different conferences and divisions) seem to be stronger skaters. Not bigger necessarily, but faster, stronger. It makes watching the play a lot more fun. When the score was finally tied 1-1, I had no idea that the Wolves would actually score 4 more goals (especially after Robert Gherson let the first goal softly trickle in)...
Another item for the game - 2 referees. We don't normally see that at our games, and we had never see either of these guys before (Kyle Rehman and Mike McGeough). I could see where this would be be so advantageous, as one of the refs would always be behind the play and it would cut down on some of the "chippyness" that is just so common.
Oh, speaking of jerseys... the Wolves have had this whole promotional campaign this year that is somewhat patterned after the presidential campaigns here "Vote Wolves 2008 - Hockey for the fans". This game was one of the three where the Wolves were wearing special red-whit-blue jerseys that are being auctioned-off for charity tomorrow (they always have 2 jerseys a year that specially designed to be auctioned for charities... the other jersey is always for St. Patrick's Day)
(Game Summary - Gamesheet)
2006- Defective ID replacement
2005- BUZZNET MOBLOG!
- Wolves 3 - Hamilton 6
- Balmy snow
2004- Moving it back and forth
2003- What was she thinking?
- OK, you've had enough time...
2002- Welcome Back Michael, Goodbye Soldier Field, Good Job Danny
- Dreams