This collection of entries is from April 10, 2002.
Oh my God, this turned into a long night... Back at the Allstate Arena for the second game of this silly AHL Qualifying Series. It took two overtimes, but the Wolves won over Cincinnati 3-2 on a goal by Zdenek Blatny. The boxscore says there were 2,061 people there, which means the attendance was down from yesterday's game. There wasn't any "desperation playing" by either team. The game was relatively penalty-free. Both teams, though, looked pretty tired. It made me comment that the team that wins will win because of a mistake. Blatny's goal was on a slapshot that tipped off the glove of the Duck's rookie goaltender Joey MacDonald (who never played a game in the AHL before tonight). Frederic Cassivi actually looked good (and at times, stellar), stopping 43 shots (Last year, Cassivi led the AHL a 1.49 goals-against average during the playoffs with the Hershey Bears).
Oh, and I spoke too soon yesterday about "Chuck-A-Puck" - someone actually won the $500 tonight by getting their puck in the helmet!
On the downside, someone else was hit with a puck during the game. An elderly gentleman in the section next to us was hit in the side of the head with the puck. He wasn't watching the game - he was looking into a bag of candy that friends of ours offered to him. The security guys (like Rick who sits right behind the official scorers) responded quickly, and so did two paramedics who saw the incident from across the arena. Friends of the gentleman, who left with him, came back for the overtime periods. They told us that he got 4 staples to close the wound. (And to show how awkward this was, it turns out that this man has had 2 brain surgeries in the past). So between the candy, and the fact that the usher at the top of our section invited this guy to come to the game, there were a few people that felt bad about the whole situation.
How strange of a sports coincidence is this??? Chicago is playing Detroit in Detroit today. So? It's the Chicago White Sox at the Detroit Tigers, the Chicago Blackhawks at the Detroit Red Wings, and the Chicago Bulls at the Detroit Pistons!!! All today!!! Weird, eh? Oh, and on a different sporting note, I heard that the Florida Marlins ran out of hotdogs in the fourth inning of their home opener! How could someone let that happen?