I had the most "interesting" experience of my 30+ years of attending hockey games on Saturday.
First, the Kings demolished the Oilers. Just a regular season game, but it was a great way to start the post-McClellan era.
So...here's the cast of characters, in roughly the way we were sitting:
F Z H
G
M P S
I'm P. S is my 21yo son. M is the former Marine sitting to my left. G is a guy who was probably my age. Z is a woman who was going to ride the Zamboni during first intermission. F is Z's female friend, and H is a hipster guy. It appeared that F, Z, H and G all knew each other. We were seated behind and slightly to the right of the net where the Kings shoot twice.
About 5-8 minutes into the first period, Z stands up while play is going on and starts yacking with F. Keep in mind that, in addition to lingering, Z was wearing some sort of oversized baseball style cap. As I said, play was ongoing, and there was action happening in front of the Edmonton net. When she continued to linger, I said/yelled, "down in front." I'm not sure I was heard. A couple seconds later, M said the same thing. He was louder and was heard. There was then some back and forth between F, Z, H and M. It sounded friendly at first, and I didn't really hear what was said. Next thing I heard was H saying something like, "she's riding the Zamboni because she beat cancer." M then said, "that doesn't give you the right to stand there and block my view; the game's going on." There were a few more seconds of heated jawing when G stood up and started saying things to M. This resulted in my and my son's view being further blocked. I then stood up and told G to sit down and shut up (at this point, I had no idea that he knew Z). G responded by inviting me outside, at which point my 6'3" well-built kid stood up. Although I didn't hear him say this, he says that he said something like the following: "I don't care if we both get tossed out of this game, but you will NOT speak to my dad like that!" G gave my son a look, which my son described as, "the look on his face was like no one had ever spoken to him like that in his life." I put my arm in front of my son to push him back a couple inches and again told G to sit down and shut up, at which point I sat down and told my son to sit down. Eventually things de-fused, although H continued to make comments every time someone would get up or get down (while the crew was cleaning the ice).
Wild night!
Topic: NHL 2023-2024: Playoff Time. Hello Darkness..... (Read 25589 times)
