Blackhawks Down.

Last night I attended my first ever Blackhawks game, courtesy of H. She couldn't believe that neither M nor I had ever been to a Blackhawks game and decided to make it her mission to rectify it. The game had been on our calendars for probably two months and we were all super excited to go.

We arrived about 45 minutes early so we headed to the club, to have a snack and a drink. Once we got there, we realized we were some of the only (1) people not wearing Blackhawks gear and (2) women in the room. Add to those two facts that we were drinking wine and eating calamari (not good) and crabcakes (apparently, awesome) and suffice to say that we stuck out a bit. However, that worked to our benefit as we quickly made some new friends. New friends who had on-ice seats. While the seats that H got us were great -- tenth row, behind the net -- one does not pass up the opportunity to sit on the glass.

Each of us got to sit on the glass for a period. One of the guys served as our "coach" while we were there, explaining a few of the intricacies of the game and mostly, encouraging us to bang on the glass whenever the players got anywhere near us. In the third period, it was M's turn and she was following his direction. As it turns out, his direction was wrong and they threatened to kick her out if she didn't stop. Whoopsy. Putting that aside, sitting that close is just awesome -- the puck whizzing by, the players hitting the glass, and the fans cheering. I was disappointed that there wasn't much fighting though. The one "fight" was more like two guys in a hug headlock than anything.

A couple photos from last night, although you will need to be eagle eyes to see us. First, there is me sitting behind the net at the glass:

And here you can see M, with the coach behind her in the red:

The only bad thing about last night was that it was the first game I've been to in Chicago that resulted in a loss, 4-1, to what was called a mediocre Phoenix team. I might be losing my touch. Despite that, I'd happily go to more games. Go Blackhawks!