Hockey Game

About a month ago, we'd made plans to take Maia to her first hockey game.  I'd gotten free tickets, and so we arranged for someone to take Parker, and planned a Friday night out.  But then we got sick.  Parker was sick, Ray was sick... we decided not to go.

On Wednesday, we got the opportunity to try again, and so we took it.  Even if it was on a "school night" and the game started at Maia's usual bedtime. 

Entering the arena.



We got there with time to spare, so Ray took her down to the boards to check it out and look around.

We watched them warm up, and #9 Francis Pare was trying to get a puck over the glass to her.  He tried, and it just didn't go over, so he waived Ray down nearer the penalty boxes where the glass is shorter.  He flicked the puck over, but another man grabbed it.  Oh well.  Pretty cool of Pare to try!

So we got some popcorn, and waited for Jeremy and Gracie to get there.  In the mean time, some fans a few rows behind us, who had witnessed the unfortunate puck-nabbing, handed us down a puck that they had.  It was still cold.  Maia was intrigued.  She played with it for a while, and showed it to Gracie when she came, but was not about to give it up.

Gracie, on the other hand, shared some inflatable "thundersticks."  They both had a lot of fun with them, but Maia's didn't survive long.

Maia really did very well.  She watched the game, and watched the people. She was very interested in the mascot, Griff and asked lots of questions about him.  Mostly along the lines of "where did he go?" and "when is he coming back?"  She colored in her little book and shared her crayons with Gracie.  She used her manners.  She shared her (my) pretzel with Gracie, and Gracie shared her cotton candy (Maia's first time experiencing that sticky treat). Then she shared a wipe with Gracie.  They jumped up and down.  And when the drunk folks behind us spilled an entire beer at our feet, they used their thundersticks to "sweep" it up.

After the second period was over, she turned to me and said: "Can we go home now?"  It was almost 9:00, 2 hours past her bedtime.  She was still happy and pleasant and using her manners.

She told Grandma all about it when she got home, and went to bed without much fuss.  Parker did very well and had a great time too.

When she woke up the next morning, she said "I want to go back to the hockey game now, okay daddy?"

Oh, and the Griffins? The score was 1 to 1 when we left, the goal scored by our own, considerate #9. They won in a shoot out. Winning Wednesdays.