the nhl winter classic

or as the rest of the world called it, the ice bowl.

what a great experience. where to start. it wasn’t all that cold, but i was very very prepared with 2 shirts, fleece, jersey, jacket, and a 2nd jersey lol, astronaut boots, 2 pairs of socks and pants, scarf, hat, gloves, etc. thankfully it wasn’t very windy either, which was what i was dreading the most about the outdoor game. we had seats very very high up, but not the top!!! everyone was pretty pessimistic about whether or not 300 level seats would be able to even see the puck, but it was fine. the view was no problem at all. somehow we had A LOT of pittsburgh fans around us, but that’s ok. they weren’t really jerks, and only the people behind us were jerks to them (but apologized at the end when pens won).

the coolest thing was walking into the seats and seeing the rink in the middle of the football field. totally awesome. i was surprised that it wasn’t as loud as i was expecting it to be. given how loud the arena with 17k people can get, especially during the playoffs, i was expecting 74k to be 5 times louder. it really wasn’t, and at times it actually was pretty quiet. maybe it was being outdoors and the acoustics and space. it was still a really great experience, very cool feeling of community (and if we actually had buffalo fans around us it would have been even better hahah). it’s strange that the only times i really experience that community feeling is at sabres games.

it snowed a good part of the game. it started snowing pretty hard right at face off, and the first 10 minutes of the 1st period (including the only pens goal 21 sec in) was pretty funny. so much snow on the ice, the puck would just stop – no icing in this period – and every time a player shot the puck they’d shoot up bladefulls of snow too. they brought the zambonis out around the 10 minute point of each period to clear the ice again. the snow came and went, and didn’t seem to pose as much of a problem the rest of the game.

i really didn’t get cold until the 2nd half of the 3rd period. my gloves were wet from snow by then, hands started getting cold, etc. the game was tied at this point, and i was praying for sabres to score so we wouldn’t get an over time and we could leave and get warm. but no. overtime. pens had no shots in over time, but we still couldn’t score. onto the shootout. while we have miller in goal and he does great at shootouts, we were also up against freaking sidney crosby as a shooter…and yeah, the pens won in the shootout. no big deal. it was a fantastic game and the whole experience was great.

no snowglobes. wtf nhl, you guys are retarded for not making any.

 

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