the elite league

I’ve never seen anything quite like it. A handful of hockey fanatics, painted faces, wigs, jerseys you name it…in the UK! Shocking.

I went down to Coventry this weekend to see my boys, and surprise, Dipak had found out that the Coventry Blaze were playing the Sheffield Steelers (that’s Sheffield, not Pittsburgh) in a knock out game as they’re at the end of their season. Not only did I have the best seats I have ever had for a hockey game (and it had nothing to do with the fact that the arena only sat about 200 people), but I went with three people who had never been treated to the board hitting, pucks flying, blood flowing game that is my national sport.

It was also one of the most exciting games I’d ever been to. Coventry did play horribly during the first period (think the style of TML this season) and got several cries of “wake up!” from the crowd (sound familiar?) and I was actually quite impressed with some of the skills from Sheffield. At the end of the first period it Sheffield was ahead by one.

Then the oldest zamboni known to man flooded the ice.

Coventry scored towards the end of the second period and it was tied throughout the third. They went into 5 minutes of extra time (no one scored) and then a shoot out! Awesome. Unfortunately the home team lost, but the crowd from Sheffield definitely had more spirit and took up about three sections (so that’s about 20 people?).

During the game a panel of glass above the boards was broken, two incidents of blood on the ice needed to be cleared up, a couple of good fights, ref heckling, and players in the penalty box getting yelled at. Much fun.

But there was the oddity of the cheers, drinking beer out of plastic bottles, the fact that fans for each time are separated (a la football match), and there were several Maple Leafs fans in the crowd. I was glad I brought my blinking pin and TML socks.

Next year I want season tickets.

It was an awesome weekend. Made an amazing meal for the boys Saturday, read the paper, made amazing breakfast of French toast and Canadian bacon on Sunday, and crafted the road trip mix with Davoud.

Monday mornings are hard after such good times…