Steelheads Hockey

As posted earlier, we went to the Steelheads hockey game here in Boise last night. Michelle stayed home to do homework, but grandma went to see/hear Brianna sing, then Brianna and grandma left. However Andrew, Mark, Steven and I stayed for the game. Before moving to Boise, we weren't in to hockey at all. But with each game we attend, the boys and I love it more and more. These games are so fun! And there's so much "culture" in hockey.

Oh... and a really cool part about the game is that when Michelle called to order extra tickets so the boys and I could go (they normally only comp us two tickets), the coordinator at the Steelheads told us how wonderful Brianna has been in singing at so many games, that he comp'd ALL of our (fifth row from the floor, down at one of the corners) tickets last night. Mark and Steven eating Dippin' Dots on the left here, by the way. Saweet!!! But back to the culture part...

For example, in just about every hockey game we've been to, there's a pretty serious fight that breaks out. Or... as it's often been said, "I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out." Some of these fights have been pretty vicious, and one we saw even left blood on the ice (yikes!). For the most part, the zebras (officials) just let the fights go on, until the players fall to the ice. It's only then that the zebras break them up. In last night's game, though, the big fight near the end was totally staged. I guess for a while the ECHL (the NHL's premier "AA" league, as they call it) became the WWE. It was still an entertaining fight, though. The crowds go crazy when a fight breaks out. And YES... of course I took pictures! :-)

Another interesting cultural point is the "hat trick." It's when a player scores three goals in a game. This pic on the left is of a shot on a breakaway - we scored. Anyway, I'm not sure why they call scoring three goals a "hat trick" - maybe somebody could look that up for me. Last night when one of the Steelheads players, John Swanson, scored his third goal, fans in the stands started throwing their hats on to the ice. Those hats are expensive!!! I don't know that I could sacrifice my hat like that!

We won the game versus the Victoria Salmon Kings, 5-0, and after every goal we scored, the normally nice, polite Boise crowd would shout out a nice little taunt: "He shoots! We score!! Hey goalie... YOU SUCK!!!" Naturally, I was appalled; what awful behavior! You can be sure that my boys and I participated in no such nonsense!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh... and at the Steelheads games, always in the third quarter they play this one song over the loudspeakers, and the whole crowd does this hand-bouncing movement. I'm not sure what that's all about. If you can figure it out from the video embedded below, please let me know!

I hope you've enjoyed the pics as much as we enjoyed the game. To see the 32 pics/videos posted, please check my Flickr page here.