Slap Shot

For Valentine's Day I got Tony tickets to a St. Louis Blues hockey game. Tonight we had an early dinner, and then went over to the Scottrade Center and saw the Blues beat the New York Rangers.

I got a great deal on the tickets, because of a promotion the Blues are running. The Fan Bailout Plan sells a portion of the tickets for each game at a reduced price. Our seats were about a dozen rows from the ice, at the end of the rink where the Blues attacked in the first and third period.

Although both Tony and I are casual hockey fans, we were excited; the Blues were playing the New York Rangers for the first time in St. Louis since 2005. The Blues aren't doing great this year (they're tied for last in their conference), but they seem to be on a roll, with a record of 7-2-4 since mid-January. They're only eight points out of eighth place, so they still have hopes of making it into the playoffs. The Rangers, however, seem to be slumping. They've had six straight road losses. I was hopeful that we'd see a winner tonight.

I haven't been to a hockey game for a very long time. After spending a little time this afternoon brushing up on the rules of hockey (I thought this site had good basic information), I was ready. We arrived at the stadium just before face-off and settled in to watch some hockey.

The Rangers dominated the first period, which ended with no score. After a couple of fights near the beginning of the second period, the Blues seemed to start playing better. They scored a goal; however, the Rangers scored in the second period too. The third period was pretty much dominated by the Blues. They scored the winning goal with about five minutes left to play.

We left feeling happy, because we'd seen a great game.