Approaching Scotiabank Place

Hockey fans crossing the road

It costs $11 to park. This is after you’ve already bought a ticket. It began to dawn on me that hockey is actually about money.

I was shocked. Shocked I say!

$11 parking

Lots of people wear Senators jerseys to games. Know how much they cost?

Beer tent

Referee on stilts

Our seats were in the second-last row on the corner. I got a nosebleed. The players looked like tiny red and white ants.

Ants

Good thing I had a camera with a zoom lens. Here’s where I zoomed in on Martin Gerber and the rest of the guys during the pre-game warmup.

Warmup

I like Martin Gerber. He’s quiet and unassuming, not like that other guy – the one that drives the Hummer.

They had an 11-year-old girl singing the national anthems. I was disappointed not to get to see OPP constable Lyndon Slewidge. Maybe it was national kids’ day or something like that.

Slewidge

Kid

I don’t think 11-year-old kids should be encouraged to take on adult roles, such as singing the anthem at big-league sporting events, because they can’t really sing and it’s embarrassing. But that’s just me.

Devils goalie Martin Brodeur

Spartacat

When the game started I was surprised to learn that there isn’t any play-by-play at a real game. It was eerily quiet in there. They tried to liven it up by posting instructions on the jumbotron.

Jumbotron

I rely on the play-by-play when I’m watching a game on TV. I only look up when the announcer starts yelling that somebody scored. Then I catch the replay. None of that is possible at a real game. You have to try to identify the tiny ants by the numbers they have on their sweaters.

You can also take a longer view and observe the patterns of play over the whole ice surface, which is something you can’t do on TV. That was amusing for certain periods of time, but at other times my attention wandered.

Crowd

In between periods, where at home you get Don Cherry or the Hot Stove League, I was expecting an elaborate variety show with glamorous dancers covered in sequins. On skates. Maybe Céline or Shania.

Not so. At a real game you get zambonis and Spartacat. Little kids ride on the zamboni and wave at the crowd. I think they won a contest to get to do that.

The zamboni is actually an ad for Canadian Tire. I was shocked. Shocked!

Zamboni

In the second intermission I thought it might be time for the glamorous dancers, but instead they had some kind of race with guys dressed as hockey pucks.

Hockey pucks

For most of the game it seemed like an easy win for the Senators. They went up 2-0 right away, and it looked as if they could easily hold the lead, but the Devils came on strong in the 3rd. So that was pretty exciting. And Chris Neil got into a fight.

Hockey action with Heatley and Spezza

Well, we won. We beat the Devils 4-2. Alfredsson put it away with an empty-net goal in the last minute. I didn’t get a picture.

Here’s the team congratulating Martin Gerber for another victory, his fourth in a row. I don’t see how they can bring back that noisy egotistical guy when the quiet and steady Gerber is playing so well. And he doesn’t drive a Hummer.

No Hummer

It took quite awhile to get out of the arena, and then out of the parking lot, and then out of Kanata, but I was expecting that. We weren’t in a hurry.

I’m glad I went, but in general I’d have to say that I didn’t really get it. I guess I’d go again if the seats were a bit closer. (A lot closer.) And if it wasn’t in the afternoon, and if it wasn’t national kids’ day, and if the hated Maple Leafs were playing instead of the not-specially-hated New Jersey Devils.

Next time I’d probably try and get the game on the radio and have it in my headphones while I was watching the real game. Maybe I’d bring a laptop so I could do a bit of web surfing while I was watching. Then it would be just like not being there.