New Haven Beast V St John
Saturday Nov 21 we had a first of sorts...we saw our first Ice hockey game when we went to see the local side Beast of New Haven play the St John Maple Leafs.
For the uninitiated, there are different levels of Ice hockey competitions around the USA. There's the National Hockey League which is the most popular & well known, along with the American Hockey league.
The AHL competition is one level below the NHL and acts as a feeder competition to the NHL all NHL teams have a feeder team that supplies players to the bigger competition as the NHL sides require through injury etc.
This is where the New Haven Beast comes in. The team came into being in September 1997, the game we went to was the 97th of their existence.
We were very excited, for Paul it was his first Ice hockey game & Jenn's second.
We arrived at the Coliseum very early and lined up outside. It wasn't as cold as it was when we were here same time last year for a concert (we remember last year walking out after the concert to see snow falling!!)
So the doors opened & in we went. The NH Coliseum has a capacity of around 12,000 but for this game there would only have been 4,000. People were slowly filing in taking their seats, quite a few of them were mad hockey fans who were season ticket holders - the people behind us pulled out wads of exercise note paper and began mulling over handwritten stats & figures on goal shots etc, all the while talking about "how we should have won Thursday's game."
A quick trip to the concession stands (all the necessary purchases were made some beer, coke, hot dogs) and we were ready!. The players came out for thier warmups & for the first time Paul saw the pace of puck on ice fast!!
As the warmup started the announcers warned the crowd to keep their eyes on the puck at all times as the occasional hard shot would see the puck go sailing over the protective glass enclosure and into the crowd...sort of dangerous but not really.
Both teams warmed up at thier respective ends of the ice rink before heading back to the thier locker rooms for a last peptalk from their coaches. Rock music blared around the arena as the timeclock counted down to Face Off.
Both teams came onto the ice and got into position and right on 7:35, the referee dropped the puck & the game was on!!. The pace was simply incredible as the game play went from one end of the rink to the other.
St Johns made the most of an open net to get an early 1-0 lead after only 2 minutes play. The tempo of the game increased as the first half went on and the play got very physical, players being thrown into the glass wall etc (people will deny it but this is what they pay to see!.)
Halftime score was tied at 2-2, so we knew that it was going to get really interesting in the second half.
The game resumed and stayed even for quite some time, the unrelenting pace of the game was getting the crowd very excited it wasn't long before we saw the first fight of the game which had 4 players in it, the referee meanwhile trying to seperate them all.
As a result of the fight one player from each side spent time in their respective penalty boxes which opened up the attacking opportunties for those still out on the ice.
Unfortunatly as the game got into the last four minutes the BEAST defence wilted under considerable St John pressure, 2 late goals putting the game out of the Beast's reach, and they lost 4-2.
We had a great time & very fun way to spend a night though, We plan to go again very soon, hopefully next month.
For up to date USA and international sporting information check out ESPN
