On Friday night, Simon and Tristan and I made the trip out to Scotiabank Place for our first-ever Ottawa Senators game. Can you believe I’ve never been before? I’d always had the intention to go, in a civic-duty kind of way, the same way you feel like you should haul your sorry self down to the Canal at least once each year for a skate. The parking thing seemed like a hassle, though, and it’s not cheap to bring a family to a game, and by the time we got out it would be way beyond the boys’ bedtimes, and (whine) it’s just so faaaaar…. yeah, I know. Pathetic, right? We are just so not a sports family.
Anyway, when the boys’ school sent home a note that they were organizing a Sens game night back in the fall, it seemed like a great opportunity to bring the boys out to their first game. Because really? Everybody ought to, at least once. While we’re not particularly sporty, Sens fandom does infuse kid culture. When Daniel Alfredsson visited the school last year, the boys talked about it for days, and even though we decided against enrolling the boys in hockey, they still love to play in the driveway.
I figured the whole game experience would be a little too much for Lucas, so I bought three tickets, and for most of this week Beloved and I engaged in a loose game of “I think YOU should take the boys because…” While the idea of the game seemed like a great time in theory, especially three months ago when we bought the tickets, actually hauling ourselves out there on a Friday night after an exhausting week seemed like more work that it was worth. In the end, I agreed to go to the hockey game if Beloved agreed to take Simon to his first reconciliation later this week. Seems a good trade to me!
I’d been dreading the parking situation, and it figures that Friday was the night Beloved had to teach late, so we couldn’t even leave particularly early. We left the house around 6:30 for the 7:30 game, and I was cautioning the boys that we may miss the opening face-off. Instead, we had absolutely no problem zipping right in to a parking lot and entered Scotiabank Place with at nearly 30 minutes to spare.
Our seats were WAY up in the 300 level, only three rows from the rafters. I think we may have sat in the same seats for a Tragically Hip concert a decade or so ago, and with Beloved’s fear of heights, it was probably for the best that I’d agreed to take the boys after all. It was a lot of fun sitting with the families from the boys’ school, though. I found out too late that our $25 tickets had also included a hot dog and a drink, which is actually a decent deal for the entertainment value of the night.
Funny, when the game started it took me a minute to get used to the lack of colour commentary. I’ve watched plenty of hockey on TV but I’ve never been to a live game before, and at first I thought it would be harder to follow the action without the commentary. I was surprised, however, at how captivating the live action is, even from waaaaay up in the bleachers. I was also surprised at how quickly the game flew by, even during the intermissions. Watching hockey on TV is something to be endured for the sake of finding out the outcome, I find, but watching it live is unexpectedly captivating.
The boys really surprised me, too. I’d expected them to be fidgeting and restless, but they were also completely engaged by the experience. Simon seemed to enjoy the cheering and the company of his friends, but Tristan spent the entire game sitting forward in his seat, his attention riveted on the action. He really surprised me the next day, when I showed him a picture from the game in the sports section, and he pointed out one of the Islanders and said, “Oh, there’s number 27. He’s the one that got hurt.” I was amazed not only that he had paid enough attention to notice his jersey number at the time, but that he’d retained it. Then again, little boys are known repositories of hockey stats and trivia, right?
I have to admit, I’m at heart a baseball girl. I can tell you why the infield fly rule is invoked, and when you should sacrifice bunt, and more than you ever need to know about the history of the game. I’ve read Ron Luciano’s entire oeuvre, and all of WP Kinsella’s too. Hockey, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery to me. I have a vague grasp of the concepts of offside and icing, and that’s about as sophisticated as my knowledge of the game gets. And yet, I had a great time at the game. Way better, in fact, than I had expected.
The boys were particularly excited when Spartacat made the trip up to the rafters to visit us in the third period. I stepped on a water bottle trying to catch this photo and had a bad millisecond of imagining myself tumbling the entire way down to the ice like something in a Looney-tunes cartoon, but Tristan was enchanted. “Did you see? He had his hand on my head! I’ll never wash my hair again!” Simon felt the same way about the hand that Spartacat had high-fived. 
As we drove to Scotiabank Place, I’d told the boys we’d consider leaving at the end of the second period. With a 7:30 start time, we’d already be way beyond their bedtime at that point, and I was dreading the post-game traffic. I’d figured two periods would give us a good taste of the game experience, but still have us home at a reasonable hour.
The game flew by so quickly that as the end of the second period approached, I began to think we’d probably be sticking it out until the end of the game. And then, with just a few second left in the period, the Sens scored the first goal of the game, and I knew we weren’t going anywhere. The Islanders tied it up in the third period, though, and when we got to the end of regulation time we were done. We snuck out, and heard the wails of dismay from the parking lot when the Islanders scored the gamewinning goal a few minutes into overtime. Ahead of the crowds, we zipped out and were home by 10:30, with both boys asleep in the back seat.
If you haven’t been, you really ought to go. It was Metro family night when we went, and I’m already considering picking up a set of tickets for the family game night in mid-March. And maybe this time the Sens will win!
Surely I’m not the last person in the city to have ever been to a game. Have you brought the family out? What did you think?
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