Exciting Hockey

My brother-in-law Dean invited me to see the Oilers last night. It had been over 4 years since I had been to one and it was the same match up: Edmonton vs. Dallas. The game was awesome - plenty of scoring opportunities, some great fights, super goaltending, and the Oilers even won 4-1.

Oddly enough though, the most exciting thing happened just before the game started. We had been watching the Canadian National Junior team play the semi-final against Russia before we drove to Rexall Place. The score had been 3-3 when we left, and then it was 4-4 when we got to the arena. They had the game playing on the jumbotron as we were seated and then Russia scored with 2:20 left in the game. We figured it was over and the crowd was pretty subdued as we watched the puck go back and forth. Canada pulled their goalie with 1:20 left and Russia just missed and empty netter as the puck was iced; the face off ending up in the Russian zone. Then, Canada scored with 5.4 seconds left on the clock. The spectators in our coliseum went nuts!

The Oilers game started at that time and we just wanted to watch the overtime of the junior game. So, we craned our necks and watched the TV in the box behind our row of seats. 10 minutes of overtime passed quickly with no score, and then the shoot out. We watched the shots on the same small TVs and a small crowd cheered after Canada scored twice and Russia didn't score in the same number of opportunities. They made an announcement a little later at the coliseum and the crowd went nuts again. Great fun!

I'm going to a Flames vs. Blues game next week too.