Get LOUD!!!

It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas… We surrendered to the inevitable. It being local Saturday, when the going gets tough, the tough shop local. In the afternoon, David and Maren went out and visited one of our local shopping districts. Anne and I stayed home and watched the U of M versus OSU debacle. Our main event was on Saturday night. Anne and I joined Maren and Dave and we supported one of our local teams. This team happened to be this year’s Stanley Cup Champions, the Saint Louis Blues. We took the train downtown and joined the throng within the arena, but this was not my first rodeo.

I came prepared, with ear plugs for everyone. In-between play the PA system was deafening loud and I was glad with what hearing protection I did have, but during play the PA was mostly quiet. Then you could hear the scraping of blades on ice, the slap of the puck and the thundering crashes into the boards, because then the capacity crowd also mostly fell silent, when it was without its soundtrack. The most notable exception to this was John Denver’s Country Home. When the PA started playing it, the crowd sang along, but when play began and the PA cut out, the crowd continued on, singing it acapella.

The Blues hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins. I found Pittsburgh fans to be as annoying on the ice as they are in the ballpark. Our two cities are connected by a ribbon of asphalt called I-70 that allows them to descend upon Saint Louis whenever one of their teams is visiting. In the first period, the Blues scored first on a power play. The Penguins tied it up on another Blues power play that so irked our team that they scored another four goals. The final score was 5-2.