Hockey season is starting tomorrow, and this is the first time in a while I will be in Denver for the opener. Last year, I was in Iowa City, and shortly after saw the opening night of the Iowa Stars (AHL for Dallas). During much of the lockout, I was in Boston, MA, which, even without the Bruins, is a great place to spend the NHL lockout. From the Beanpot, to college, to AHL everywhere, to the Dennis Leary Celebrity Hat Trick game, hockey was not lacking for me. The previous year, I was in St. Louis, and got to see some of training camp. I put pictures of that time up here.

To me, when I think about hockey, I think of Glens Falls, NY, my favorite place to see a game. I think about Lake Placid, NY, and getting to skate in the Herb Brooks Arena (where the Miracle on Ice happened, of course). I think about the AHL All Star game I got to see in Manchester, NH. Or the trip I took to see a game in every UHL city.

I love the experience of going to a game in a different place. It makes the game better. The Pepsi Center is nice and all, but it’s not Wings Stadium, where the Kalamazoo Wings play. See, the ‘glass’ is on the outside edge of the boards there, leaving about 3-4 inches of board as a shelf. If you hard around the puck from outside the blue line, and the puck gets on that board, it may just come right back out of the zone on the other side. The K-Wings know this, so they watch that shelf closely. It adds a little quirk to the game. I found out when I skated on the ice after the game. The crowd is thick, so you aren’t doing any hard skating, but the team usually skates with you, so why embarass yourself? I have to go back, just to try the sports bar under the seats. The UHL, where the K-Wings play, doesn’t play in what you would call standardized buildings. Can you imagine the NHL playing on anything but regulation ice (200′ X 85′)? But the Quad City Mallards (of Moline, IL) and the Port Huron Flags (of Port Huron, MI) do. The UHL guidebook lists both rinks at 185′ X 85′. If that’s the case, that’s 1,275 square feet less of ice surface. You know how crowded hockey can get. What zones do you take that ice away from? Rockford, IL, home of the Rockford IceHogs is the same way.

Speaking of Rockford, I can’t wait to go back. I never would have said that if I were passing through on business, but for hockey, it’s true. I’m sitting in the same section I did last time, where the size of your cowbell matter more than the size of you hockey knowledge. The people sitting next to me had little stuffed otters hanging on a noose, tied to hockey sticks. If you didn’t guess, I sat in the roudy section. When they found out I was from out of town, they took me in. Great group of fans. Afterwords, I can hang out at the hockey bar, where the players go after the game. You heard it here first, Rockford, IL has a hockey bar.

You should have seen the punchup in Wichita, KS, when the Oklahoma City Blazers came to town. The first minute of the third period took longer than a regular period played. If you doubt, here is the gamesheet. 98 minutes in penalties handed out in the first minute of the 3rd. The Wichita Thunder would have gotten more power play, but as the Blazer who ran the goalie from behind was being ejected, the goalie squirted him in the face with his waterbottle. What made the game better was that I was going to see these two teams square off again two nights later in OKC. I had never seen anything like it.

When you go to places like Port Huron, MI, or Muskegon, MI, or even Norfolk, VA, you start to understand how people can lament the loss of the old rinks. So many buildings these days are just that, buildings. They do the job, hold the event. But they don’t care like a rink does. An old rink, with wood seats, or even benches, where you can see a little bit of the old insulation, where the cracks in the walls are. You see the dust on the banners in the rafters. You have little merch shops that have needed to outgrow the tiny box they are squeezing in this years pucks and shirts, or last years and the year before. You can see the history of the place, and the team, everywhere you look. A team gives it’s rink an identity, and the rink gives it right back.

My point. Hockey to me means seeing a game outside of the home rink. The rink itself is a part of the experience of going to the game. It can enhance the game, and make it so much more. When you sit in the same seat for 42 games a year, and are still just another blank face to the people at the rink, you just get to see a game. When you go somewhere else, you get something more back. I can’t wait for hockey season, and I can’t wait for the minor hockey season even more. I’m itching to get in the car and drive, and take in a good game, in a strange place.

Technorati : IceHogs, blazers, chl, hockey, rink, thunder, travel, uhl, wings