If I were to do this in chronological order, I would be posting a Bakersfield Hockey-thon post first, But that is not how I roll. Well, occasionally, I have been known to roll that way, but not this time. Anyway…
The first game of a back to back two game series between the Bakersfield Condors and the Victoria Salmon Kings was spirited and chippy, but problematic. You will see why in a moment.
First, the Rabobank Arena, which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, nor lend itself to easy typing. It’s attached to the Convention Center, which was attached to my hotel. Very convienient, unless you have a convention going on, and certainly if you have a convention involving an interesting set of characters. I won’t get into that, except to say that it made for a strange cross-set of people in the hotel lobby.
The arena:
With a good sized upper bowl, there is a good capacity for this scale of arena. In fact, I would say that the size of the arena was a bit of a surprise. I was expecting a smaller scale, and maybe even a little rattier conditions. But the place was nice, the services were good, and the concessions were decent.
The Condors created several specialty jerseys over the last few season, including the prison jerseys worn in a Las Vegas Wranglers game, as well as a country music themed jerseys, and an Olympic jersey. They also have a Ducks stye jersey (in celebration of their affiliation):
Before you complain about those prices, think about how much the RBK EDGE jerseys cost. These are much nicer. Still, I wouldn’t be caught dead in the prison jersey.
Bakersfield is not a huge city, but there are plenty of people worth honoring. Here is their sports hall of fame:
On to the game!!
How many mascots do they need?
Luxury seating at it’s finest.
One of my teammates from the Hockey-thon games saw me in the hallway of the arena and invited me to sit with his family. Of course I took him up on his offer.
That’s Paul Willett on the right, one of my teammates from the Hockey-thon, and Condors all-time leading point scorer. He made the goalie look silly during this intermission shootout. The jerseys they are wearing here were used for the Alumni charity game. You will see those better in a later post.
More action!
Not the tallest team, these Salmon Kings:
Wrong Bonk:
Condors were up 3-2 with a little over two minutes left in the game. When this:
Led to this:
Notice the arm in the air? Yeah. This was a textbook bad penalty to take. Hey, any guesses who I saw walking around in the concourse for the next game in his suit? That would be number 10, Matt Pope. You know where this is going. It’s almost fate at this point. It lead to a six on four:
Which led to this:
Because, you know, who wanted to win a hockey game anyways?
Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen a hockey game.
Huh, could have fooled me.
SHOOTOUT!!
Click on any of the pictures to see them larger. I’m doing this for your bandwidth.
That’s a save, folks.
More shootout!
Hey, where are you going with that thing?
Yeah, not so much. Victoria wins it in the shootout, and the fans, while disappointed, were telling me that this was one of their better games all season. Ouch. They all needed a little rest, since they had one more tomorrow. And so will you. More Condors action soon.
Your final:
