When you go to a minor league hockey game, you are almost guaranteed to be seated in an arena, or some sort of professional facility.  Many are old and decaying, many have a certain character and uniqueness that came from the era they were built in.  But with few exceptions (Danbury comes to mind), you will see your hockey in an arena.

Jump to the American junior leagues and that guarantee goes away.  You still have arenas that are professional buildings – at what scale could be questioned – but you also have teams that play in re-purposed rec rinks.  The Keystone Ice Miners and their cavernous home is one.  The Janesville Jets and the Janesville Ice Arena is another.

To call it an arena is generous.  It’s a rec rink.  This is not a slam on the practice of hosting a team in a rec rink.  You dance with the one you brought, or maybe, you skate at the one you got.  Junior hockey plays where the rinks and the fans are.  Preferably, the travel is reasonable, but if you have a place to put a team, you plunk it down and go.

The Janesville Ice Arena is on par with a few of the rec rinks I’ve played in.  There isn’t much of a lobby and half of the surrounding area around the ice is off limits to the public, so space is limited.  When you have 453 people in the rink, it becomes difficult to find space to move around it.

453?  Really?  It seemed like more than that.  And here is why.  The place is small.

More than once, a puck that was cleared high hit the ceiling and play was stopped.

The seating area is small, and the upper seats look a little obstructed.

Sit too high up and the beams will cut off your line of sight.  So you sit lower, but the angle of the seats to the action is such that you strain to see over the crowd around you.

For instance, the kids above are participating in a contest on the walkway around the rink.  I’m in the third row, the people in front of the shot are in the second.  You see how weird it is to watch the game here.  Also, see that netting?  It is in front of the entire seating area.  So we were safe from flying pucks, but the clearest view you got was through the glass.  Every seat in the place was a compromise.

Unfortunately, that also meant that my camera wanted to auto-focus on the partitions rather than the action on the ice.  I corrected this after I realized what was going on, but it caused many shots to look like this:

Those are some nice looking stanchions.  So getting good shots of the action was a challenge.  Here is what I got that I liked.

Much of the action to my right was obscured, so most of the shots are to my left.

This is a hefty screen shot.

You know you are in Wisconsin when they sell cheese curds at the game.

That kid on the left?  Here he is in the air guitar contest.

The mascot is either super cute or the stuff of nightmares.

I’m going with nightmares.

This was not a goal. (click to make bigger)

Someone at the rink is an Avalanche fan.

When it was time for chuck-a-puck, they untied and lowered the netting around the seating area.

The locker room is right there, next to the concession stand and entrance. RIGHT THERE.

Speaking of concessions, the bottle of water I bought was $1.50.  I did not see what beer prices were.  The value of junior hockey.

Speaking of value, they had game worn jerseys on sale for $100.  That’s dirt cheap.  I thought of it, but before I could make up my mind, the merch room closed.  Probably for the best.

More action!

Away fans.

The quote.

I encourage you to look at the game sheet for this one.  With 1:36 left in the third period, with the game tied at one, Janesville took two roughing minors to Ausitn’s single roughing minor, giving Austin a power play.  The coach was not pleased at all.

There are times when you see a coach behind a bench and know that he is a hot head.  He’s stalking the bench, yelling at everyone, waiving his arms wildly.  Some coaches know when to rein it in, to get control of themselves.  Some use it as an act.  This was not one of those coaches, at least not tonight.

After one Austin player and two Janesville players sat down in the bench, a third Janesville player joined them.  The official announcement came over the PA, Janesville was called for an Abuse of Official minor.  The coach had done himself in.

Refs take a fair amount of abuse all the time in hockey.  They are yelled at for most calls, even for the most obvious and gratuitous of infractions leading to the call.  Lower level refs take it just as much as upper level refs.  I felt this ref did a good job throughout the game. He was in control of the game in the positive way.  He listened to players, talked to players, and knew when he wasn’t going to listen to any more complaining and got on with the game.  He didn’t call a perfect game, but he called a good and fair game.

I don’t know what was said to the ref.  The benches were on the other side of the ice, and the glass was between myself and the action. After watching the ref all night and seeing the coach’s behavior before the call, my benefit of the doubt goes to the ref.  Whatever was said, it crossed the line.  The five-on-four power play was now a five-on-three.

I don’t need to tell you Austin scored, do I?  I don’t need to tell you the game ended 2-1 Bruins, right?  It was destiny at that point.

The coach was not pleased after the game, and let the ref know it.

Look at the fan walking by on the right.  The coach is STILL going off after walking to the other bench to shake the hand of the opposing coach, and this fan doesn’t even take notice.  Perhaps this is a regular thing.

I know people like this, who will cut their face off despite their nose when it comes to arguing with a ref.  There is nothing you can do to tell them they are wrong, whether you are the ref or a teammate or someone watching the game.  When they are wronged, they can’t be convinced or calmed down.  I wonder how often this has happened to this coach.  I doubt it’s the first or last.

The final, well, I already said, 2-1 Ausitn.  A fun game with lots of closeup action and an unusual ending.

I had a great time watching a game with 453 of my closest friends.