Aces on a roll

Friday night, three fellow clerks and I attended the season opener of the Alaska Aces, Anchorage's minor league hockey team. It. Was. Awesome.

Last year, the Aces won the Kelly Cup, the top award in the EHCL, for the first time in the team's history. As a result, the game began with about 20 min of fanfare, including the unfurling of a large number of celebratory banners and the mascot, a giant flaming "A" right on the ice, and Boomer the polar bear, skating around the rink holding sparklers. Apparently, there is some debate among local hockey teams about the propriety of using flashy fanfare to attract fans. It was pretty clear from Friday night where the Aces come down in this fight. (Remind me not to go to any Seawolves games -- bo-ring!!) Um, also please note (in this article) that Boomer has two different heads--a scary one for pre-game intimidation, and a friendly one for amusing the kiddies. Awesome.

Anyway, I've never been a hockey fan, and I hadn't been to a game since college, but now I can't wait until the next game I can make it to. We got to be super close to the action, and the fans were so so into the game. Almost everyone besides us had cowbells which they would clang at the least provocation. We witnessed two fistfights (strangely exhilerating), and the apparent tradition of throwing frozen fish heads (HUGE ones) onto the ice after the first Aces goal. We got to eat burritos, hot dogs, and hush puppies, and since we opted to sit in the wet section, drank Budweiser from plastic bottles. We also learned (the hard way, by overdressing) that it is not in fact cold inside a hockey arena. And the Aces beat the Victoria Salmon Kings 5-3. Go Aces. I got a fever, and the only prescription is MORE COWBELL!