Friday Night Ice

I went to a university hockey game last night with a few work friends, and I wouldn't have guessed how much fun this would be. Down close to the ice it's an exciting sport. Lets out some of your aggression, vicariously.

Neat soundscape, too, the whisk of skates upon ice and the slap of stick upon puck, and the recurring resounding thump of some guy getting mashed up into the boards. Plus a recording of stadium-organ filler they'd put through the PR system between plays.

My friends and I were largely drawn to the game out of an interest to actually go inside the rink, which is a distinctive campus landmark designed by Eero Saarinen in the 50s. It is a legitimately neat building. That undulating design is as obvious from the inside as it is from the outside, so there's a rare transparency to the construction. The walkway around the bleachers undulates in similar motion. I like watching hockey in a space with a sleekly economical modernist design to it. I had a hot dog too.

So our side took on those stuck-up Ivy League bluebloods from Princeton, and despite dominating the shots on goal in the first two periods, they lost 4–3. So that was a bit disappointing, though better than the last university sporting event I watched with a few work friends, which was "The Game" back in November at the end of the football season. Unfortunately, on that occasion our side was flat-out dominated by those pampered Ivy League legacy kids from Harvard. And we had to move after a guy threw up in the stands right behind us. But they sold these pretty good sausage sandwiches at the stadium, so I had one of those. That was pretty good.

(rink photo courtesy The Internet)