Les Pingouins Oh la la!

We went to see the Wilkes-Barre Penguins on Wednesday night. Michael was given tickets by one of his vendors. It was my first time ever at a hockey game. First time for Michael too. We really had fun. We took Cheryl, the executive admin at Michael's work. She's French Canadian and her husband is a hockey ref. He just happened to be working the Wilkes-Barre game which was really sweet. Cheryl said the most important part of the game is when the refs skate out. So we were glad not to miss that.

I've never liked watching hockey on television. Frankly, I can't follow the puck. But you can see everything in person right down to the player's expressions and the spin on the puck. And we had awesome seats about fifteen rows up right behind the goalee. It was a pretty high scoring game (5-3 and the home team won) so we saw lots of action. This is the American Hockey League which means they're the last step before the National Hockey League. So the skating was amazingly good. I enjoyed the whole experience including the two Zambonis, the mascot (a French Canadian friend of Cheryl's) who does a dance with all the children, and the Finnish cheering section. One of their best players is Finnish so we saw lots of blue and white flags.

So it was really fun speaking French and watching great skating and playing. I'm almost totally ignorant about sports, but I actually know a little bit about hockey after watching Zach play lots and lots of roller hockey games at Spinning Wheels. And I really appreciated the quality of the skating. But the fastest skater I ever saw or ever will see was a former French student of mine named Jordan Malone who now skates with Apolo Ohno as a world class speed skater. He started as an online skater and he actually played against Zach's team at Spinning Wheels. He must have been about eight. He was only a blur. But Zach's team won. Something Zach should probably brag about from time to time.

Yesterday, Cheryl presented Michael with a winning game puck autographed by the referee! How cool is that?