Since I was at a professional hockey rink for the first time since hockey's lockout, the inscription next to each blue line reading "Thank You Fans!" seemed fitting.
As the first period buzzer sounded, I simultaneously thanked myself for wearing a home jersey and cursed myself for not putting on jeans before arriving at the freezing Arrowhead Pond. The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim had just played a scoreless frame against the San Jose Sharks, despite a good deal of penalties for both clubs. As many spectators streamed toward the concession stands, the crowd looked far smaller than it had during the action, even though I estimated that only about 8,000 were there to begin with. While I became accustomed to seeing a less than sold out Pond in previous seasons, it was rare to see the place obscenely vacant. I later noticed that NHL.com announced that the attendance on this Wednesday was 9,262. However, I suspect this was actually the number of tickets distributed; as an example, my sister received hers free at an event she attended the prior weekend.
Is this proof that, as critics believed, people are staying away from the NHL's first season since the lockout that claimed the entire 2004-05 campaign? No, the low attendance figures are a product of this being an exhibition game, and the first pro hockey played in Anaheim since early 2004. Of course, we will have to see for ourselves how the league fares as far as regular season turnout goes. The 'My NHL' advertising campaign, as detailed recently by E.J. Hradek, has already been unveiled to drum up interest. My sister, who accompanied me to the game, speculated that the building would be packed to the rafters on October 10, the Ducks' season opener against Edmonton. A brief check of Ticketmaster upon arriving home proved there are certainly good seats available, but one would expect that the team plans to sell many of these in the time before that game is played.
One interesting aspect of attending a preseason contest this year is the explanation of hockey's new rules for the upcoming season. Colorfully illustrated on the jumbotron by clips from EA Sports' new video game NHL '06, new regulations include expanded offensive zones and restrictions on the goalie's ability to play the puck behind the net. Furthermore, every preseason game concludes with a demonstration of the shootout, whether or not the game is actually tied at that point. The shootout will decide every regular season game this year that is still knotted after five minutes of 4-on-4 overtime. Personally, I understand that the shootout will add excitement to the game, but I got used to the tie as a part of hockey. Once, I watched the New York Rangers (my favorite franchise) blow a 2-0 lead in San Jose. Because the game ended in a tie, I felt better than I would have if they lost in a shootout. At least the loser of any game that ends in overtime or shootout will still receive one point in the standings, while the winner is awarded the full two.
For newcomers to this site, I've been a passionate follower of the New York Rangers since my days on the East Coast. Nevertheless, I found this game particularly interesting because it involved two teams with which I am relatively familiar. Over the last couple of seasons, I have attended a half dozen or so Ducks games each year, including Game 6 of the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals. Additionally, when I went to school in Northern California I occasionally saw the Sharks in San Jose, including a few raucous times in the playoffs. As a result, I noticed plenty of familiar faces on both sides, including Anaheim's Sergei Fedorov and Petr Sykora as well as San Jose's Patrick Marleau and Niko Dimitrakos. There were also several newcomers to the party, most notably defenseman Scott Niedermayer, who the Ducks recently acquired, uniting him with brother Rob. The Sharks, on the other hand, have primarily opted to replenish talent through their minor league system over the last several seasons.
I found it a little difficult to formulate solid first impressions about the game, especially because it had been so long since I had seen hockey, live or otherwise. Nevertheless, I really did enjoy seeing even the half-hearted bodychecks one would come to expect from preseason action. What's more, at one point in the first the Ducks' Joffrey Lupul and Rob Niedermeyer in succession notched solid hits on opponents caught against the boards. I checked the NHL's play- by-play to confirm my recollection, and sure enough Lupul's hit was accompanied by an exclamation point on the sheet. It may be unwise to base regular season predictions on preseason play or statistics, but on a basic level it was satisfying to jeer a visiting player who whiffed on a shot attempt and cheer for a spectacular save. I also got my first goal of the year out of the way, leaping to my feet a little late after Fedoruk hit twine.
While I have more experience watching hockey in St. Louis and Anaheim, this game brought back some memories from game I watched up north. For one, the first San Jose power play reminded me of when fans there would form the shape of a shark's mouth to the music from Jaws when the other team was penalized. I also remembered when the netting between the boards and the fans at the extreme ends of the ice was first implemented. The league installed the nets for sensible safety reasons, but fans used to boo whenever the puck hit a net, because that meant a fan was denied a souvenir. But the high point of my recollections came when the stadium played Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part 2 during a commercial break, and I yelled out "Hey!" just as fans did after the Sharks found the net.
It won't take long to recount what actually happened during the game. The Ducks' Todd Fedoruk opened the scoring close to 13 minutes into the game, banging home a rebound of his own shot past Sharks goalie Vesa Toskala. The assist was credited to newcomer Ryan Getzlaf, who sports the number 51, the same as my Yankee hero Bernie Williams. Toskala and Anaheim goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere put on a clinic most of the way. Perhaps Toskala's most impressive performance came roughly 4 minutes into the contest, when he fought off an Anaheim two-man advantage. Giguere was forced to make several difficult glove saves, and for the most controlled rebounds very well. Unfortunately for him, Dimitrakos took a pass from teammate Marco Sturm with three minutes remaining in the game and scored up high, sending the game into overtime. When this was insufficient to decide the game, the teams went to a shootout. The sudden-death format would have been demonstrated anyway, but this time it mattered as much as anything in an exhibition could.
The loudest I heard the building all night was when Teemu Selanne was introduced during the shootout; Selanne had been a hometown favorite in seasons past, but played from 2001-03 for the Sharks and the 2003-04 campaign with Colorado. Now, the Finnish star enjoyed a brief moment of welcoming from the fans in attendance. Later on, in the shootout's third round, Sturm scored on Giguere in what became the decisive goal of the game. At first, there was some confusion among the fans about whether the puck had gone in, but the red light left no doubt. Fedorov, the Ducks center, followed but missed the mark far above the net, sending the Sharks to a 2-1 win. A few San Jose supporters left happy, but most of those in attendance seemed satisfied with the entertainment value of what was, after all, just for practice.
hockey
As the first period buzzer sounded, I simultaneously thanked myself for wearing a home jersey and cursed myself for not putting on jeans before arriving at the freezing Arrowhead Pond. The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim had just played a scoreless frame against the San Jose Sharks, despite a good deal of penalties for both clubs. As many spectators streamed toward the concession stands, the crowd looked far smaller than it had during the action, even though I estimated that only about 8,000 were there to begin with. While I became accustomed to seeing a less than sold out Pond in previous seasons, it was rare to see the place obscenely vacant. I later noticed that NHL.com announced that the attendance on this Wednesday was 9,262. However, I suspect this was actually the number of tickets distributed; as an example, my sister received hers free at an event she attended the prior weekend.
Is this proof that, as critics believed, people are staying away from the NHL's first season since the lockout that claimed the entire 2004-05 campaign? No, the low attendance figures are a product of this being an exhibition game, and the first pro hockey played in Anaheim since early 2004. Of course, we will have to see for ourselves how the league fares as far as regular season turnout goes. The 'My NHL' advertising campaign, as detailed recently by E.J. Hradek, has already been unveiled to drum up interest. My sister, who accompanied me to the game, speculated that the building would be packed to the rafters on October 10, the Ducks' season opener against Edmonton. A brief check of Ticketmaster upon arriving home proved there are certainly good seats available, but one would expect that the team plans to sell many of these in the time before that game is played.
One interesting aspect of attending a preseason contest this year is the explanation of hockey's new rules for the upcoming season. Colorfully illustrated on the jumbotron by clips from EA Sports' new video game NHL '06, new regulations include expanded offensive zones and restrictions on the goalie's ability to play the puck behind the net. Furthermore, every preseason game concludes with a demonstration of the shootout, whether or not the game is actually tied at that point. The shootout will decide every regular season game this year that is still knotted after five minutes of 4-on-4 overtime. Personally, I understand that the shootout will add excitement to the game, but I got used to the tie as a part of hockey. Once, I watched the New York Rangers (my favorite franchise) blow a 2-0 lead in San Jose. Because the game ended in a tie, I felt better than I would have if they lost in a shootout. At least the loser of any game that ends in overtime or shootout will still receive one point in the standings, while the winner is awarded the full two.
For newcomers to this site, I've been a passionate follower of the New York Rangers since my days on the East Coast. Nevertheless, I found this game particularly interesting because it involved two teams with which I am relatively familiar. Over the last couple of seasons, I have attended a half dozen or so Ducks games each year, including Game 6 of the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals. Additionally, when I went to school in Northern California I occasionally saw the Sharks in San Jose, including a few raucous times in the playoffs. As a result, I noticed plenty of familiar faces on both sides, including Anaheim's Sergei Fedorov and Petr Sykora as well as San Jose's Patrick Marleau and Niko Dimitrakos. There were also several newcomers to the party, most notably defenseman Scott Niedermayer, who the Ducks recently acquired, uniting him with brother Rob. The Sharks, on the other hand, have primarily opted to replenish talent through their minor league system over the last several seasons.
I found it a little difficult to formulate solid first impressions about the game, especially because it had been so long since I had seen hockey, live or otherwise. Nevertheless, I really did enjoy seeing even the half-hearted bodychecks one would come to expect from preseason action. What's more, at one point in the first the Ducks' Joffrey Lupul and Rob Niedermeyer in succession notched solid hits on opponents caught against the boards. I checked the NHL's play- by-play to confirm my recollection, and sure enough Lupul's hit was accompanied by an exclamation point on the sheet. It may be unwise to base regular season predictions on preseason play or statistics, but on a basic level it was satisfying to jeer a visiting player who whiffed on a shot attempt and cheer for a spectacular save. I also got my first goal of the year out of the way, leaping to my feet a little late after Fedoruk hit twine.
While I have more experience watching hockey in St. Louis and Anaheim, this game brought back some memories from game I watched up north. For one, the first San Jose power play reminded me of when fans there would form the shape of a shark's mouth to the music from Jaws when the other team was penalized. I also remembered when the netting between the boards and the fans at the extreme ends of the ice was first implemented. The league installed the nets for sensible safety reasons, but fans used to boo whenever the puck hit a net, because that meant a fan was denied a souvenir. But the high point of my recollections came when the stadium played Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part 2 during a commercial break, and I yelled out "Hey!" just as fans did after the Sharks found the net.
It won't take long to recount what actually happened during the game. The Ducks' Todd Fedoruk opened the scoring close to 13 minutes into the game, banging home a rebound of his own shot past Sharks goalie Vesa Toskala. The assist was credited to newcomer Ryan Getzlaf, who sports the number 51, the same as my Yankee hero Bernie Williams. Toskala and Anaheim goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere put on a clinic most of the way. Perhaps Toskala's most impressive performance came roughly 4 minutes into the contest, when he fought off an Anaheim two-man advantage. Giguere was forced to make several difficult glove saves, and for the most controlled rebounds very well. Unfortunately for him, Dimitrakos took a pass from teammate Marco Sturm with three minutes remaining in the game and scored up high, sending the game into overtime. When this was insufficient to decide the game, the teams went to a shootout. The sudden-death format would have been demonstrated anyway, but this time it mattered as much as anything in an exhibition could.
The loudest I heard the building all night was when Teemu Selanne was introduced during the shootout; Selanne had been a hometown favorite in seasons past, but played from 2001-03 for the Sharks and the 2003-04 campaign with Colorado. Now, the Finnish star enjoyed a brief moment of welcoming from the fans in attendance. Later on, in the shootout's third round, Sturm scored on Giguere in what became the decisive goal of the game. At first, there was some confusion among the fans about whether the puck had gone in, but the red light left no doubt. Fedorov, the Ducks center, followed but missed the mark far above the net, sending the Sharks to a 2-1 win. A few San Jose supporters left happy, but most of those in attendance seemed satisfied with the entertainment value of what was, after all, just for practice.
hockey
posted by Alex at 11:37 PM
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