Too good to be true???

I'll believe it when I see it - found out Friday night that Ed and I (hopefully) will be able to buy tickets to tomorrow's Stanley Cup playoff game, at face value, from some friends that Ed met doing the Bell City Chase series (we were in Calgary this weekend for the event there, and he did the one in Edmonton two weeks ago - "The Bell City Chase is a unique urban adventure that requires participants to exhibit teamwork, resourcefulness, determination and the ability to make decisions on the fly as they search for ChasePoints scattered in unknown locations throughout the city. ChasePoints are designed to test teams with a variety of physical, mental, and otherwise adventurous challenges").

Like I said, I'll believe it when I actually see the tickets, but it sounds like it's going to happen. Considering that a quick check of E-bay shows tickets for tomorrow's game in the thousands of dollars for a pair ...

Which then makes me reflect on hockey in general... how I was so ticked off last season with the lockout that I made no effort to go to any games at all this year. How I really got into pro cycling as a fan since last summer and have spent way more time reading cycling news and watching cycling races than I have paying attention to hockey until recently. How until the playoffs I don't think I actually watched an entire hockey game this season except the Vancouver-Phoenix game we watched at Geri's when we visited last November. But hockey fandom must be deeply entrenched within me I guess, even as I rationally think of reasons not to watch ...

As for hockey playoff games, I think I've only ever been to two - one was in high school when I got a free ticket to Edmonton-Vancouver in the first round, memorable because a) it was back when Edmonton fans looked down condescendingly on the first round and often didn't bother to show up (this was probably actually 1986, before the Oilers lost to Calgary in the 2nd round thanks to Steve Smith's own goal... then the Oiler fans learned not to take things for granted), and
b) I was cheering for the Canucks, hadn't been in Edmonton long enough at that point to get over my hatred for the Oilers ...
Apparently I also went once to one of the Edmonton -Dallas games a few years ago, but those weren't all that memorable because the Oilers generally lost. (Now that I think more about it, I do remember walking up to the arena and seeing someone selling "Belfour sucks" buttons outside - and the chant "Bel-four, Bel-four" just to get under the skin of the Dallas goalie at the time).

When we found out about the tickets, the Oil were down 2-0 in the series with things looking pretty bad after a 5-0 loss and the loss of star goalie Roloson in the first game. But we figured either the Oilers would be playing better and back in it, or else we might get to see the Stanley Cup presentation. With Edmonton winning last night there's no chance we'll see a Stanley Cup presentation (phew!), hopefully they'll play well and tie the series!


ADDENDUM (June 13) - we lost. A let-down in a lot of respects, yeah it was an exciting atmosphere but in the end it's just a hockey game, and there are a lot of more important things in life ...