Hockey! NHL and Minor-League

We leave for Grandma's birthday visit tomorrow morning (so, so early, ugh; it's the price we pay for, well, paying a low price, and getting direct flights to boot)*, but before we go, I want to squeeze in a little hockey talk. For instance if anyone wants to talk about the Bruins vs Toronto series (game three tonight!), hit me up, but also the incredible Tampa vs Columbus series, because wow, what on earth is happening there? Tampa was better than the rest of the league by a mile, and now faces elimination without winning a game? Craziness.
*No idea if I'll blog from there or not. We'll see! If not, see you in a week or so.

Then there's the minor leagues: last week, my mother and I went to one of the last regular-season games of the Florida Everblades, and had a good time. As seen in photos!

Someone spelled aioli correctly (no matter what Blogger's spell-check thinks), but crashed on "toated bun," which is pretty hilarious.

We got there early, in time to eat at the restaurant in the arena. The view from there:

The food was fine, and being right there does get you into the spirit.

The view from our seats was good, too.

A couple of notes if you should go: first of all, the place was freezing, and I do mean freezing. Layer up, maybe bring a blanket. I was wearing my Bruins sweatshirt, because of course I was, and I never pull the hood up when I wear that, but guess what, I was glad to have it before the game was over.

Second, it's rather weird that the seats are not all the same size, but when we went back to our seats after going for a snack (the pretzel was not nearly as good as the one I got at the Panthers game, though it was a lot cheaper), we went into the seats the other way than we had been, and when I sat in the seat Mom had been in, it was about an inch or two narrower than the one I had been in. Weird, right?

Center ice:

Warm-ups.

The yellow jerseys were just for warm-ups, I imagine because of the recent name change to Hertz Arena.

Sign on the visitor's bench.

The other team had a guy named Playfair!

Old-school scoreboard. It did have video in the middle, but the Coke sign at the bottom physically rotated to change.

Apparently Geico sponsors the goal posts?

The Everblades are quite good this year, but it wasn't their best game. Normally, if you're outshooting your opponent 17-5, you aren't down 2-1.

There were lots of in-game sponsored things, like this guy in green:

Who charged around during a break in play, and then went up and down by seats collecting trash, since apparently he was a waste company tie-in. Okay then.

But it was fun. Very loud, very cold! But I would go again.

And now: go, Bruins!