Thomas and I just got back from another exciting evening with the Gwinnett Gladiators, and what a night it was! The visiting team was the Alaska Aces who, unfortunately for them, lost 5 – 0. There was much cool stuff tonight, which began even before the game started.

First, we had excellent seats, directly behind the visitor’s bench. We arrived about 40 minutes before play started to watch them practice. As we were sitting there watching, one of the Aces came into the box and Thomas started a-waving at him. The player, Smith I think it was, turned around and hit the ice, apparently without noticing him. He came back within about 5 seconds, picked up a new stick, tapped on the glass with his old stick to get Thomas’ attention, and then gave Thomas his stick! That was extremely cool and prompted Thomas to say “I’m going to cheer for that team tonight!”. Then during the second intermission, they drive a Cadillac truck onto the ice, with Maximus, the team mascot, firing t-shirts into the crowd with a t-shirt gun. Thomas was jumping and flailing about trying to get one, when a guy walks up to the glass, gets my attention and then lobs one underhand over the glass to make sure he gets one. And if that weren’t enough, when they dropped coupons for Buffalo’s Cafe from the ceiling, a woman pointed out to Thomas where one had fallen, so he got one of those too! What an evening.

Unfortunately there are only two more home games this season. I sure wish we had discovered them sooner. We’re going to take in one of the final two, but then we have to wait until October. Ah well, it will be worth it.

BTW, all three photos were taken with my LG VX6000 cameraphone. The first one I took two weeks ago at our second game. The bottom two were actually taken by Thomas at tonight’s game.

Friday night I took Thomas to his first ice hockey game and he loved it! He loved it so much we went back for another game tonight (Saturday)! The team is the Gwinnett Gladiators, part of the ECHL, which is an AA hockey league. What excellent hockey! This team is really good, and this is their first season. Last night’s game was against the Pensacola Ice Pilots, which the Gladiators won 4 – 1, and tonight’s game was against the Greensboro Generals which we lost in a heartbreaking sudden death overtime 4 – 3.

I didn’t catch the attendance numbers last night, but tonight there were 5,406 fans, which for a minor league team in its first year, seems like a good crowd to me. The fans were just as enthusiastic as I’ve seen at any NHL game, and just as rowdy at times. The pre-game lead-in to the teams taking the ice is well produced and very professional. The announcer does a good job of getting the fans into the game. And the players give it everything they’ve got, but with amazingly few penalties. Last night two of the Ice Pilots got ejected for fighting, but no one got tossed tonight. Which is good.

We got there before the game started to watch them warm up and lo and behold, a puck came soaring up over the glass in our section. It hit the net over the glass and fell to the floor. I jumped out of my seat and high-tailed it to pick it up for Thomas. He was very happy, indeed!

And what’s probably most amazing is that my darling wife, who generally hates spectator sports, went with us tonight… and… enjoyed the game! She’s willing to go back again! Hoo-ray!

It’s been years since I’ve been to a hockey game and now I’ve been twice in one weekend. We are planning on going back next weekend when the Gladiators take on the Florence Pride. O yeah, Scooby Doo will also be there…