Happy Birthday to me

Those of you who know me are probably scratching their heads about the title. You know that my birthday is in November, not January, so why the title? Answer: For my birthday, my youngest daughter, The Ogre, bought me tickets to the Blue Jackets/ Avalanche game in Columbus last night.

They were saying that the game was sold out, but there were a lot of empty seats. No doubt, the fear of winter weather kept many folks home. Not us. The Ogre has a Jeep.

I will admit, it was cold. While were were waiting in line inside, you could see your breath. We just happened to be directly in front of one of the player's dads. His son is Jared Boll, the enforcer for the Columbus Blue Jackets. I asked him, being a father, doesn't it concern you when you see your son "drop the gloves" (that's hockey slang for get into a fight) on the ice. His reply was "Absolutely. I keep telling him that one day his knees will just give out during a fight and he will fall to the ice." My daughter said she would be hollering encouragements if it were her son.

When we got to our seats, the view of the ice was great. It was the first time I had ever sat in the lower bowl. My daughter said she got a great discount because she works at Nationwide Children's Hospital (I normally don't use the real name of anything on my blog, but since we got a discount, they get the call out). We had a closer view of the ice than the jumbo-tron camera.

The usher let us go down to the glass to take pictures during warm ups. While my daughter was asking if this was OK, she mentioned that she had an eight year old at home that would like to see pictures of the Zamboni. When a passer-by heard that she had an eight year old, he handed her a practice puck that he had found near his seat, down by the glass. Here are some pics that I took during warm ups:

This is Steve Mason, the starting goalie for the CBJ with enforcer Jared Boll standing beside him.

This is a Civil War replica cannon that is fired off each time the CBJ score a goal. The name "Blue Jackets" comes from the fact that Ohio sent more troops to fight in the Civil War than any other northern state.

Here is a video that I shot with my cell phone of the players warming up. When I was eight, if you had mentioned taking a video, let alone a picture with you telephone, people would have thought you were nuts.

The CBJ scored the first goal, and lead after the first period 1-0. Nothing brings hockey fans out of their seats like a goal. The Avs scored shortly after the second period began tying it at 1-1. The most exciting play in hockey is a home team goal. The second thing that will bring the fans out of their seats is a fight. Thank you Jared Boll for igniting the fan base. Here's the video from Youtube:

You gotta know that Jared's dad wasn't too pleased with him possibly breaking a thumb in that fight.

The CJB scored again, and lead at the end of the second period 2-1. It was all downhill from there. Colorado scored midway into the third period to tie it at 2-2. Then, just as the announcer spoke the words "One minute of play remaining.", Colorado scored the game winner. I told the Ogre, if the CBJ was going to lose, I wished it was in overtime, so they would at least get a point in the standings for it.

Our drive home was quite eventful. A light/moderate snow fell, but with the winds we were having, almost made white out conditions. There were times on I-71 North that we couldn't see the lines on the road, and had to rely on the tail lights of vehicles ahead of us. By the time we got to Morrow county, we were through the worst of it. We got home about 11 PM. Thank you to my daughter for the fun evening out and to my wonderful wife for keeping the grand kids so we could do it.