After a bout of rain overnight Friday into Saturday, I headed off to Hartford, Connecticut that morning/afternoon to catch Maine @ UConn in a "matinée" college hockey matchup, and, in doing so, I found out just as much about the history of hockey in that city as I did about the "new generation" there!
As for the game presentation, I'm not sure about the past few years, but UConn's intros to the games this weekend seemed to set up a "theme" of sorts for the rest of the season, as they involved a short performance by the UConn band, followed by highlights, then the visiting team starting lineup intros, then more highlights, followed, lastly, by UConn's starters being introduced; unfortunately, at least to my ears, the whole thing seemed quite loud, and that never seemed to change once the game started, but, thankfully, despite the loud music volume during the game from both the band and the "pre-recorded" sound system itself, this tune remains in the same position with UConn hockey as it did when the NHL's Hartford Whalers still existed:
...in fact, from the very beginning of UConn's days inside the former Hartford Civic Center/current XL Center, as of the 2014-15
season:
...but DYK there's even more history to the tune than just the Whalers?
Meanwhile, the PA announcer definitely must "moonlight" as a comedian and/or movie trailer announcer when he's not announcing UConn hockey home games, as he definitely has the "deep" type of voice you might typically hear in movie trailers, and he cracked jokes during the game about ("A") fans in Halloween costumes, ("B") various moments in UConn sports history, ("C") the fans' knowledge of a few events that all occurred within a certain year, one of which involved one of UConn's on-campus venues, and ("D", immediately following "C") the Mensa society...
The first period saw a scoreless, and rather uneventful, series of events, although UConn managed to kill off a 5-against-3 manpower disadvantage against it about halfway through, much to the delight of the crowd watching the game, but still missing on both of those opportunities of its own, one of which lasted about 15 seconds into the middle frame, again, making the first 20 minutes of the game entirely scoreless...
What that period lacked, though, the rest of the game more than made up for, as an ugly boarding incident injuring one of the UConn skaters along one of the ends of the rink led to a major penalty against Maine, along with the player making that hit getting ejected from the rest of the game; another pair of penalties each way suddenly led to a 4-against-3 advantage for UConn, during which time the opening goal of the game arrived, as UConn slowly, but surely, worked the puck closer and closer to the net to the point where a "point-blank" shot through a bit of traffic in front of the net was all that was necessary to convert and open up the scoring; UConn took advantage of another Maine penalty with just over 20 seconds remaining, passing the puck in a sort of "umbrella" formation between everybody, indeed, eventually, getting one of the five skaters wide open enough to be able fire home another goal to give UConn a 2-0 lead headed into the final 20 minutes!
The last period, however, was when things suddenly got even uglier between the teams, as it seemed like every stoppage early in the period featured some pushing and shoving between players, including a crazy sequence early on: two roughing penalties, one against each team; a high stick by one of UConn's players; a Maine player elbowing somebody on UConn; finally, four penalties all at once: a cross-check call against UConn, and roughing/slashing/tripping penalties against two separate Maine players, all of which resulted in another power play for UConn, which, ironically, seemed to give Maine more momentum to get on the scoreboard, and, indeed, that ended up happening just after the expirations of all but the major penalty against UConn, making it a 2-1 game, which stood until there was barely a minute remaining in the game, by which point Maine had pulled its goaltender for the extra skater; after everything that had happened within those 20 minutes, Maine had clawed its way back from being down 2-0, to being tied, 2-2, and headed to the overtime period with a chance to win, but despite the insanity of the third period, it seemed as if Maine was content to escape with the tie, while UConn was too "ticked" deep down inside at blowing said lead to be able to generate many chances within the extra five minutes of action to make the final score a 2-2 tie!
As for the game presentation, I'm not sure about the past few years, but UConn's intros to the games this weekend seemed to set up a "theme" of sorts for the rest of the season, as they involved a short performance by the UConn band, followed by highlights, then the visiting team starting lineup intros, then more highlights, followed, lastly, by UConn's starters being introduced; unfortunately, at least to my ears, the whole thing seemed quite loud, and that never seemed to change once the game started, but, thankfully, despite the loud music volume during the game from both the band and the "pre-recorded" sound system itself, this tune remains in the same position with UConn hockey as it did when the NHL's Hartford Whalers still existed:
...in fact, from the very beginning of UConn's days inside the former Hartford Civic Center/current XL Center, as of the 2014-15
season:
...but DYK there's even more history to the tune than just the Whalers?
Meanwhile, the PA announcer definitely must "moonlight" as a comedian and/or movie trailer announcer when he's not announcing UConn hockey home games, as he definitely has the "deep" type of voice you might typically hear in movie trailers, and he cracked jokes during the game about ("A") fans in Halloween costumes, ("B") various moments in UConn sports history, ("C") the fans' knowledge of a few events that all occurred within a certain year, one of which involved one of UConn's on-campus venues, and ("D", immediately following "C") the Mensa society...
On a (pair of) more personal note(s), our old (basement) freezer started "de-frosting" on us earlier this month, forcing that thing to the "scrap heap" after about a decade, although that had replaced another unit that had run for at least 20 years before then, and requiring the installation of a new one in its place; lo and behold, we ended up getting a Whirlpool freezer from one of the Lowe's locations around here; also, my "stools" went from normal for the vast majority of this year, to spending this month showing up as being very dark, to suddenly being tiny, and then bloody once again later this past week, just like about a year and a half ago; in all honesty, I've never treated my body the best, with things such as occasional migraines and various pains lasting basically my whole life so far, so, maybe, just maybe, that's a sign that I should, probably, start making possibly "wholesale" lifestyle changes sooner rather than later, before those problems end up getting more frequent and/or severe later on in my life!
Well, that's it from me for now; again, "stay tuned", as always, for the next one of these recaps, most likely following Cornell v. Harvard @ MSG the weekend after Thanksgiving, along with a possible visit to the "new" FAO Schwarz toy store; before then, though, if you do nothing else in the immediate future, make sure to go out and vote wherever you happen to be registered to do so, since who knows whether or not something(s) might end up happening in the foreseeable future stopping us from doing so...?
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