Our First Ice Hockey Game

After Niagara Falls, we headed across the Rainbow Bridge to the USA, to visit Buffalo NY to watch the Buffalo Sabres take on the New Jersey Devils in a bottom-of-the-table clash.

Stephen particularly enjoyed driving around in the PT Cruiser.

We visited the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) on the way for awesome all-day-breakfast yummy-ness - with all you can eat pancakes!  What's with Americans and overcooking their bacon though?  This bacon was so cooked that it crumbled into tiny pieces when you tried to cut it!

After not too long we were there!  The arena before the game starts - it's filling up!  It was a Wednesday night match between two bottom-of-the-table teams, they play 80+ matches a season, and it was still a sell-out crowd.  Crazy.

Once we arrived we discovered that we were in some sort of members' section with in-seat service!  You order your beer/hot chocolate/popcorn etc on your tab, and the guy brings it to you at any time during the game.  Pretty awesome.

Warm-up goal shooting - just like the AFL :)

More of warm-up.  The teams has a lot of players on it and they seemed to sub-off the whole team at random - we didn't really get it.

There was a punch-up on the ice - all of the other players moved away, and the umpires just stood there and watched.  It was bizarre.  They were really getting into it too!

They played all 3 periods of the game without a score, so it went into 5 minutes of extra time - about a minute in, New Jersey scored a goal and the entire crowd stood up and walked out.  Apparently it was golden goal time - we were incredibly confused.

It was a fun night though - we'll definitely have to try to get some tickets for a Maple Leafs' game (despite the exorbitant prices).  Perhaps we'd better learn the rules first though :)