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October 17, 2002
Red-Socked Streaker Excites Crowd
By Matt Petersen
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CALGARY -- I swallowed my pride a little and decided to put the two
lousy San Jose games behind me and enjoy the drive through the awesome
Canadian Rockies on our way to Alberta.
The vast, snow-capped mountain ranges, infinite evergreens and rivers
of Rogers Pass and Banff, was some of the most astonishing landscape
these eyes have taken in next to Yosemite Park. The sights and colors -- a
cornucopia of green, yellow, red, and orange of the flora and fauna --
had the three of us craning our necks for hours on end. It resulted in
three relatively macho guys blurting out “beautiful” at every bend of
Interstate 1.
Calgary was a welcome sight (it was roughly a 15 hour trek from
Vancouver as we stopped in Boston Bar, B.C. for some sandwiches and a little
five-pin bowling where Jeff earned the high score of 162 and the
opportunity to trash talk), and it had been a few days from seeing our last
game so we were raring to see some more hockey.
Calgary is definitely a unique experience from a hockey fan’s point of
view. Home of the Calgary Stampede, there’s a rich Country/Western feel
here, not really indicative of a typical hockey town, but intriguing
all the same. For example, there is a herd of cattle rounded up in the
parking lot across the street from the arena. As for the weather, we
thought Vancouver was a tad nippy, but we were downright chilly even with
all of our layers on as many local fans in Cowboy hats and Flames
jerseys scoffed at our California-winter skin. “This is like summer weather,
eh,” one female fan chuckled. It felt like my nose was going to fall
off at any minute.
The game was great with plenty of action. A 3-3 tie against a strong
Boston club, the game was our first overtime sighting, and we remarked
with the fans around us how much we enjoy the four-on-four skating.
Resident superhero Jarome Iginla, or “Iggie” as he’s affectionately called
here, was kept in check without a point on the night, but had the fans
off their seats with a brilliant back hand in OT that took an equally
good pad save by Boston netminder Steve Shields to preserve the tie. The
Bruins’ first line of Joe Thornton, Glen Murray and Sergei Samsonov
were all over the ice (accounting for nine points), and Jeff opined that
if he could have any player in the NHL on his team, it would be the
young center Thornton.
The Saddledome is an interesting venue, with three levels of seating,
and a second balcony (where we sat) that dwarfs the top and bottom rows
combined. The fare was pretty good as Jeff and I inhaled a Molson
Canadian (venders pour em out of the can) and a polish sausage that cost
Jeff and I 10 bucks (Joe says he’s swearing off game chow, too pricey).
The sparse crowd (the place looked only three quarters-full) turned from
quiet to downright giddy once a streaker, wearing nothing but a pair of
red socks, scaled the near-side boards in the third period. He lunged
over the glass and bonked his head on the ice, knocking himself out
cold. The crazy was wheeled off on a stretcher drawing a standing ovation,
and the fans were juiced from there on out.
It was the finest game we’ve seen thus far, with a unique highlight
that had us shaking our heads all the way back to our room. As a local
post-game radio announcer summarized the episode, “it was a real bummer.”
Edmonton on Saturday...
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as they embark on their quest to set a World Record
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