So... having pretty much recovered from their back-alley-aborted, 2004 lock-out season, the powers that be in the NHL have decided, in their infinite wisdom, to do it again.
One good lockout deserves another, I guess.
Once more, billionaires are fighting with millionaires over who gets a bigger piece of the pie.
That pie, of course, is made up of your hard earned money. So, people with far more money than you, are canceling events that you enjoy and pay good money to see, because they can't decide who gets to keep more of the money which you shell-out, to see those events that they're canceling.
That, my friends, is a load of crap.
Now, work stoppages are not at all uncommon in professional sports. Nobody forgets the MLB strike of 1994 that cost us a World Series, the Montreal Expos a shot at a title, and Matt Williams a shot at the home run record, and Tony Gwynn a shot at .400.
It was a travesty, and it took years and a pumped up, HGH-and-steroid--addled obliteration of the home-run record books by human bobbleheads to get the fans back into the fold.
Once they regained their fan base, you know what they didn't do? Strike again eight years later.
The NBA had a work stoppage last year that resulted in a slimmed down regular season that began with an epic opening day quadruple-header on Christmas and one of the best seasons in recent memory.
They should lockout 'til Christmas every year.
The NFL also had a lockout last season, they canceled the most exhibition of their exhibition games, The Hall of Fame game in July. They then realized that the only way to keep everybody involved in America's favorite pastime flush with hover-yachts, private-islands and gold-plated space-bidets is if they got back to work, so they did. (The NFL makes a lot of money.)
Which brings us to the NHL. The sweet, simple NHL. They forgot the lesson that they should have learned in 2004: It's hockey, and nobody cares.
Those of you that do care? Well, the NHL has made it abundantly clear that they don't give a damn about you, or they wouldn't be about to cancel their second season in less than a decade.
Thankfully, the ECHL is here to cure what ails you.
Last night, I went to the venerable Cow Palace to take in a game between the Stockton Thunder and your San Francisco Bulls, and I can tell you, any overriding desire I might have had for NHL hockey was more than sated by their minor league brethren.
In fact, I enjoyed the SF Bulls game more than any of the half-dozen or so San Jose Sharks games I've gone to over the years.
The reasons are myriad, but let's start with the venue: The Cow Palace.
The Cow Palace, opened in 1941 as "The California State Livestock Pavillion", has housed, among other things, the 1956 and 1964 Republican Conventions (I like Ike and Barry Goldwater!), the 1975 NBA Finals, 25 years of the Roller Derby World Championships, 35 Years of Ringling Bros, Barnum and Bailey's Circus, the 1960 NCAA Hoops Final Four, and 67 years of the Grand National Radio.
The Beatles played the Palace. The Allman Bros. played there New Years Eve, 1973, with members of the Grateful Dead sitting in. The Who also played the Palace in '73, with 18 year-old Tom Halpin famously being pulled out of the crowd to finish out the set on drums after Keith Moon overdosed on gorilla tranquilizers.
New Years Eve, 1991, Pearl Jam opened up for Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Palace, in the first ever concert attended by yours truly.
I mean, the old girl has seen some things...
What does all this have to do with your game day experience, you might ask? Well, aside from the $2 million spent installing a new ice system and a 360 degree wraparound LED video screen for game presentation(which is awesome), the arena itself has undergone almost no improvements, and I mean that in the best of possible ways. The history is palpable. You can smell it. It smells a lot like stale popcorn.
Looking around the venue, it's very easy to imagine it as it was in 1991 (exactly the same) or 1973 (pretty much exactly the same) or 1956 (Pretty much exactly the same, with way more Republicans).
It's like watching a game in a time-machine that has a museum in the trunk. And beer, lots of beer.
The concession stands are located all over, easy to get to, and Thursday's are thirsty, which means $3.50 Red Hooks and $3 swills (Bud, Bud Light, Coors Light).
I went for the former, but I certainly wouldn't begrudge your decision to go with the latter.
While we're on the subject of beer, there's a beer garden on the glass behind one of the goals that sits directly between the two tunnels by-which the teams enter and exit the rink. It's what's up. High five the Bulls as they come down the tunnel, or tell the visitors that you slept with their mothers last night, and you're a very considerate lover. It don't matter, you're in the game.
When I first saw the section I assumed that it was a VIP area, and asked an employee how much it cost to rent it out. Turns out, at Bulls games, we're all VIP's.
It goes on and on…
The announcer is crazy, over-the-top, outlandishly enthusiastic.
The DJ plays all sorts of ridiculously awesome/awesomely-bad tracks that are meant to get (and succeed in getting) people's butts out of the seats.
The Bull Girls (Lady Bulls? Cows… no. Bullettes? No, too much like Bullets. Bullerinas? Let me check... Cow Belles. Yeah, ok. You win.)
The Cow Belles are awesome, cute, enthusiastic, and often roaming the aisles of the arena, interacting with the attendees. You could totally get one of their numbers. (Well, I mean, you probably couldn't, but someone a little more handsome and charming than you totally could. Maybe).
Don't like your seat? Pick another one.
You want to win something? They have all sorts of giveaways and prizes, it's the minors, remember? One dude won the jersey off one of the Bulls' backs during the middle of a period.
You want to throw something, then win something? You can buy soft orange pucks for a buck a piece, then huck them at a bullseye on the ice for a chance to win mercy and such. Dudes were buying them by the dozen. When the time came, the air and ice were littered with hundreds upon hundreds of orange-foam pucks, like so many glow-sticks at a Phish show.
I feel like I might be forgetting something…
Oh yeah, right, the game. The game was great.
A nail-biter throughout, the Bulls tied it up with under three minutes to go in regulation, and then won it with a power-play goal in the first minute of overtime.
Then the announcer went bat-shit crazy. It was phenomenal.
The SF Bulls play through March with tickets ranging from $14-41. Family of Four packages are available for $54.
Do yourself a favor and go, it's the closest you'll ever come to living a scene out of the movie Slap Shot.
