Hockey Night in St. Paul

So hockey season has almost arrived.  Sweet!  I went to a MN Wild preseason game the other night with my sister and a super awesome Y'stone friend.  We had some awesome seats, well, they might not have been the ones we were supposed to have, but hey, no one else was sitting there.  And we started the night right where we were supposed to be, in the upper levels.  I actually like sitting up there, I like have the bird's eye view of the rink and the play.  The Wild played the Flyers.

It was my friends first time at the X.  Which is an awesome arena, I swear there are no bad seats.  The only time I ever had a problem seeing the action was when I was behind  the Canucks bench, and that was mainly because one of the coaches kept standing in front of me.  But for the most part, you still have a great view.  But I digress, we watched the first period from above.  The wild scored and then immediately they let one in.  Go figure.
 


But Micaela and I had a great time catching up, it is kinda lame, but we live about 2.5 hours apart, and naturally haven't seen each other in 2 years.  And she got a great foot picture of us and the ice surface.  We are both fans of taking pictures of our feet.  I didn't have a camera with me for the 1st period, then I used my sisters for the 2nd and 3rd. 

 

 

My sister got incredibly cheap seats in the lower level, pretty close to the glass, so we were going to switch seats for the middle peroid.  But instead we just moved to an empty row and stayed for the duration of the game.  I got some good pictures, some crappy ones, but all and all it was worth the move.




We were hoping that if there was a hockey fight it would be when we were in the lower section.  And they did!  Hockey fights are awesome!  It took 2 peroids but the Wild got another goal, but that only tied the score at 2-2.  5 minutes of overtime later, then a shootout.  So apparently I got a talent of calling the shootout shooters in order.  Called that it would be Koivu, Havlat and Wellman.  So, Koivu missed, Backstrom saved one, Havlat missed, Backs let one in, Wellman missed.  And the flyers won.  Bah.
 

Oh, and Eric Wellwood, little brother of Kyle Wellwood formerly of the Canucks and currently trying out for the Coyotes, is a baby Flyer.




 
And I adore baby goalies!  Currently my favorites are the Wild's Anton Khudobin and Vancouver's Eddie Lack.  And since I was at a Wild game, I was going to try my damnedest to get a picture of Khudobin sitting on the bench.  He was not cooperating, he kept hunching over, or moving right before I got the picture.