Although I am a native of Orange County, Calif, my son was born in North Dakota when I was stationed there. He returned there to attend university, police academy, and served there for one year as a policeman before transfering to the PD of the OC city he was raised in.
While in ND, he grew to love hockey and started playing it himself -- since he did not benefit from having grown up ice skating, he became a goalie. While playing soccer with his cousins in Mexico, he again took the position of goalie and drove his opposing cousins crazy with his hockey moves that they couldn't get the ball past. Even though he's a policeman, he currently plays goalie on the team of the fire department of the neighboring city.
Once a year, he plays in a benefit game at the Anaheim Pond (or whatever they call the place nowadays -- Honda something or other) following a Ducks game. Last year, a friend and I came to watch him play, though (fortunately for me) a dance class we were in kept us from arriving until the final few minutes of the Ducks game. This year, I was not so fortunate. I had to sit through the entire professional game. It was horrendous! When I got home I had to drink through two full bottles of wine -- normally when I drink wine as part of my problem drinking, I can only consume a bit more than half a bottle, so you can see how traumatic that was for me.
Now, the only other professional sports venues I had ever attended was the Anaheim Angels a couple times with family just for the sake of family, but at least there we weren't locked up in an enclosed space with maniacs, plus the clouds in the sky were visible, so at least there was something interesting to look at.
PS
OK, when we were visiting the family of our son's university friend in Winnipeg, I was forced to go to a hockey game between the Winnipeg (AKA "The Peg") team and some US team. But it was an older facility without the extreme and extremely oppressive hype of the Pond and even though there were some signs of "sports frenzy" which in the past had always resulted in physical violence directed against me, I was not alone and, thankfully, we were in the top-most seats so I didn't have to watch my back.
PPS
Most truthful movie line ever. Link (Stanley Tucci) in
Shall We Dance? (the US remake of Japan's
Shall We Dansu?):
quote:
And football sucks.
Edited by dwise1, : The Peg
Edited by dwise1, : PPS
™ Version 4.2
