Red Wings vs. Ducks

Ryan and I went up to Anaheim on Friday. We had been talking about going to a Red Wings game since last season. When the NHL started the season off in a Lockout we were worried we wouldn’t be able to see them this year. Thankfully the bigwigs and players came to an agreement and the season (albeit much shorter) was back on. Another positive for us was that the games that the Wings were scheduled to come out to the West Coast were later in the year and were still scheduled to take place.

Normally we would go for the cheap seats (I mean, as you know, I am pretty frugal when it comes to money and spending it willy-nilly [especially when it comes to spending it on myself]), but we were set to get a decent tax return and with the rumors that the NHL would be rearranging the conferences this year and the Wings might not be in the West any longer we thought it might be the last time we could see them for a while – so we splurged for the ‘good seats’. [Just in case you didn’t know, the league did rearrange the divisions and the Red Wings are no longer in the West – so good thing we went for it]. We were about 15 rows off the blue line across from the players’ benches – not too shabby (we did get a great deal on the seats though, going through StubHub and getting them for about $100 less per ticket than face value).

We decided that on the way up we would grab some Rubio’s – since it was my HALF birthday, they sent me a Buy One Get One Free burrito deal. We figured we would rather eat there (which dinner was less than $5 for the two of us – I guess one way to make up for the pricey tickets, hehe) and get ‘treats’ at the Honda Center if we wanted – that way we made the most of our money. The nice thing was we were even able to park in the Rubio’s parking lot for the game. It was only about a 5-minute walk to the game and it was only $5 for parking (rather than $15 at the Honda Center – again another way to make up for the pricey tickets, hehe).

The game was AWESOME! Honestly, it was one of the best we have been to in a long time (although it would have been better at Joe Lewis – but the funny thing was that it seemed like there were more Wings fans at the game than Ducks fans – TAKE THAT!). Not only did we win (always a plus) and won in a BIG way (5 to 1), but there were three good fights and one of the Red Wings players even got a hat-trick (meaning 3 goals in the same game). Ryan went to throw his beanie on the ice in celebration (that is what you do to say congrats to the player) – but come to find out it wasn’t heavy enough (or at least that is what he blamed it on [COME ON NANCY]) and it didn’t make it over the glass [PS I ended up going down towards the ice during the second intermission and retrieved it for him) – HUMOROUS!

We brought our good camera with us, even though we noticed on the rules for the Honda Center that you weren’t supposed to have a lens that extended over 6 inches. I was asked about it at the doors, but told them we wouldn’t extend it and the lady just told me to keep it down and walk through (THANKS MA’AM!). Well, during warm-ups we tried to keep the lens collapsed so that we wouldn’t get in trouble. A couple times we zoomed a little further to try to get some good shots. Honestly, we were so close that even the pictures on our iPhones came out great. Ryan told me that he is thinking about editing some of them and printing them off so that we can hang them around the condo… I will post some of the ‘professional’ shots soon; the ones in this post are just the iPhone pictures [PS The reason my iPhone pictures are blurry is because the case it is in makes it tough to take 'self-photos' and you have to push real hard and so my hard shakes].

And now the Wings seem to be on a winning spree – LET’S GO WINGS!!