We went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out!!!

Add this to our (very short) list of rare sports events attended: Mississippi Surge hockey.  If you would have told me ten years ago that on a free Friday night I would be sitting with a handsome man in a Gulfport MS arena watching minor league hockey players and shooting champagne party popper fireworks, I would have laughed at you.  But!  Lucky for me, I married into a family of die-hard Mississippi hockey fans.

Stuart's Uncle Rusty and Aunt Ginny are really awesome and gave us tickets to go with them to last night's Mississippi Surge hockey game.  They are huge fans and have attended almost every game for the past 10 years!  They love it, but I must admit I was a bit skeptical.  I know nothing about hockey and hate being cold, but I decided to be a good sport and go along for the ride.

Stuart and I drove over after work, and I started feeling better about the event as soon as we set foot inside the coliseum.  It was warm!  Before we got to our seat we thought we would have some delish and totally unhealthy stadium food (when in Rome, right?).  We split a Nacho Grande that had a delightful amount of liquid cheese and settled in for the game.

People watching is one of my favorite pastimes, but the crowd was unfortunately sparse.  However on first glance around the stadium I noticed a majority of the attendees were women, most well past the age of retirement.  They were all bedazzled in their "I heart hockey" rhinestone pins and MS Surge plastic rings.  Some even had a beer in their hand(s)!  Several of the most hard-core (and younger) fans were down on the floor level behind hopefully sturdy plastic walls.  They carried signs that said things such as "If you can't play nice, play hockey".  The people watching was good, but then it was time for the main event to begin!


Aunt Ginny supplied us with champagne party poppers and instructed us to fire them at any score, or just because.  I was hesitant since my mother was always rather paranoid about firecrackers, and inside nonetheless!  But I warmed up to the rebellious idea quickly.

At the beginning of the game, rumor quickly spread around the coliseum that the Surge had hired three "enforcers" who were good hockey players, but specifically chosen to take out (aka beat the mess out of) the other team's players they didnt like.  As the team skated onto the field we immediately spotted them as the guys that had numbers on the back of their jerseys but no names.  One would think the refs would be suspicious of that?


So the hockey game got underway.  I have to admit friends, it was pretty exciting!  There aren't many other sports besides college football that can keep my attention, so hockey must be something pretty special!  The only thing is that Stuart and I couldn't quite figure out the rules.  Obviously the goal is to get the puck (aka biscuit in hockey slang) in the goal (aka basket).  Other than that, I cannot begin to tell you what the strange markings on the ice are, or what constitutes a penalty.  It seems that slapping someone with your hockey stick and then slamming them into the wall is ok, but tripping them with your shoe is not.  Quite the mystery.


Unfortunately, The Surge lost this face off.  But Stuart and I came away with a greater appreciation of a new sport!  I'll leave you with my favorite moments:

An engineering marvel: The Zamboni truck

If you look closely, the wall is painted so that the opposite team looks like ballerinas.  Ha!

The best part was spending time with the hubs!  Please ignore our winter pastiness and my apparently massive sternocleidomastoid muscle