After seeing a preseason game against the Colorado Avalanche, I have become a huge fan of the Utah Hockey Club (I will be happy when we finally have an actual name). I have had a lot of fun following the team because they have had a great start to the season (unlike the Avalanche) and I am still a little bit giddy at the thought that the NHL is in SLC. Tickets are pretty expensive but they are all resell tickets and I've noticed that the price varies from game to game based on the opponent and decreases the closer you get to game time. I found three good seats (the Delta Center has terrible sight lines) at a reasonable price for last night's game against the Ottawa Senators (I always like seeing a Canadian team because that means I get to hear "O Canada") and I was beyond excited to go with my sister and brother-in-law. The three of us already have lots of apparel (my sister urged me to step away from the black and get the blue hoodie) and it was a lot of fun to be with a large crowd showing so much support for the team. Utah came out in the first period with a lot of intensity and outshot Ottawa 8-1. Then it all seemed to fall apart when Ottawa's Noah Gregor and Utah's Jack McBain got offsetting penalties at the 11:22 mark resulting in a four on four. Drake Batherson scored for the Senators 21 seconds later then Claude Giroux made it 2-0 less than 90 seconds later during the same four on four. Robert Bortuzzo got a holding penalty at 17:50 which allowed the Senators to get a power play goal from Ridly Greig to make it 3-0 (Utah was 8-8 on the penalty kill before tonight) and Brady Tkachuk scored with 8 seconds left in this disastrous period to go up 4-0. Karel Vejmelka replaced Connor Ingram (who let in four of the nine shots he faced) in net to start the second period and Utah, once again, did everything but score with 14 shots to Ottawa's five. Utah had a few good opportunities, including a power play, in the third period and ended the night outshooting Ottawa 31-22 (Anton Forsberg was amazing in goal for the Senators) but they still came away empty handed. They were undefeated at home until last night so it was a bit disappointing to see them lose but I still had a great time. I loved being able to go to an NHL game with Kristine and Trent and I'm hoping we can go to a few more (we already have tickets to the Calgary Flames game next April with Marilyn).
No comments:
Post a Comment