Fighting Drunks of Notre Dame and the weekend recap

As most of you know, Nash and I headed out to South Bend on Saturday evening to check out our alma mater in a hockey game against Notre Dame. We left Chicago a little after 3:00 after I finished my afternoon shift over at J. Crew. I slept for about half the ride in the car because Friday was a long night. The nurse's birthday was last week, so a bunch of us went out to celebrate. We started off at a Spanish lounge called Sangria over on Weed Street for some tapas and, obviously, sangria. I didn't know some of the nurse's friends, but I had Nash and Iowa to entertain me during dinner. Then we rolled over to some crappy late night bar in Wicker Park. Estella's? Let's just say that I'm never going to Wicker Park again. It was a $10 cab ride from Lincoln Park, the people out there were trashy and sketchy and the bar was so bad that Nash and the nurse seemed to be ready to duke it out. He started pounding Jack on the rocks, so Iowa and I bolted before things got ugly.

Then there was the game. Ya'll should've come with us, that's all I know. We decided to be real men and feel our way to the Joyce Center, not looking up or asking for directions. Somehow we still managed to get there about 45 minutes before game time and found a fairly empty parking lot that seemed to be for visitors. Getting our tickets was like going to a HS basketball game. The will call window was basically one line with one lady that looked like a parent, complete with a button of a player's picture on her jersey, sitting on a folding chair behind a card table.

The arena itself was pretty weak. It was actually more of a large multi-purpose gym with a rink and some bleachers at one end behind a curtain. I was kinda shocked to find that a school like Notre Dame didn't have a better set-up for hockey. It wasn't awful, but I'd much rather have been at the Goggin. There were only two bathrooms and one concession stand for about 2,800 people. The food left a little to be desired as the nachos were stale and the cheese was cold. They also only had Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite...not much of a selection.

The place was allegedly sold out, although there were a few empty seats that I could see. The Irish aren't very good, but it was Scout's Night and it didn't hurt having our Miami Redhawks ranked #3 in the nation coming in. The student body was on a 3-day weekend because of MLK Day on Monday and apparently nobody sticks around. I can't see many of them going to hockey games anyways with the fairly lame family atmosphere and poor record (7-11-3.) but I digress. A weak little band took up the best seats in the house behind the penalty box and there was nowhere to stand against the glass like at the Goggin. We were in the section directly behind the goal Miami would be defending in the first and third periods.

There was a pretty decent contingent of Miami fans right behind the Miami bench and I even heard the guy that always yells, "Let's go Skins!" right before the opening face-off. There were random Miamians scattered elsewhere including a family right behind us with a son that graduated the same year as me. They seemed amused by Nash and I most of the night. In fact, I think most of our section was pretty amused most of the night, save for one idiot, who I'll get to in a bit. I was pretty quiet for a period while I got my bearings and felt out the mood of our section, but then it was time to start jawing at the officials and just running my mouth in general.
Miami scored first, but the goal was disallowed because of a skate in the crease. The first period ended scoreless, but Miami finally broke through about halfway through the second period on a breakaway goal by Matt Christie, who went 5-hole on the Irish goalie. Notre Dame tied it quickly on their second 5-on-3 power play of the night, but Miami freshman defender Raymond Eichenlaub untied it even more quickly, making it 2-1 at the end of two.

The third period got interesting as Miami kept taking stupid penalties that gave the Irish a toal of 11 power-plays on the night and kept our freshman netminder Jeff Zatkoff on his toes. He typically came up big, but about halfway through the third the Irish tied it up again on a power play goal after a scramble in front of the Miami net. Once again Miami answered quickly, retaking the lead at 3-2 when Eichenlaub scored just his third goal of the season, but second on the night. Not long after that Notre Dame was hit with their second charging the goalie penalty, which instigated a little fight right in front of us. Five different players, but just two Redhawks, were sent to the sin bin, but Miami remained scoreless on the man-advantage for the weekend. They would go 0-17 when it was all said and done.

This fight was even more amusing because of the dumb hick sitting five rows in front of us who was wearing a baggy denim shirt. Um, 1992 called, they want their shirt back. He kept screaming, "You suck Miami" and other ridiculous things until I started a little "scoreboard" banter. At that point it must have hit him that Notre Dame was the one who actually sucked this season and that we were #3 in the country, so he piped down. But another idiot started talking trash with me right after that, saying that I should shut my mouth because there are 2,000 of them and one of me. He said this with his 6-year old daughter sitting on his lap, which I find quite cowardly of him. It's not like I was going to get into with him in front of his kid, and I'm sure he knew that, so I just laughed and the rest of our section remained good spirited.

You see, I'm not a mean fan at all. All of my jokes and comments are meant amuse people, even if I'm sitting with opposing fans. I'm smiling and laughing the whole time and I never cuss in these situations. Most people get a kick out of me singing three blind mice when the referees come out and yelling that "the German judge gives a 9.3 because there was too much splash on the entry" after an opposing player takes an obvious dive that the referee called a penalty on. But, there is always one jerk who takes his life too seriously and gets offended at me ripping on his team. Oh well.

Miami held on for a 3-2 win and has stayed put at #3 in the nation despite losing to Ohio State on Tuesday and tieing with the Irish on Friday night. Nash I then made the treck back to Chicago where I got a call from my cousin Bryan saying he and his fiance were in town from Dayton and going out. Iowa stopped by and I took them all to Tai's for the first time. We had a pretty good time and stayed sober, getting out of there before it got too late. The rest of my weekend was pretty quiet, mostly laying around the house and catching the 4-hour season premiere of the best show on television, 24. Unfortunately, my future wife Elisha Cuthbert has yet to make her entrance, but I feel it coming soon.

We also did some rearranging in the house yesterday as I took apart the old desk that I had gotten from Mrs. Miami, the college girlfriend, three years ago when it didn't fit in her new apartment. We chucked that along with our huge stacks of magazines that had been piling up over the past two years. Then we moved Nash's desk to where mine used to be, this way the internet cable isn't taped across the middle of the room with duct tape. We still have a little cleaning up to do, but I think the new set-up will be much more spacious, even more so when I get rid of my computer completely which is currently sitting on an end table outside my bedroom door.

As for this week, I have my first indoor soccer game on Wednesday night and I will be doing more national sports coverage this week including my predictions for this weekend's football games. I really have to start posting these predictions as I had all four wild-card games and three of four divisional games right, missing only on the Steelers-Colts game so far.