Gonzo wrote:
[snip the hockey story]
This reminds me. Not long ago - about a week and a half - I went to watch my local crew, the Austin Ice Bats, get their collective asses whupped. The whole trip was sponsored by one of my local brewpubs, the Waterloo Brewing Co. For $10, we got a bus ride to and from the, with several kegs of free beer on board for the trip each way, as well as a ticket to the game. The pre-game party started at 3.30 (for a 7.30 game), with $1 pints at the brewpub.
My friends (including the GF) and I were there from the beginning, and by the time we got on the bus to head to the game we were *very* sociable. The bus ride was great - imagine a bus filled with 50 DBs, all committed to knocking back at least $10 worth of beer on the 20-minute ride to the arena. (We figured that the quicker we guzzled our $10 worth of beer, the quicker this night would be showing a profit.)
At the game, we were seated right next to the Celis beer stand, where we were treated to our choice of $2.50 pints of various Celis brews or $3.00 quarts of Bud. Since my high-school days on the glass at the Ft. Worth Texan games, I've been a strong believer that hockey demands maximum consumption, so I threw out my usual preference for quality beer at any price and went for the quantity of cheap swill.
Our seats sucked, but it didn't matter. I was one of only a handful of people who'd ever seen hockey, much less had any idea of what was going on on the ice, so instead of cheering, we spent the game having drinking contests, throwing souvenir pucks at each other, and trying to organize singalongs of vulgar rugby songs.
Midway through the second period, we had emptied the Celis Pale Bock supply and were doing serious damage to the Bud as well. One of the women in our group got the Ice Bat mascot to autograph her tit. (Made me think of Leaf.)
My buddy tried to climb up the back of the bleachers where we were sitting, fell over when he reached the top, and sort of crowd-surfed all the way to the glass, where he was cheered mightily and dumped rather unceremoniously onto the walkway by less-friendly drunks who'd paid good money to sit in front of us where we could shower them with beer and drunken buffoons like my friend.
As we were leaving, I stumbled across an old GF who was looking way better than I remembered. Rendered incomprehensibly stupid by the cheap beer, I start flirting heavily. Carey (current GF) watches and laughs for a second then clobbers me. Kim (old GF) laughs and says she wonders how I did so well for myself in getting Carey, and will I ever stop being such a drunken idjit. I don't know.
On the bus back to the bar, we have two kegs to kill. We succeed. My buddy the crowd surfer yaks all over himself at the back of the bus. I'm thankful I'm up front, near the keg, where the smell can't reach me.
After returning to the brewpub, Carey and I head over to the Gingerman for a couple of nightcaps. Things get a little fuzzy, but I know that at one point the bartender had to come over and tell me to get my head out from inside Carey's shirt.
I love hockey.
Dave
In goal...