Of Hat Tricks and Cannons

On Saturday we went to our first ever Blue Jackets game and what night it was! For those who don't follow hockey, and I barely do, the Jackets have been decimated by injuries and have to play a lot of rookies and players recently called up from their top minor league team in Syracuse. So their recent string of victories has been something of a pleasant surprise.

Sam and Abby both seemed to have a good time at least until the third period when Sammy melted down a bit. Until then both Sam and Abby were having a great time, watching the game and the attendant entertainment that came with it, including the future Jackets hockey game at the first intermission pitting one team of 7 to 9 year-olds, and the "blimp" that flew overhead the crowd dropping various prizes on the fans in attendance.

Unfortunately, in the third period things started to go south, especially for Sammy. Prior to the third each team had one goal, both scored in the first. Whenever the Jackets score, the folks at Nationwide set off a "cannon" while blaring AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock". In the first period when the Jackets scored, Sammy loved it. By the third period though the poor guy was pretty tired, which is when the Jackets did the rest of their scoring (3 goals). This time when the cannons went off Sammy wasn't so thrilled with them, and fortunately for the Jackets, not so fortunate for Sam, the Jackets scored 3 goals in the final period to seal the victory. By the last goal he had pretty much lost it.

But in terms of a first game it was certainly memorable. We saw Nikita Filiatov score his first career hat-trick (3 goals) which prompted a five minute celebration which included fans throwing hats onto the ice. And since the Jackets scored 3 goals we could have gotten free chili from Wendy's (I somewhat lament passing on that), and for reasons I forget we could have gotten a free donut from Tim Horton's with the purchase of a coffee. So it was a potentially productive night.

Miscellaneous

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, so I'll try to summarize the last few weeks.

Christmas was pretty good for Sam and Abby who got a lot of cool toys. The best is probably the toy dinosaur Sammy got from Uncle Matt that walks, roars, and looks like the dinosaur that ate Newman in Jurassic Park. It's been known to attack quite a few things in our house, and sometimes I'll even let Sammy play with it.

Abby got a couple science kits and loves to do experiments. I don't mind this so much except that one of the kits has various experiments testing the acidity or basicity of various things around the house (pop, soap, juice, and whatnot) but doesn't explain what an acid or base is, and I'm a bit stumped on how to explain that to a first grader. Suggestions are welcome.

Cindy was pretty ill for most of the Holidays so for her it wasn't such a good time, and I was a bit frazzled as a result, but managed.

Abby and Sammy had their first ice skating lesson at the OSU Ice Rink on Sunday. We were a bit worried about how Sam would react to it, but he seemed to love it despite falling several times. Now he wants his own pair of ice skates. Abby seemed to pick up where she left off last winter, which was also something of a minor surprise since we didn't get to skate a lot in the Fall.

In terms of the Fiesta Bowl, there are a myriad of whatif moments in that game, but in the end not too much to complain about. We had someone in place to stop the UT receiver and he simply didn't. I'm disappointed for the players, especially the seniors who've endured a lot of nonsense from ESPN talking heads and the like, but I'm very encouraged by the effort and the character shown.

Edit: I was wrong above. There is something to complain about. I'm not sure Fox could have botched the coverage any more than they did. From missing plays, to inexplicably long shots of Gatordade coolers, to 5,949 shots of the Texas band, to 1,643 shots of the McCoy family (and none of the Animal sr), it was a horridly amateurish production.