The San Diego Gulls Are Back

By Judi Curry

It’s been a long time since I have gone to an ice hockey game.

Years ago, when my husband was alive we would attend the games, but I can honestly say that in the past twelve years I have not attended a game.  Until yesterday, when my friend Steve asked me if I wanted to go with him for the season’s opener.  Of course I said ‘yes’ since I have always liked sports – used to take ice skating lessons at the Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles, with the hope, short lived, of joining the Ice caspades.

When Steve asked me to go to the game, I didn’t realize that he had second row seats behind the goal; that every time a puck would hit the wall or glass in front of us it sounded like a gun being shot off.  And it sounded like a zillion of them were going off at one time.  It was fun watching the woman in front of me jump and spill her drink almost throughout the entire first quarter when those pucks hit the wall. It is interesting to note that she did not come back after the first period intermission – or if she did she sat somewhere else!

Besides not having been at a Gulls game for a long time, I had not been to the Sports Arena – Pechanga if you want specifics – for a long time also.  I was disappointed to see that nothing has changed. The seats were just as uncomfortable as they were when I used to attend concerts; the acoustics were just as bad – or maybe a little worse – than earlier years, and I can say that I did not understand a word of what the announcer said for the full two hours we were watching the game!

Steve said he thought the reason it was so bad was that there were loud speakers all over the arena, and as each speaker received their “voice” there was no cohesiveness between speakers and so it was either garbled or muffled and difficult to understand.  Put that together with the music (?) that was playing throughout the game – music at an ice hockey game? – what I continually heard was a loud, annoying thump, thump, thump through the entire game.

Since both Steve and I have had the two COVID injections, going into the arena was relatively easy.  We did need to show our certificates; we noticed that not many people were wearing masks so we presumed that most of the  audience was vaccinated.  We also noticed that there were relatively few people at the snack bar, and for a 7:00 pm game we were a little surprised.  Very few around us ate anything during the game.

And the game?

The Gulls lost badly at their opener  6-2.  There wasn’t much to cheer about, but those in the audience made themselves hoarse pulling for the Gulls.

The game, when it was being played and not being “iced” was active and fast.  (There were over 12,900 people in the audience – almost capacity.)  There were the usual number of fights; the usual number of time-outs.  What is scheduled for 3 twenty minute periods with 3 twenty minute intermissions went on for more that the two hours allocated for the game.  It wasn’t particularly cold, although I was dressed for Maine weather.

It certainly wasn’t boring – but I didn’t find it particularly thrilling either.  Maybe if the Gulls had done better it would have been more enjoyable.  I’ll let you know, because it appears that I have 36 more games to go to with Steve – all the way until April 23, 2022!