Ice Hockey

Today I went to a Ice Hockey game. It was the first time I have seen an Ice hockey game completely. It is very close to field hockey which is our national game. However there are some differences. 

At a time there will be 5 members from each side on the ice. But the difference is people swap when the game moves from offence to defence and also the other way round. Meaning  when the ball moves from your goal towards the opponent's goal, your team is on the offensive. So the Offensive specialists get onto the field and the defense specialists sit down. And when the ball comes towards your goal, the defense specialists get onto the field. I thought it was a cool thing. 

This is really good.

One more thing which is different in Ice hockey is it allows people to fight on the field and the umpires don't even stop them. They can fight!! This probably is the only game I know where people are allowed to fight except boxing and wrestling of course. 

I heard the loudest cheer from the crowd when people were fighting than when the home team scored the goal. Also it was a good experience because the viewers were engaged all the time. There was the thrashers mascot who was doing the rounds across the arena keeping the audience entertained. They were showing different people on the screen so people were excited. Then there was Kiss on Camera segment where they will show a boy and a girl on the screen and if you are on the screen, you have to kiss. At the end they showed two guys sitting beside each other and they kissed!!!!

There were a lot of prizes given away to the audience when they answered some questions right. Overall it was a good experience. I think they should give this kind of experience to the audience when we go to watch cricket too. I remember I watched 3 cricket matches in chennai and during the break I was bored to death. They did not even announce anything. It was so dull. I think if we make the matches entertaining, people will go and watch the matches.