Blind luck

A new pro hockey season is here, and excitement is in the air around the local team.  They made some major moves in the off-season and should be better.   They lost 3-2 tonight, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself this evening anyway.

The picture at the top of the post shows where my seat was.  I joked how I was on the glass, just not the one anyone would think of.  Incredibly, though, someone wanted my seat and was willing to trade tickets.  When I found out where his was, I quickly agreed to a swap.  Where did I move to?

I went from eight rows in the upper bowl to six rows from the ice.  The trader had two friends sitting directly behind me and wanted to be near them.  That's also the only explanation why anyone would trade a ticket that cost more than double for mine.

I've sat in the lower bowl for a hockey game on three occasions.  One was lucking out and finding a scalper looking to dump a ticket close to the game and when demand was low.  Another time the franchise did an upgrade for one game of my partial season ticket package.  They're nice spots to watch the game, although they do have their drawbacks--and no, I'm not referring to the higher prices.  From this corner I couldn't see the flow of play develop as well, especially if it on the near side at the other end.  Still, the trade off is getting a much better sense of the game's speed and power.  Plus, with this being a sold out opening night, the crowd was really into it, which made for a fun environment down there.

As if being close wasn't enough, during a break the promotions team threw pizza boxes into the seating and one happened to land in my lap.  So I won a free large pizza too.  (If you've ever been curious what is inside the boxes, a coupon the size of a business card is taped inside.)

Sure, I would have been happy to stay in my original seat and leave with nothing more than the team winning, but this sort of thing doesn't happen often.  For one evening I gladly accepted the trade-off.