(no subject)

lyda_pearl unexpectedly had a chance to get Penguins tickets for tonight, which she jumped on and then called to find out if I wanted to go to the game.

First came the adventure of getting to the Southside to meet her after work. She had a Pens shirt in the laundry that she wanted to wear, so I threw it in with my stuff and got a load done, then donned my gear and headed out. To wait at the bus stop for about 15 minutes because I have bus schedule anxieties which always result in me getting to the bus stop absurdly early. I had to switch buses in Oakland and that's where I hit a snag. As a result of the 20 minutes I spent sitting at the bus stop, by the time the bus arrived, I forgot I was holding LP's shirt on my lap. Jumped up, got on the bus, realized I'd lost the shirt, got off two blocks later, went back to get the shirt, checked bus schedules and realized the next bus wasn't coming for an hour. So I had to walk across Oakland, down Bates and across the Hot Metal Bridge to the Southside. I wasn't wearing heels or anything silly like that, but I also hadn't been planning a lot of walking and I was not wearing good shoes.

When I met up with LP she gave me the story of how she got the tickets. One of her co-workers had bought a batch of five and was selling them to his friends. When LP told me that both tickets together had only cost $80 I began wondering if the tickets were for real. But then we got to the arena, met up with her friend, got the tickets, and I began to understand. He got them cheap because he's a student and scored them off the Student Rush promotion the Penguins do. And apparently the Student Rush tickets are for standing room only 'seating.' I have to say, aside from not being able to see anything that happened in the near corner or around the goal that we defended twice, because of the people in front, the view was not bad.

And it was an amazing game. The Pens have been pretty lackadaisical throughout these playoffs so far, looking far from their best. But tonight's game, they were looking a lot more like the Penguins. Stupid penalties, sadly, goes along with that, but they killed off the early penalties and then just mostly dominated the game. The score was close most of the way through, and by the time there was only a little more than six minutes left and the score was still 1-0, I was starting to feel a little ill. That's when the Pens usually do something monumentally stupid and frustrating, but instead they buckled down, got a power play and a power play goal, held on, got the empty netter to make it a final score of 3-0. I absolutely love it when Fleury gets the shut out and I think this might be the first one I've seen in person. The crowds were better than they've been, with lots of chants and cheering. And everyone cheered for Fleury at the end. It was a sweet, sweet victory.