HOCKEY!

Savannah is not known for its ice hockey (surprising, I know) but once a year the Savannah Hockey Classic brings the most intense, low-level college hockey to town for the Thrasher Cup. Ironically, the NHL Thrasher's have flown the state in search of greater support in Canada.  Nevertheless, ice hockey has come to Savannah and thanks to a friend (thanks Coach Ellie) we had a couple tickets to the Saturday night games. Since we had two tickets it was going to be a night of dude time but we bought another ticket for Savannah to attend  - much to her delight.

 Riding in the Jeep! Always their preferred ride.

 

 Savannah really wanted her picture taken with the Zamboni, its in there somewhere.

The first game we watched was the Florida-Florida State game.  All of the Tallahassee family will be glad to know that Savannah and Isaiah were borderline over the top in their support of Florida State.  They did say I could cheer for Florida if I wanted to (for my cousin Sarah). But they made sure to let everyone on our side of the arena know who they were cheering for.  I was impressed they could keep up the volume and intensity for two hours. Unfortunately "Nana's team" as Savannah called FSU lost badly 6-2.

The second game of the night and the last game of the three day tournament was the much anticipated Georgia-Georgia Tech game.  Savannah and Isaiah were hands down supporters of UGA. Savannah said I could cheer for Georgia Tech since that is where all the urban planners come from.  Fair enough.

The game was a sell out and had the feel of a college football game - pep band and all. The main difference was that a large portion of the crowd clearly knew very little about this sport. A lot of the crowd including myself obviously were not native Savannahians and proudly wore their NHL gear from around the country.  

 The Ramblin Wreck from Georgia Tech even came out on the ice.

The crowd was intense for the GT-UGA game and the hockey was much better for much of the game.  Savannah had spent plenty of time studying the rules (printed in the game program) and at one point yelled out, "That was slashing! They should get a power play!".  And in fact she was exactly right. Georgia also had one girl on their team with a blond pony tail extending out of her helmet. Savannah was very excited to find this out and watched her skate all over the ice. At the end of the night Savannah decided she would start playing hockey. We had to settle on roller hockey after discussing our local climate and lack of an ice arena.  Her final decision was to play hockey until college and then be a missionary in Africa.  Isaiah said he would play hockey and then be a fire fighter.  We shall see.