Ahh, The Hockey...

Really, does anyone care about Hockey anymore? I used to watch almost every game of the playoffs in college. Now? Not so much. I think i saw about ten minutes of one playoff game this year. Pathetic...

As for the Coyotes... About all i can say is that i went to more Coyotes games (2) than Cardinals games (1) this season. And i had 4th row tickets to another game, though i was out of town and they went unused.

Here's what i do know about them: They had their worst record since moving to Phoenix. They haven't had a winning season since '01-'02. They haven't been to the playoffs since that same year. They, like hockey in general this year, were largely irrelevant to the populace of Phoenix...

So, in the spirit of pretty much not caring about 'hockey', i'll tell you my favorite story of the year that can loosely be related to it.

My brother and i somehow stumbled into free tickets to the Budweiser Suite at Jobing.com Arena (Jesus, will somebody PLEASE stop selling stadium naming rights to crap companies that no one has heard of or care about...). Anyway, as you can imagine, we had free Budweiser all night long. Somehow, the game got tied in the last minute of regulation, and as such, everyone in our suite got fresh beers before they cut us off. Then, 38 seconds into overtime, the Coyotes scored the game-winner (One of their few victories...).

Now, with an entire suite of people with freshly topped off beers, we all hung around while the stadium emptied out. After the scrubs in the regular seats left, they brought out some goals, and let some kids on the ice for some spirited games of broom ball. Now because there was a bunch of us left, and because we had been drinking for free all night, we did what came naturally: We heckled them unmercifully. I distinctly remember shouts of 'Hey goalie, you suck!' to a poor 10-year old.

Ahh, the Hockey...