Any Excuse, They’ll Make Lots Of Noise
The first on-ice hockey fight at the new Spokane Arena erupted with 14 minutes remaining in the first period of the San Jose Sharks-Vancouver Canucks game Sunday night.
Two guys you’ve never heard of.
But this was no clutch-and-grab square dance, no menacing posing followed by harmless jostling.
This was serious, sustained jack-hammer punching. And the crowd loved it.
Some people slipped into blissedout Roman Coliseum facial expressions. One guy in a World Cup T-shirt made speed-bag motions with his arms. Others simply screamed their approval.
If there was any louder cheering Sunday night, it might have happened when, between the second and third periods, a little kid whose team was behind 2-0 scored a terrific goal near the end of a four-minute pee-wee game. (The fact that the tiny lad’s rush to the net seemed to take about two of those minutes probably contributed to the crowd’s built-up, ready-to-burst celebration energy.)
It was, in fact, a night of cheering.
So, OK, there wasn’t a lot of applause for the fact that the doors for the scheduled 6 p.m. game didn’t open until 5 o’clock and hundreds of fans got to prepare for hockey-watching by standing on asphalt out in the sun and sweating through their you-name-the-team T-shirts.
And opening night or not, the concession lines were ridiculous. “What an ordeal,” sighed one guy who returned empty-handed from an attempt to buy beer.
One simple exchange might help you get the picture.
Customer: “What kind of bottled water do you have?”
Counter clerk: “I don’t know.”
Customer: “What kind of bottled juice do you have?”
Counter clerk: “I don’t know.”
And there were multiple scenes from the class struggle in Spokane, as people who had only shelled out $30 for their seats grumbled about the folks in the luxury suites getting priority food service.
But one thing became clear in a hurry. People like seeing themselves on TV.
They must. Because a fair number of folks spent more than a little time watching the scoreboard’s big screen, not wanting to miss it if their faces happened to show up larger-than-life.
Think about it. Going to an arena to essentially watch a TV screen.
No doubt about it. The ‘90s have arrived in Spokane.
, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that visits gatherings in the Inland Northwest.