Fight Night

But first, yet another reason not to fly Continental this summer.

Last night J and I attended a second Penguins/Leafs game, a game in which Pittsburgh pounded Toronto into submission figuratively and literally to a final score of 8-2. It is the highest scoring game I have seen in my five years of regular attendance in Mellon Arena.

I knew it was going to be an interesting night when I saw a security guard escorting a drunk Leaf fan out of the arena before the game began. The fan was quite polite about the situation.

More interesting than the score was the number of fights that broke out on and off the ice. Toronto does not like to lose, and as the points piled up, so did the pushing, shoving, illegal hits, outright punches and penalties.

Off ice, in the stands, the fighting was so distracting that half of the arena missed the Leafs second goal (myself included) because we were too busy watching arena security breaking up a fight and escorting brawling fans out the building.

On the way back to our car I stopped to give a group of very happy Leafs fans some directions. They had driven the whole way from Toronto for the game. I felt bad about the fact they drove all that way to watch such a spectacular loss and said “Oh, I'm so sorry”.

“No, don't be sorry”, the man replied. “Great city, great fans, great game. We had a blast”. Then one of his friends offered me twenty dollars for giving the group directions.