As a quick bit of direct action against the increasing/infinite alienation perpetrated upon NHL fans by the current-and-getting-currenter lockout, I rounded up a sizeable posse to go to the first-ever San Francisco Bulls game—an experience very nicely previewed and evoked by Grantland's Katie Baker.
There were many, many firsts, and before I ran out of steam, I made it my mission to document them. My unedited notes appear below. If you want an actually comprehensive recap, I suggest you hit up Fear the Fin.
It started with some tasty pyro!
Period 1
3.05: 1st PP
3.06: 1st fan yells "shoot it"
7.10 1st PK
10.44, 1st GA
16.01, 1st GF
Somewhere in there: first fight.
Period 2
4.25...penalty shot
Second Intermission
out of beer—the Cow Palace has been sold out of beer in the second intermission of the first game
Rawhide stood kind of too close to me for kind of a long, long time
Period 3
dude behind me bellows, apropos of nothing, "SUNDAY PUNCH!"
The team's mostly been beat up a lot since that first close loss. The night I saw showed a disciplined team without a great deal of talent: an expansion team, for sure. The Cow Palace is a problematic building, too: it's absolutely huge, and that means that a crowd of 8,000 can seem kind of sparse. A number of the other teams in the ECHL have buildings with capacities of perhaps 5,000, and in there, a lively or livelyish crowd of 3,000 might make a real difference in a game. But, what the hell: it was a great night out, I bought a decent-looking hat, and I look forward to getting out to more games this year.
--Collision, sometimes having a little trouble filling the time
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