Albany River Rats Hockey!

Always a new experiene to check out another AHL team. Seeing how we have to pay for hockey tickets now days we are a bit more picky about where we are going. The River Rats are no exception. The night started good with free parking - maybe it's too cold for people to collect your money? Mark then found a scalper and being it was almost game time he just wanted to unload them and was easily talked down to $10 a ticket. All the tickets are the same price there and we had good seats at mid-rink.
You know it's going to be a good game when the gloves and helmets come flying off right after tip off. Fight night! It was hilarious. 5 minute penalties for both teams 3 seconds into the game. Old grudge being settled was our guess. They let them go at it at least two minutes. Entertaining. Later on in the game two other guys started to go at it and one guy ripped the other's jersey off - you would have thought he sucker punched his mama or something. He got all upset and stopped fighting. I guess you have to have your shirt attached to your protective gear to play and his got ripped. He was whinning to the refs.
Albany seemed a bit boondocky or behind the times with the entertainmet. They had cheerleaders who drew laughs - not the best of the bunch. The highlight for the night was a "Tan Girl Contest" - you know to see who is the tanniest and prettiest girl. Not joking! They had them strut up and down the stairs with a spotlight on them. Three girls per period and they would stop hockey to do it. I think it was during commerical breaks, but it was odd. I was dying laughing as their pants were falling down and underwear was showing. Short skirts and tight shorts were all the rage too. Dare I mention it was 7 degree's out and they had on tank tops? They were not pretty, but the group behind us had a friend in the contest and they were encouraging her to do something other than strut - you know like slide down the bannister. They really said that! This is the same girl who asked how many quarters were there and were they all 18 minutes. First of all they are periods and second of all they are 20 minutes each. Clearly they were there for the Tan Girl contest - not a bright bunch at all. Who the hell tans anymore? duh. This is something we would have never seen in Grand Rapids. Did I mention it was "boys night out" for the theme. Maybe that helps makes sense of all this?
The River Rats won - that means that Rochester lost - Mark's favorite team. It was good hockey and that is all that mattered.