Blues Open At Kansas City

by Brad Lee on Sep 23, 2008 12:12 AM CDT

Some fans look like they were dressed for a rodeo.

By Brad Lee

The Blues began their exhibition schedule Monday night with a game in Kansas City against the ~~Scouts~~ L.A. Kings. It was the first hockey game for the UFO-looking Sprint Center.

One of the leading contenders for an expansion or relocated team, K.C. didn't exactly fill the place with an announced crowd of 11,603. That's about 5,600 short of a sellout. We will not mention that the attendance for Blues home exhibition games might not be much more. Nope. Won't mention it.

Someone calling himself KCbluesfan who resembles my brother attended the game and posted these comments on another post:

Went to the first exhibition game tonight in KC - the Sprint Center was buzzing with excitement over having the first hockey game in the new facility. According to Yahoo, almost 12,000 fans - nice feeling to see so many people in KC excited about hockey (and something other than KU basketball). I was impressed with how most of the fans got into the game - though, many of those folks were obviously STL transplants like myself. Of course, there were many indicators that KC isn't exactly used to hockey - the ushers were all given large red stop signs to hold that said "Wait! Puck in Play!" and others wore Sprint Center hockey sweaters - I wasn't aware that our new arena had a team...and saw one KC scouts sweater, which I'd never seen before.

Mason didn't look too hot in the net - LA's first goal easily whizzed past him like he wasn't even watching. Oshie looked small out there (especially compared to Berglund), but played his heart out for an exhibition game. DJ King was showing off for KC, too - two fights: the first a scuffle that resulted in a roughing call and the second a major for fighting - the fans loved it. Looking forward to the season.

Oh yeah - forgot to mention that Horn Man and his entourage made the trip to KC for the game. Towel Boy was absent. We know who the true fan is...
Who said younger brothers aren't worth a damn? We had other "correspondents" at the game and we'll either let them go hog wild in the comments or post them in this here thread. Below, photographic evidence that D.J. King is a dangerous man.

D.J. King, apparently took offense to a comment about his condo.

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I drove the 3 hours from Springfield right after work along with my buddy and his wife (man, I should really be in bed instead of posting) and arrived in time to catch the last minute of the first period. I was surprised to see such a large hockey crowd in a town dominated by Chiefs football, and although it was quite a bit smaller than a sellout crowd, the fans were lively and loud…even the faggoty ones wearing purple and silver. I also saw my first ever KC Scouts jersey (in-person at least) and realized how much I’d missed watching hockey these last few miserable, excessively-long months. The sprint center is pretty darned nice, and I’d actually be pretty excited to see an NHL team get a spot in KC, for the mere fact that I could drive there to watch the Blues a few times a year and save myself an hour drive time each way.

As the younger Lee stated, Oshie played like the game was a do-or-die playoff game, hustling for every play. Berglund displayed some nice stickhandling skills at times, but still loooked a little unfinished or a touch nervous at others. Perron still got knocked around a bit, but altogether seemed to stay on his skates a little better and like last year wasn’t afraid to dig the puck out of the corners, which can also be said of Kariya, who showed some edginess that was absent last year.

Altogether it was a worthwhile experience if only to enjoy leaving a Blues game in t-shirt weather…something I might not get to experience come springtime.

by Dan on Sep 23, 2008 1:25 AM CDT reply actions

Remember that ride at Six Flags, “Tom’s Twister” or whatever it was called? They’d have you lean up against a wall and the whole ride would start spinning, then the floor would fall down but because of the force of the spin, you were pinned against the wall.