I remember watching my first game and seeing him light up the goalie like a freaking Christmas tree. There are rockets, then there is a MacInnis shot. He quickly became my favorite player and to this day I always wear number 2 in hockey if I can. In fact, I try and model my game after him.

Not only was he one hell of a player, but also a stand up guy. I met him and he spent about ten minutes talking to my and my ex. Not only that, he went to his office and got a picture of himself that he signed for me when I didn’t have anything.

MacInnis isn’t the only reason I love the team, but he is a big part.

Sorry for those that read it already.

 My first hockey game was 1968.

My dad took me (the first of many) during that year and subsequent years. I was 5 years old.
I remember we were walking down the concourse in the old barn and heard my dad say ‘evening Mr Kelly’. He stopped and asked if we were ready for a great game. I guess seeing a man with a little bit of a girl gave him pause. My dad told him this was my first game. He smiled at me and said he hoped it would be the first of many.
This began my many years of fanaticism (is that a word?).

My dad’s company had season tickets and hockey wasn’t the most popular sport at the time so he got a lot of tickets.
After he quit that job/divorce/moving out of state occured I didn’t get a chance to go to many games. After I got out of college and got a job I bought season tickets. This continued until Keanan showed up and buying a house interferred.

My wedding was planned around a Blues game.
We picked a date Nov 20, 1993 that had a home game. I got married late morning, had an afternoon reception and then we (the wedding party) took a limo to the game in our wedding garb. We made national news (CNN, ESPN…)
Did you notice the above date. 16yrs ago today.

Here’s the snippet left in the Post Dispatch archive. Of course I have the longer article!

Talk about your diehard fans.
Eight-and-a-half hours after becoming husband and wife, newlyweds Chris and Angela Carroll of Affton attended the Blues’ National Hockey League game against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night at The Arena. They sat in Angela’s season seats, Nos. 9 and 10 in Row C of Section 306 in the north loge. Best man XXXXX, maid of honor XXXXXXX, usher XXXXXXX and friend XXXXXXX were with them.

You notice Dave Leuking said these are MY season tickets!!!!!

As far as who my favorite player is. There were many over the years. I tend to like the grinders, the guys that have to work the hardest because the talent isn’t as natural. Looking back there are a few offensive defense men in my list.
The Barcley Plager, Paul Cavallini, Dave Lowry, Bobby Bassen, Rick Meagher, Al Mac Innis, Cliff Ronning and Bryce Salvador. I’ll stop there

I wanted to be like the Plagers and be the first kid on my block to beat the shit out of the other team.

It seems to me that the connection to a hockey team is much more personal. The reason I say that is I’m a transplant from Philadelphia, and while I still root for the Phillies and Eagles, the Blues are my hockey team now. I ditched high school to attend Stanley Cup parades, Bernie Parent was my favorite player (Bobby Clarke a close second) and Rick MacLeish had a lethal wrist shot.

But all of my boyhood heroes are now banners hanging from the rafters of a stadium that they never played in. The players who made impacts on me during my young adulthood wore the bluenote. Federko, Liut, Sutter, Joseph, Bassen, Meaghar, Babych, Petterson (his girlfriend was a student at WU, and man was she HOT!)

Then there was Hull, the 2nd best pure scorer I’d ever seen, and Oates, and MacInnis, and Pronger, the Keenan era, where my son’s first NHL game was a 7-1 pasting by the then-horrible Ottawa Senators on his 12th birthday. We sat in the second row, right behind the Ottawa bench, and we both agreed that there was way too much celebrating going on in front of us. We also agreed that Keenan was going to be gone soon.

My wife’s second NHL game, and first with me, was a 2-2 tie with Vancouver. We managed to get playoff tickets for a game the following year and watched Zubov hand the puck to Turgeon in overtime and he wristed a game-winner past our minor league goaltending consultant. :) She screamed so hard that she popped a vocal cord and couldn’t speak for a week. (which was blissful in its own way :)

I even went to about ten games during the “AHL Blues” year.

So here I am, third-year season ticket holder (I bought BEFORE they signed Kariya) because I wanted to get in on the ground floor of a team on the rise. And when my former team came to town last year, I rreminisced about the old days with some Flyer fans who sat around us, and shouted “Let’s Go Blues!” with my heart and soul all night. It wasn’t until after I got home that I thought about how the irony in my joy at watching the Blues kick the shit (4-0) out of my boyhood team.

Let’s go Blues!

My first Blues game was on that date. Growing up in Springfield, MO, there was not much love for St. Louis hockey, or any hockey for that matter. I would catch the occasional Stanley Cup game.

When I moved to Rolla to attend UMR, I would hang out with a group in my dorm that tried to catch every game on TV. I started developing a casual interesting in the game…until the group decided to take me to a game at the then Kiel Center. It was Oct. 30. It was against the Red Wings. We sat against the very back wall, on the end the Blues attack once (I’m pretty certain that the location of the Taco Bell/Dairy Queen/McDonald’s lights is exactly where I witnessed this game). The game went to a 4-4 OT. 3 minutes in, Pavol Demitra intercepted a cross ice pass and took it in by himself to score the game winner.

The speed of the game…the sound of the stick and puck against the ice…the sounds of bodies against the boards…the atmosphere in the streets. Everyone honking their horns 3 times…people high-fiving each other all the way to Union Station. A fan was born that night. One that now catches every home game possible in a seat from Section 307. One that watches every game possible when not able to attend the game. A fan that you will never be allowed to talk trash on our boys in Blue around, no matter how hard the times are.

On Oct. 18, 2008, my then fiance witnessed her first Blues game in person. This one was against the Blackhawks. A 3-3 tie carried the teams into the shootout. Yes, that shootout…the one where TJ Oshie scored his first shootout goal. Another fan was born.

Of all the games that I’ve been to over the past decade, one will stand out as my all-time favorite. April 10, 2009. From the atmosphere that hadn’t been seen at Scottrade in a long long time, to the birthday message my wife and friends surprised me with (Yes, I have a picture of my name next to the score that brought the Blues back to the playoffs, and to top it off, they other screen read “Thank you Blues fans”, as if they were talking to me personally), to the simple fact that we were back in the playoffs. As much as I had to drink that night, I still remember as clear as yesterday watching that clock tick down, looking around at my wife and friends with the realization of what was about to happen. I still remember singing “THE SONG” until I couldn’t talk anymore. I still remember the shot of Jameson and the birthday pitcher of beer I took down as soon as I got to Maggie O’s. I will always remember my wife reminding me the next morning of how she had to drag me to a cab and then up to the hotel room (we’re responsible like that).

The Old Barn, The old Broadcasts, they are fading memories to me because i was so young, Janney, Chase, Twist, Shanny, MacInnis, Pronger, Oshie, Perron, McDonald, CuJo, the jersey, the atmosphere before they banned the hockey hooligans, and sometimes Brett Hull, my first game was way back in 1990, I was 4, the entire atmosphere of the Barn was absolutely electric. that and growing up in St Louis I will always support my hometown teams, just growing up playing the sport really makes you love it

because the US friend who introduced me to hockey supports the Ducks. She’d come over to the UK for Collectormania 4 (lots of sci-fi and tv stars doing signings etc) in Milton Keynes and got rather excited at the sight of the MK rink. That was when she persuaded me that I would like hockey…and I should stay up and watch a game. So, when days off work permitted I stayed up to watch a game.

LOL It look place on Wednesday 29 October 2003. Blues v Red Wings. Blues won 6-5. My impressions about the game were that it all seemed SO fast. Certainly nothing like I was used to. What I remember about the game is being totally enthralled. I didn’t know the rules…didn’t know the players…I basically knew next to nothing but I was captivated. I subsequently watched a couple more games…but whilst I loved them…I found myself wondering about what was going on with the Blues.

It wasn’t until January that I could watch my next Blues game – a 3-1 loss to the Blue Jackets. That’s when I started looking into the Blues…checking out the players…the history…and then admitted to my friend that yes, I love hockey…and that I was a Blue. I won’t say what her reaction was. She understands though – and thankfully so does her husband who is quite happy for me to stay with them in January and overdose on hockey even though he doesn’t watch it.

I’m lucky. I found the Blues.

I didn’t even watch hockey until college. My roomie was a huge hockey nut and it was right when the Blues got Gretzky. He was dumb-founded that I didn’t watch hockey and didn’t really know who Gretzky was. I watched his first game and watched him score on a penalty shot. That sealed the deal. As soon as I graduated I got season tickets and have had them ever since.
Over 400 games so far and counting!!!

because my parents used to spend 10 games a year in the upper level of the St. Louis Arena back in the 1970’s. Mom and Dad never would allow us kids to root for another hockey team. Also in the early 1990’s, the parents would every once in awhile be able to sneak a couple tickets in the 2nd row of The Old Barn, right behind the goal judge in the Blues Attacking Once end. That was mighty fine. I now have an aunt that has season tickets at center ice in the 300 level.

Mom was always the bigger fan of hockey than Dad, but Dad loves the Blues too. Unfortunately Mom left us last Friday, which is why I have been away from the site more than I wish to be (and I’m sure you all would understand that). But my passion for the Note carries on, and will do so forever, and I have my parents to thank for that.

…I was a small, slow, 13-year-old sports geek. The baseball Cardinals were World Champs; the football Cardinals were owned by Bill Bidwill (and thus guaranteed to break your heart); and here came this new sport — hockey!

ONE look and I was “hooked”! It was obvious to me that the most important player the Blues had was “Mr. Goalie”, Glenn Hall. While everybody else in my neighborhood bought hockey sticks, I bought a goalie’s stick! To everyone’s surprise, I was a pretty good street-hockey goalie! Trips to the “newlookArena” were a frequent treat, and listening to Dan Kelly during games I couldn’t attend was a must! Jacques Plante, Red Berenson, the Plagers, Noel Picard… I had a lot of favorites!

Once I started my career as a sports broadcaster in Arkansas, I wasn’t able to follow the Blues in those pre-Internet days as closely as I would have liked. Today, I can watch the Blues thanks to GameCenter Live (which is why I’m not on the game threads… my computer and I are busy!)

I’ve basically admitted I’m sort of a “bandwagon fan”, because after there was an extended period of time when I didn’t watch the Blues, didn’t know any of their players. I guess I’ll tell why I had almost a 5-7 year period were I probably didn’t watch one Blues game.

I’ve lived in a bit of an odd sporting house, were my dad was a pure St. Louis sports fan, and my mom who was from Indiana loved teams from Chicago. I ended up siding with her and became a Cubs, Bulls, and Bears fan, which, let me tell you, got me made fun of in school a shit load., But the one team she did like in St. Louis was the Blues, and so did my dad, so that was always clear cut.

Anyway, in my childhood, I spent a good deal of time in my basement with my dad watching the Blues. My favorite players were Al and Twist. I was a big Blues fans, and it was always one of my favorite conversation points the next day at school.

However, thinks kinda turned south once the 2000’s happend. I was angry after the Blues bowed otu to the Sharks after the Presidents trophey year, and my interested started to wane. Then my father passed away, and the lockout happend, and, honestly, hockey droped so far on my priority list it didn’t come up to my mind at all.

And then last year happend. After the ordeal in our family with my 3 year old cousin getting a kidney cancer (she’s currently 100% cancer free, I’m happy to retort, thank god), they started getting all kinds of free stuff from the cancer wards, including some tickets to some Blues games. The first game I went to the Blues got shutout, so it was hard to really get back into the game that night, but the 2nd one was the Mason shutout over the Kings down the stretch, in which we had great seats for. After that game, I basically went “Oh yeah, that’s why I f’n love hockey!”, in spite of the only players I knew before the game were Tkachuk and Jackman. So that day, I went home, and started doing some research on the Blues and their players, which eventually led me to this site, which just pushed by Blues fandom forward even more. Also, my insane “must know everything about sports” mindset led me to knowing all sorts of info on almost all Blues prospects, which I now keep up with on Hockey Database. I don’t think I’ll be leaving the Blues fan line for a long long time.

Sing 10 “When the Saint’s Come Marching In” and you’ll be good to go.

I became a fan for a stupid reason, and I’m staying a fan for an awesome reason.

And I love hockey. And the Blues play in St. Louis. So watching hockey involves watching the Blues. So it just kinda… happened.

The end.

the barn.

not sure you could go to the barn and not come out a blues fan.

and kids think scottrade is someplace to watch hockey. it is to watching hockey what nearbeer is to beer

grew up in a hockey crazy family so i have watched and played hockey my whole life and I now play center varsity at my highschool in honor of my favorite player TJ Oshie

I wrote this originally to explain my hockey fandom to a friend. It fits in this thread. Thanks for giving me a reason to get off the couch and join in.

You know I’m a hockey fan. More importantly, I am a St. Louis Blues fan. They are the team I grew up watching, and even when I lived in LA, I remained a Blues fan. Its a lonely calling, since the Blues have been in the league for 41 years without winning a Stanley Cup, but I remain faithful. This e-mail is about 2 things. A photo of the old arena in St. Louis and what it means to me, and how I became a Blues fan.
 
First, the photo. A clip of it is attached, as is a link to the photographer. http://arteagaphotos.com/stlouisarenaexteriorlarge.htm The photo was commissioned as a publicity shot by the owner of the team and the arena in December of 1970. I was 11, and had just become a fan after listening to the team lose the Cup final that spring. I played street hockey constantly, shooting endless numbers of tennis balls and pucks at an imaginary goal in my garage with my friend Tim, one of us as the shooter and the other as goalie. My dad had a share in season tickets and in a couple more years he would start taking me to games. One of my most vivid memories is of walking up to the arena on a bitterly cold night with my dad, and seeing the animated neon sign you can see in the photo. You can’t tell it from the photo (although you can see an enlargement on the website), but the hockey player on the left shot an animated neon puck across the sign til it wound up in the goal on the right. The sign symbolized the anticipation, the excitement of the game, and I never felt as close to my dad as when we were going to the game.
 
A number of years ago, some of the local poster stores started selling the photo as a poster. I received the photo poster as a gift at Christmas. It is the only gift I have ever received that made me cry when I opened it. Its hard to explain the emotion and the memories tied up in such a simple photograph. The photo now sits over my desk.
 
The old arena is gone now, imploded in 1999 for a hotel and apartment complex. I can’t see the corporate logo of the company that imploded the barn without feeling a flash of anger. I do still have a piece of the building, in the form of two seats that were sold to the public during the demolition. But the neon sign disappeared long before that. The team changed ownership, and the new corporate owners replaced the animated neon sign with their logo. But to me, St. Louis Blues hockey will always mean walking up to the arena on that cold night, and seeing that sign.

Continue posting and joining in