Went to a Hartford Whalers game in 1980 or 81. It was Pie McKenzie night. During the pre game ceremonies the Whalers presented Pie with a new car which was then driven on to the ice. The ice was slippery that night and the driver slid the car into the boards putting a dent in the front fender.

Posted by PJ Lennon from Buffalo on 12/19/07 at 05:00 PM ET

Pretty funny stuff PJ.

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 12/19/07 at 05:02 PM ET

I imagine I could think of something better than this, but a couple weeks ago I was at the Boston University @ Boston College game (Go BU!) and our goalie, Karson Gillespie (who had replaced Brett Bennett in net for the 3rd period) said something inappropriate to the ref.  The ref gave him a 10-minute misconduct, and instead of having someone else serve the penalty or sending Gillespie to the locker room (there were 3 minuts left), he forced Gillespie into the penalty box, and Brett Bennett had to get back in net.  Everyone was taking pictures and laughing, and the coach was furious, as we’d never seen a goalie forced into the penalty box.

Posted by NHLJeff from Pens fan in Chicago, IL on 12/19/07 at 05:09 PM ET

In 1992, when I was fourteen, I was the biggest Sergei Fedorov fan in the world.  I’d just begun to follow hockey, and I was dazzled by Fedorov’s skill and intrigued by the politics surrounding his defection as somebody who was old enough to have grown up during the cold war.

Anyway, in January, 1992, Sergei was signing at “The Goalie’s Den” in Troy, which was an hour-plus from my home in Garden City, and my dad had promised me that he’d take me to the signing, mostly because my birthday was coming up.  My dad was a 44-year-old probation officer with a back so damaged by a car accident when he was a teenager that his lumbar vertebrae were both fused and straight up-and-down, so he was constantly in pain. 

The day of Sergei’s signing, my dad came home with a look on his face that told me he was in extraordinary pain, and he said that he’d try to take a nap (he caught 90 minutes while sleeping on the living room floor the previous night) and would see how he felt later. 

When he got up, dad looked like he was in just as much pain as ever, but he said, “Okay, let’s go,” and we picked up my friend Joe and drove to Troy.  We got the last two autograph tickets and stood in line outside the store in 20-degree weather, and dad did his usual, making friends with the people in front of line and entertaining me and Joe with his 14-year-old’s sense of humour. 

We finally got into the store, and I was given a puck and plastic holder, we were ushered to the autograph table, and Sergei signed my puck as I stared gape-mouthed at my hockey hero.  My dad had to remind me to say “thank you,” and we moved on, bought a pack of hockey cards, and left the store.

The drive home was uneventful, save the fact that both my friend Joe and I got Fedorov cards in our packs of Parkhurst.  When we got out to put gas in dad’s old 77 LeSabre, I realized that, as the teenage giddiness subsided, my dad had been smiling the whole way home, and it was dad who was the happiest about having spent time making his son happy. 

My dad died about six months later of a heart attack, and I still remember that Sergei Fedorov signing as one of the most selfless gestures my dad ever committed.  In retrospect, he was losing his battle with undetected heart disease, and his back was so badly damaged that he was a few years from being wheelchair-bound, but he wanted nothing more than to put a smile on my face.  He was a special person, and I miss him, but I’ve still got that puck.  I just wish he’d signed it instead.

Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 12/19/07 at 07:07 PM ET

Wow.  That definitely beats out anything I have to offer.

Posted by NHLJeff from Pens fan in Chicago, IL on 12/19/07 at 07:11 PM ET

Just a reminder, this will be a random drawing for anyone leaving their story.  Plus, George is not eligible to win, but his story is appreciated.

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 12/19/07 at 07:14 PM ET

The first (ever) home playoff game for the Preds on April 11th, 2004 (a game we won handily by the way), the intermission entertainment didn’t go quite right.

Basically what happened was this: The Flying Tiger (“mini” blimp shaped like a saber-tooth tiger about 15-20 feet long) was doing its usual thing, flying around and dropping passes for free stuff to fans. Then all of a sudden the crew directed it down over the ice, which it never does. They flew it lower and lower until someone went out on the ice and grabbed its “tail” (mooring cable i think) and began to lead it gingerly to the zamboni entrance floating about 6 feet above the ice. Then, all of a sudden, the whole fan/motor system on the bottom just fell off. Of course, all the weight of the fans, batteries, etc was the ballast for the balloon, and now it weighed far too little. The keeper holding the cable was unprepared and the whole thing shot straight up in the air and jerked the cable out of his hand. I think he was lucky to let go honestly. It flew straight up and jammed itself in the catwalk and remained there for the rest of the evening (probably a great view from there actually).

I have video of it here:
http://paulnich.blogspot.com/2007/11/proof-it-wasnt-dream.html

Posted by Paul Nicholson from Nashville, TN on 12/19/07 at 07:26 PM ET

My other story is also about intermission at a playoff game, so again only kinda hockey related:

My wife and I were headed in for the first game of the playoffs last year. We had our tickets scanned, grabbed our programs and started to head up to our nosebleed seats. Then an usher-typer person stopped us. She asked if we would like to be part of the on-ice entertainment during intermission. We said sure! She gave us all the info, etc. A little before the first period ended we headed down into the lower levels of the arena to get instructions, etc. It was pretty cool.

We kept being asked by ‘helpers’ if we had been told what the prize was (usually it is a “prize pack” with a bunch of left-over giveaways and t-shirts). We said no, and everyone kept saying, “oh…well…it’s really good. trust me, you want to win”. Ok… The contest was sponsored by First Tennessee Bank, who had been really pushing a new contest that involved a drawing to get $1000/month for life if you started a mortgage with them or something. So i had my guesses…

The game itself was your basic goof-ball relay rally. Push a baby carriage, then ride a bike, then load a shopping cart, etc. I took the first leg and pushed the carriage around no problem, then got on the tricycle. I was way out in front, coming around the corner, when all of a sudden an NHL ice official, out checking a bad spot on the ice, backed into my path. He didn’t see me, no way i could stop. He landed right in my lap, we crashed badly (though no one was hurt). I tried to keep going, but the other “team” flew past me. We couldn’t recover.

Sure enough, the prize was $1000 cash.

The crew kept apologizing (in between making sure we weren’t hurt). They felt so bad for us, that they took about 30 minutes to gather every bit of “prize pack” material they had from the last 3 seasons and throw it in two duffel bags for us and bring it to us up on the back row. They were also kind enough to send me a DVD with the jumbo-tron feed on it.

I still say the league owes me $1,000 though. At least i have a really good personal reason to hate the refs

Video proof is again here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9112342566786944325&hl=en

Posted by Paul Nicholson from Nashville, TN on 12/19/07 at 07:38 PM ET

I was just going to say that, Paul.  Yep, I am a contributor, so I did that for the heck of it.  Employees of The Godfather are not eligible

Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 12/19/07 at 07:47 PM ET

After winning a championship, my team goes back to the locker room, and the captain picks up the garbage, kisses it and says “this is my stanley cup.”

Posted by bsalamon on 12/20/07 at 08:00 AM ET

My first live NHL game didn’t happen for a while.  Sadly, money on being on the road for six years on tour didn’t allow me much opportunity.  The first one was a “tilt” between the two bottom dwelling teams of the time, Atlanta and Buffalo.  If it tells you anything, Byron Dafoe was in goal.  Yeah, I know.

Nothing is settled in regulation, and so we are going to overtime.  A father and son are sitting behind us, and we heard something that will forever be in our lexicon.

“Son, do you know what this is?”

“What, Dad?”

“This is free hockey”

Overtime is now and forever known as free hockey.

Posted by Tapeleg on 12/20/07 at 12:25 PM ET

I was playing intramural hockey in grad school. My team was one of the better ones in the league, and we were playing one of the worst teams. I was in goal, and I was having one of those nights were everything just conspires against me—I was off my game, my usually adept defense was off their game, and I was just having bad luck. Five minutes in, we were down 3-0, including a Steve Smith-esque goal that one of my defenders put in off the back of my leg.

We started hearing a weird buzzing sound in the arena, but continued playing. Finally, someone comes to the boards and yells that it’s the fire alarm and we have to get off the ice. We assume it’s just a false alarm, so both teams get off the ice and go stand in the hallway. Then someone comes and tells us it’s a real alarm, and we have to get out of the building. Unfortunately, both teams had left their locker room keys on the benches, and they wouldn’t let us go back and get them.

So two teams of women in full hockey equipment have to trudge outside in -20 weather and sit on the stairs for about half an hour until we were cleared to go back in the building (it turns out to have been a burst pipe in the parking garage under the arena that had triggered the alarm). The looks we got from passers-by on the sidewalk were priceless!

When they finally let us back in, there was some time left in our session (intramural games were slotted into 50 minute timeslots with a running clock) so the ref said we had to play out the time left. Of course everyone was stiff from being out in the cold in wet equipment. I had scuffed one of my goalie skates and realized, to my dismay, that I couldn’t put any weight on my right leg without toppling over. So I had to play the rest of the “game” on one leg and leaning on the crossbar for balance. Needless to say, I let in some more soft goals.

Our manager protested to the league that the game shouldn’t count because we’d played so little of it, but to no avail. In the end, we made the playoffs and ended up as league champions, because the best team in the league was disqualified for using an ineligible player (it was a stupid paperwork mix-up, not genuine cheating). We played that team in a fun game after the season ended, and despite my playing probably my best game ever in goal, we lost something like 15-3.

Ah, my championship season…

Posted by The Hegemo from Bustown, Ohio on 12/20/07 at 12:44 PM ET

Words really don’t do this story justice, but what the heck.

My brother and I went to see a Johnstown Chiefs hockey game, and the pre-game entertainment consisted of a guy named ‘puckhead’ that was dressed up as a Native American.  Puckhead’s pre-game routine was blowing fire, which normally went off w/out problems except the night we were there.

After failing to blow fire his first try, his second try ended up lighting his head on fire, mainly his synthetic beard. I just turned to my brother and said, ‘only in Johnstown.’

As usual, the Chiefs lost that night, but it didn’t matter since the pre-game entertainment was worth the price of admission itself.

here’s the story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10752794/

Posted by JBI from Johnstown, PA on 12/20/07 at 01:03 PM ET

Time is up folks, we will announce a winner soon.

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 12/21/07 at 12:02 PM ET

The winner is announced in this post.

Thanks for the entertainment, everyone. I enjoyed your contributions.

Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 12/21/07 at 01:06 PM ET