The Shadow Lady got me tickets to a hockey game for Christmas... and today was the day!  T-Birds against the Portland Winter Hawks... NICE!

Not only were the rivals in town -- it was "throwback" night, so the players had on Jerseys from the past.  The T-Birds were wearing the old Seattle Totems uniform, while the boys from the Rose City wore the Portland Buckaroos' moniker.

Of course, I had to take the cursory pictures of the Space Needle and the Key Arena on the way in... :)

Traffic was TERRIBLE - a combination of a couple of accidents, typical Saturday Night traffic in a liberalized city where they haven't kept up the roads with the population growth, and a seemingly popular show at the playhouse right next to the arena that also drew a crowd to the same general routes.  We ended up getting there just as the 1st Period was ending... it was still 0-0, and listening to the radio, it seemed all's we missed were them skating around.

We did get to see a 3-d rendering of the new stadium they're planning on building for the T-Birds, which will likely be ready for next season.... Looks GOOD!

Not long after we found our seats, the puck dropped on Period 2.

Less than 2 minutes into the period, the T-Birds scored, and the fans threw teddy bears onto the ice.  It was "Teddy Bear" night, along with Throwback Night.

The bears are used by the Police when they come to a situation involving little kids... the bears are used to help calm them down.

 
There were A LOT of bears!  They brought out some old vintage cars to pick them up... as well as a New Escalade to get what the vintage cars couldn't.

 
Before long, the game was underway again... The Shadow Lady got us AWESOME seats!

 
Also during the second period, the folks right in front of us got engaged... the announcer called everyone's attention to them, he asked, and she said yes... :-)

It seems the future mother in law knew of what was going to happen, and was pretty excited by the whole thing... she's in the maroon sweatshirt.

 
The T-Birds seemed to handle the puck far better than Portland could manage... the Portland team was caught out of place more often than not, and paid for it by giving up 3 goals in 9 minutes. 

 
It'd have been worse than that if it weren't for their goalie!

I snapped this one when the T-Birds had set up an awesome screen shot that somehow the goalie blocked... I expected to be taking a picture of a goal!

With about 4 minutes left in the 3rd period, a Portland Player slashed during a breakaway... which got him kicked out of the game (5 minute major), and the refs awarded a penalty shot.

The shot went wide of the post, but it was pretty exciting, just the same -- you don't see that as often as you used to.

The rest of the game was pretty benign... and the T-Birds skated themselves to a pretty convincing shutout win, 3-0.  In 12 games this year against Portland, Seattle has won them all.

The win put the T-Birds in a shot for the playoffs, which they secured the next day, by shutting out the Spokane Chiefs.

 
On the way out, I snapped a pic of the Space Needle again... it was a bit blurry, but it still looked pretty good.

 
At the parking lot, I noticed a NICE shot of the Space Needle... not sure how I missed it when I parked, but somehow, it got by me.  Its very impressive against the night sky. 

Its a great way to end a fun night at the Key, that's for sure!

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