Michigan Hockey

One fun thing to do here in Southeast Michigan is to attend University of Michigan hockey games.  It feels like football-lite.  The arena is easy to access, the tickets can be inexpensive, and it's only a two hour time commitment.  But it still has a lot of the same excitement of the fall football games.  And man, hockey fans are committed!

Whenever we don't have much going on, I look up the schedule and can usually find tickets.  But every time, we're sitting in the regular bench seats with our knees jammed up against someone's back.  It's all part of the experience, but I do look longingly at the comfy seats higher up in the area; seats with arms rests and backs, and John's eye inevitably wanders over to the balconies with free food for the season ticket holders.

So a couple of years ago, I signed up for Michigan Athletics texts which offer last-minute, discounted tickets to various sporting events.  My bank account is automatically linked to the text so that if I respond to wanting tickets (BUY HAIL 2), I'll have tickets in my email Inbox within a minute.  The bonus is that Michigan Athletics frequently offers an upgrade "if you are one of the first ___ people to respond".  I've tried before to respond quickly enough so that I get some magic seat, but it's never worked; I need to check my calendar, and check with John, and check my bank account, and by that time, the special offer has been snapped up by more spontaneous people ;-)

So I received another text:

John just so happened to be in the car with me when I received this, and with no job and no schedule, there wasn't much to check.  So I replied BUY HAIL 2.

As usual, I received the follow up text that my purchase had gone through....and I was disappointed that we hadn't "won" again.

However, I went to check the actual tickets (to add the details to my calendar), and I noticed that the seats were "ICEBOX".

Holy smokes.  I figured that meant something good.

So then, while John was driving, I looked up what ICEBOX seats were at the ice rink.

We didn't know yet what it would all
entail, but we figured just getting a picture
with the sign was good!

Turns out, we had deluxe seats (office swivel chairs really) up against the glass with a free buffet of pop, snacks, and burgers.  There were only eight seats in our entire section so all that food was for us!  And it was convenient too that we had our own private restroom ;-)

This is literally John's dream.  Free food.

As John and I walked to the rink, we honestly didn't believe that what I had read was real.  Would we really get to enjoy the hockey game in crazy comfort?  Well let me tell you, all I had to do was show my ICEBOX tickets to the ushers, and we were treated like royalty.  It was fabulous!

Look at all those poor suckers in their bench seats.... ;-)

And when we finally got to our seats, we could hardly believe it.  I kid you not--rich people have all the fun.  And it was even more fun to discover that the other six people in the box had gotten their tickets the same way with one guy saying that he responded two minutes after he got the text.

I've certainly never gotten a picture of us like this at a hockey game.  Usually there's someone photo bombing our pic in the background...

I will admit that there was a cloud hanging over us, and John refused to wear UofM colors, seeing that it's two UofM guys who are ousting him from his job....

We ate our hearts out.  Holy smokes, it was fabulous.  And in the end, John didn't want the fun to end, so he snagged three cans of Diet Coke for the next day and stuffed them in his coat pocket ;-)

And as if that all wasn't enough, John found a brand new Michigan baseball cap on the steps of the rink as we were leaving.  We brought it home, I washed it (just in case), and we gave it to Glo's Ethan for Christmas.  I think it was one of his favorite gifts.