I hate shootouts!

So last night was the highly anticipated (by me at least) Phantoms/Bridgeport game. It was a decent game, with the Phantoms scoring first and holding off Bridgeport until the third period. The Sound Tigers had two quick goals in the third, but we were able to tie it up and send it to OT and eventually a shootout. This is all info you can get from the boxscore, but here is what you won't find in the boxscore:

• Munroe went down hard blocking the first shooter. At first, I thought his ego was bruised because Tambellini scored and Muny takes his job very seriously, but he stayed down, flat on his face for a scary long time. Two guys plus the trainer helped him off the ice, and even that wasn't really enough. He looked very shaky and I didn't think he would make it off the ice without falling. Yikes. Don't know what they will do for a backup keeper now as Beauchemin is out and there is only Houle...maybe they will send down newly acquired Michael Leighton from the Flyers. I wouldn't mind taking a look at him.
• If you are going to make signs for a game, make sure you set aside some time to do them right. Doing them in the trunk of your car right before you go in is not a good idea. Our signs were totally ghetto and did not have the desired effect. We learned a lot and will know for next time.
• Other tips for sign making:
• Use half a posterboard...a full posterboard was a little too big.
• Get there early enough so you catch the whole warmup. We missed maybe the first 5 minutes and they were so busy warming up we didn't hold it up towards the end and by then it was nearly too late.
• It is too much to hold up the signs during the game itself, too distracting for the players...unless you have a player specific sign like the one I saw after a fight that said "Grant's Fight Club" not the greatest sign but their timing was good. Having a variety of player specific signs would be a good idea.
  
• Have a second piece of posterboard to put over the one you are holding up, so that the small children and delicate adults behind you can't see that your sign says: "Reid...we wanna see some action from that hot stick!!!!

I think that is all for now. The guys in our section had a good laugh at our "hot stick" sign. When Keeli held it up, she tried to put her hands over the part that said hot stick so as not to offend the kids behind us. The guys next to us said "yeah, don't worry about all those kids over there that can read it!!!"

The most important part of the evening is that we finally found the bar that is in the Spectrum (it is downstairs and a pain to get to and you have to get a ticket for re-entry) and games will never be the same again.