First hawks game o' the year, a good one that ended up 3-1, including Peter Bondra's 500 goal of his career (cool, to be part of the two standing ovations and the chanting of his name - more on that in a bit).....went w/ gf, #2 nephew and his friend, and, small world, ran into , well, ran into Balz (!!)..........he lives 'round there, and i got his # 'cause i wanna go to tuesday nites 6pm game and he mite as well (see post before and see what a hypocrite i am........just wait till Ithaca)...........game was good, crowd was into it, nice passing, goalies key saves, only had to pay $32 for 4 tix ($8 student tix for me -hey, im a grad student, rite??, 2 hs kids, and the VERY cool ticket guy left gf go as a student as well)..............hawks do sell $10 tix, by which method bals employed........fun, we'll see if the kids can go tuesday
also got 6tix fer 23 feb Bulls, 1/2 price (cheap seats, cost me $120 total), so the kids can also experience a bulls game..............took #'s 1 and 4 neices to an earlier game, and we'll see who goes this time (want #1 nephew , who is named after me, my god child, and i sponsered him for confirmation, to go, but he's also "college boy, so......)
#2 nephew wanted to go 'cause the Chicago Fire soccer teams cheering section (collectively know as 'Section 8' ) were going to be @ this hawks game (they have to gather in off season someway).............Section 8 is a lot of fun for the kids (well, for #2 nephew and #1 neice) because S8 acts silly, sings, chants but most importantly, i know, for the sense of community it engenders..................#2 nephew and #1 neice love going to fire games, and i realised this year especially, they REALLY LOVE TO GO TO FIRE GAMES, S8 is the reason......................S8 stands in the so called 'Harlem Stands" (so euro !!), which to me is a fucking drag, because of my swarmy nature, i like buy the cheap seats and sit @ the 50yd line to enjoy the game...................however, i know its very important to the kids, so we stand, chant, choregraphed clapps, fly fire flags that are brought in ((my favourite flag, i love to fly it, is the stylised city of chicago flag that has a 'hammer and sickle' looking thing on it)), rip up programs to throw when the fire score ( a holdover when they were tots and i was taking them, via the el, to soldiers field and they were too young to fully appreciate the game=throwing confetti was a fun kid thing they liked to do to keep'm occupied), get arrested (yes, once, last year, bogus deal, but i just love to spend nites in jail, beat the rap, so........), and gossip about the community......................S8 has leaders from the various groups who take turns leading...sometimes the chants and songs come up naturally from the mass, but the learders job is to incite and lead most of the times...........the diff groups have their rivalries, apparent to this somewhat outsider ("HEY, THIS OUTSIDER HAS BEEN STANDING IN SECTION 8 SINCE THE VERY FIRST, DON'T CALL ME AN OUTSIDER !!! HEY, I'VE BEEN ARRESTED FOR THE CAUSE, DON'T CALL ME AN OUTSIDER !!!") but its always a good show, even @ nadir times (the famous 'coward' chant in the early dark times of '05)..............
We have our favourite leaders:
The Most Glorious Leader of all, the one brushed by the grandeur of time and history, is, of course, "Specs", the drunken Polish guy who the leader in the early 1st 3-4 years (The Best, and whatever happened to him?.....Rumour has it that he got deported). We could never understand why he would start showing up @ halftime of games to start leading. I thought it was becuse of his star power, waiting to make his grand Mick/Morrissey entrance, but, again, as rumour has it, he'd be out in the pkg lot getting drunk on vodka..................damn................simply the best...
The gravelly voiced big Polish guy, extremely silly and who revelled in the sillyness, whose star shone brite, even brighter than Specs, but it crashed and dissappeared fast. You can still see him, shirtless, back to the camera leading the bouncing S8 in some fire commercials). All he left us was with the his phrase (depending on the time in the game ) , all deep and gravelly and horse : "LISTEN TO MEEEEE !!! : VEE ONLY HAVE 20 MINUTES TO MAKE DIS HAPP-PENN !!! "
The present favourite, Marcin (yes, Polish), who has been S8 from the beginning, and who I have shared a jail cell with), whose iconic phrase, when he makes his sudden rush- jump onto the leaders platform is "VAT ISS DEESSS ?!?! PEEK-NEEK?!?!* "
And then there are the ones that.................ah, they're ok.....................the only gringo on the list is Liam..he was @ hawks game last nite.....................now, the Bondra moments from the hawks game.....................i must admidt, im not that up on Hawks news lately (well, lately would mean............um.........15 years ??), but i did know we'd just signed a career 498 goal scorer who had one this year (#499).........and he scored to put us up 2-1 (lot of maple leaf fans there, by the way)..........the crowd gave him a minute standing, then another 1/2 minute, and then S8, in best S8 tradition, got the whole crowd chanting his name with the rythmic claps............very nice.......then @ end of game, S8 got the crowd to start chanting "U!S!A!U!S!A!U!S!A!", which was, well, silly, but @ the same time....................silly...............great night out, im glad this tired and worn out soldier was able to do it....................nice to see balz...........oh, and the hawk ice girls...............more on that another politically incorrect post @ another politically incorrect time.
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*= "picnic"
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