Going To The Dogs

Happy Sunday morning…

Time to recap last night’s events…just to remind the Devils that yes there was a game last night. At least the Amerks knew to come and play. Rochester dominated from start to finish, with only Vladimir Zharkov breaking up Jacob Markstrom’s shut out late in the 3rd period, in a 6-1 win. The Devils went 0 for 7 on the power play, didn’t even get to 10 shots till late in the second period, and basically just couldn’t get anything going till the third. Six different Amerks scored goals and at one point had a 15-5 shot advantage in the first. Attendance was good for a change last night, about 4100…which may or may not have included the 50-75 dogs in attendance as part of the first ever Pucks and Paws Night. For an extra price, fans could bring their dog to the game and sit upstairs. There was even a photo opportunity with Devil Dawg in between periods for dogs and their owners. Between periods I got to meet goalie Mike McKenna’s dog Bauer (his girlfriend Rachel brought him to the game). The one thing I remembered from when I followed Mike on Twitter (sadly he had to discontinue his account…thanks Lamoriellos) was he talked a lot about his dog, even posting a couple of phone pics.

Now I need to go on a little rant here (apologies in advance) about our fan base here. It is horrible how the minute things start to go downhill it turns into a Philly like atmosphere in the building. The constant booing is getting so annoying. People, how many times do I have to say it booing will NOT make them play any better. I will never, ever boo my own team (just the referees, but that’s the norm), they themselves should know how bad they are performing, it is up to them to turn it around and the constant negativity in the building does not help. If you don’t like what you are seeing, STAY HOME. Yes I know there’s very little fan base for the Devils as it is (Friday night proved that), but if you’re going to just sit there and bitch about how the team sucks, there are other things you can spend your money on. I do sort of see the same thing go on in other arenas (Adirondack and Binghamton are examples of this) and I just shake my head. When I was in Wilkes-Barre last weekend and watched Charlotte dismantle the Penguins, there wasn’t a lot of it. The fans knew the team was having an off day, Wednesday night they got right back on track. They were too busy booing Justin Pogge for his meltdown (sadly, if you try to fight two Penguins you have no business going after, you do have it coming). And by the way fans everywhere, if you team is on the power play, yelling “SHOOT” every five seconds doesn’t help. Incase you haven’t noticed, there is an opposing player covering each man (well if you have a good defense anyway), it is hard to get a wide open shot. How easily one of those guys can steal the puck, go on a breakaway and score a shorthanded goal. The guys know this, they wouldn’t be getting paid the big bucks to play if they didn’t.

Okay, I feel much better now getting that out. Kind of a frustrating night last night, seeing a dad go after a security guard for yelling at his misbehaving kid (maybe if you actually were a parent and told him to stop banging his souvenir hockey stick on the bar in front of the seats every 10 seconds) just added to it.