The to do list!: 45. Ice hockey

Guildford Flames vs. Telford Tigers

(With special guest Mad-K)

Thumbs up for ice hockey!

We took the train out to Guildford to see local heroes the Guildford Flames play against visitors the Telford Tigers. The Guildford team were sat at third in the league with Telford at 5th so we were expecting a good game and we were not disappointed! The home side had an impressive array of banners up in the rink telling of various wins and a massive crowd turned out for the game - we could only get standing tickets in the away fans' area - children were admitted for free so there were lots of families in.

Our vantage point - complete with ice hockey crazy fan family

This was the first game of ice hockey I'd seen so I was very grateful to be accompanied by two experts - Anett has been watching the Winter Olympics religiously over the last few days (sometimes two sports at once!) and Mad-K's seen his fair share of ice hockey too. I've pretended to watch it in bars before of course but this time there was no beer so I had to concentrate.

My ice hockey spectating coaches

The Tigers scored first, fairly early in the first period, and despite penalties on both sides neither team managed to score any more before the break. We went in search of hot dogs, pausing briefly to take my photo with a man who was obviously born to be an ice hockey goalie (why else would anyone be called Rockman?).

ROCKMAN! Now there's someone who would rock a Mighty Ducks film.

Unfortunately the catering team really let us down - they hadn't seemed to anticipate that there would be any demand for food and in the sudden rush must have forgotten that they also needed to cook as many hotdogs as had been ordered. Needless to say, when we eventually got our hotdogs they were bitterly disappointing. For the home fans, the same could be said of their team's performance; after conceding another couple of goals in the second period they did manage to get one themselves, only to concede another after electing to play with 6 players and leave the goal completely unattended. To be fair, the Tigers shot for that goal was a brilliant no-look backwards shot from behind the other goal - nobody could have seen that coming! The shockingly poor banter from both sets of fans was only made worse by the fact that Guildford and Telford sound pretty similar! I think the fact that the Tigers' fans had the biggest drums might have won it for them.

Final score: Telford Tigers 4, Guildford Flames 1.

Peace (kind of)

Scary park predator

Once we got back to Clapham Junction, having not been satisfied at all by our ice hockey hotdogs we decided to go in search of something more nutritious. What we found was some delicious Indonesian cuisine at Warung Bumbu on Lavender Hill. I've not been to Asia but Anett has and she said it was authentic so I believed her! Either way it was delicious - we shared a satay platter and then both had curries (Anett's seafood, mine lamb) and rice, beers (Asahi) and mojitos. Delicious!