I started responding to a question on one of the Washington Capitals Forums I belong to and realized my response made a better blog entry. The question: for your girls who SO, BF, or whichever is a Caps fan how did you guys meet? was it Caps related?
Our "how we met" story has nothing to do with hockey but the wedding gift has everything to do with hockey. And I'm guaranteed up to 41 (or more) date nights a year with the husband.
I purchased our season tickets as a wedding present for the Husband. I was working at AOL at the time Ted bought the team and he did a big promotion. I thought "wow! what fun." I knew NOTHING about hockey. I bought two full season tickets in section 106 (behind the goal) and felt pretty darn happy with myself for coming up with such a cool wife gift. I put the receipt in the wedding folder for safe keeping.
The Caps were doing the meet the team party pre-season that year. I told the future husband we had to go downtown to meet the pastor who was marrying us for dinner near Gallery Place. He HATED going downtown. Parking, metro, blah, blah, blah. I planned to unveil the gift on the way down there. About 2 days before the meet the team party, future husband went into the wedding folder to figure out the food or something. I was afraid he'd seen the receipt so I figured I'd go ahead and tell him about the tickets. He had been belly-aching about going downtown and I had had enough of that. So I asked him to guess what would be the BEST wedding present EVER! He first said Redskin tickets, the second guess was a new guitar, I was getting seriously bummed at that point and refused to hear the third guess. I said, I got you Caps tickets. He said, "really, to which game?" I said, "all of them. At home at least." He said, "I have to lay down."
Fast forward about 10 games into the season and those darn tickets were going to be part of the divorce settlement. Part of the reason he didn't guess Caps tickets was that he knew I knew little to nothing about hockey so why would I consider buying HOCKEY tickets. I'd been to a few games previously and only once really enjoyed it because I got to see The Great One's face smashed up against the glass. I was the most annoying person to attend the game with during those first few games. "what's happening?" "why did the whistle blow?" "Icing? is this a cake?" "Why can't I come down the stairs until the whistle blows?" "I'm so confused." "Why is he going into the box, he just hit him before and didn't get into trouble." "No, I don't remember what my question will be in 19 minutes and 12 seconds." "why can't you answer me now." "why can't I hear those guys on tv? they kinda help me know what's going on."
Thankfully we had tickets to the Johnnie Walker Club. Even bigger luck is that Joe Benenati is a great guy and willing to help a newlywed stay that way. He helped me learn hockey. It was a fun season learning the game. Some nights we would have quite a group discussing the night's action. With the help of Joe, Craig Laughlin, other season ticket holders and sometimes a player or two, I learned the game. Not only did I learn the game, I fell in love with hockey. It's the best game you can name!
About four years ago, I sacrificed a little bag and shoe budget to upgrade the tickets to the second row. It was the soonest the first or second row became available. If that's not love, I am not sure what is!
So that's my hockey love story. I'm lucky to live in a market with a great owner and the best play-by-play announcer in the league. If it wasn't for Ted Leonsis doing the promotion, I'd never thought to buy the Husband the tickets. And if it wasn't for Joe Benenati teaching me the game, I'm not sure the Husband would have wanted to renew the tickets.
Happy Knitting! Happy Hockey!