Saturday, October 29, 2022

Maine Mariners Opening Weekend 2022

It's been another busy week in the Cady house.  I've been busy blogging, working on getting a ton of orders out for both businesses, preparing for Halloween festivities, and trying to work on cleaning and organizing the house whenever I find a spare minute.  It has been crazy, but it's also been pretty fun for the most part!

Knowing that this past week was going to be absolute insanity, Eliot and I took a bit of a break last weekend.  I know, I know, we were just in San Jose the previous weekend taking a break too... but this was another well deserved timeout after all of the hours of hard work that we've put in the past three weeks.

I mentioned last Saturday that we had four hockey games to watch or go to... it just so happened that last weekend was the Maine Mariners opening weekend.  Eliot and I have been looking forward to hockey starting back up for months, so us taking two weekends off to watch our local team and our Sharks seemed well worth the sacrifices we would have to make during the work week!

Last weekend was extra busy since the Sharks were also playing on Saturday and Sunday.  So both days we watched the Sharks on television, and attended the Maine Mariners games in person.  It was a double, double-header weekend full of hockey!

The Sharks game on Saturday was at 1:00 PM since they were playing the New Jersey Devils.  Eliot and I try to watch all of their games, but we make an extra effort to watch all of the Sharks east coast games since they're actually in our time zone and we don't have to stay up late for them.  This game was pretty uneventful, with all three goals being scored in the 2nd period.  Unfortunately, we lost the game 2-1.  As soon as it was over, I was running to go shower and get ready to head up to Portland for the Mariners game.  Thankfully, that hockey game was a bit more entertaining... 

The Saturday Mariners game was really exciting since it was their first home game of the season.  We actually had to buy our tickets the night before since I'd read on Facebook that they were almost sold out.  By the time Eliot got our tickets, there were only 4-5 double seats left in the entire arena so I'm glad we got them the night before!

When we arrived at the arena, you could feel the excitement.  The game was at 6:00, but we got there early so we were able to watch warmups for a few minutes.  There were more people there then we'd ever seen.  We actually had seats only a few rows back from the glass which was cool... but the angle we were at didn't completely have netting over it.  I was a nervous wreck watching the puck, but it was still fun to be so close to the ice and so close to all of the excitement!

And exciting it was... The Mariners gave up two goals in the first period but then we scored a goal late in the second period.  The visiting team scored again in the third period.  We scored again, and a few minutes later the same player that scored got into a huge fight with the other team's captain.  Things got quite feisty on both sides in the final few minutes of the game, but the Mariners ended up losing 3-2.

On Sunday, our schedule was the complete opposite.  The Mariners were our first game at 3:00 PM.  Eliot and I didn't get up to Portland quite as early and we arrived right about the same time the puck dropped.  We were able to get seats in our regular section though, so that was more comforting and we settled in to enjoy the view.

This game was the Scooby Doo themed night, so the Mariners were all wearing special jerseys.  They had a Halloween feel to them, and some of the fans were dressed up in costumes for it.  There were a lot less people in the stands for this event, even though there was an open skate after the game.  (We later found out the the Saturday game set a franchise record of 5,386 fans in attendance.)

The game started off slow, but things opened up later in the first period.  The Mariners played well and went into the third period with a 2-1 lead.  We scored a gorgeous power play goal late in the period.  Then we got an empty netter.  The other team got a goal a minute later, but we scored one final empty netter to win the game 5-2.

After the game ended, Eliot and I got out of the arena quicker than usual since we were trying to get home to watch the Sharks game which started at 7:00 pm.  We stopped at Chili's to pick up a to-go order, then we went straight home to arrive just as the Sharks game was starting.  Thankfully, this game went better than the day before.  

The Sharks had a great start against the Philadelphia Flyers, especially since they were playing a back-to-back.  (It was probably the best they've looked all season so far.)  We ended up winning this game 3-0 making us 500 on the road trip.  

All in all, it was was a fun hockey weekend and a great break from of the hard work we've been doing the past few weeks.  It stunk to lose both games on Saturday, but Sunday definitely made up for it with both the Mariners and Sharks winning!  

Plus, Eliot and I got to debut a few of our new hockey jerseys.  On Saturday, he wore his Power Rangers jersey and I wore my Maine Mariners sweatshirt that we bought at the end of last season.  Then on Sunday, we both wore our new Harry Potter jerseys that Eliot's parents bought us in San Jose the previous weekend!  They were a hit!

Most importantly, Eliot and I enjoyed spending time together and we were glad we got to attend opening weekend for the Mariners.  We aren't going to be able to make it to all of their games, but we've got our eyes on a bunch of their weekend games this upcoming season.  I think we're in luck, because there are quite a few of them... so I see plenty of hockey dates in our future!  Go Mariners!!!  °o°

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