Here come the HAWKS!

Last weekend we had a night of family fun at the Winterhawks game. Paul's union is a sponsor of the team so once a year we have the opportunity to go for free. This year the kids all got free Winterhawks hat as well.

We had really good seats this year, about 12 rows up. Close enough to really see the action. I love how active hockey is, and how it's such a weird combination of grace and violence.

We ended up being there on their "Teddy Bear Toss" night, where they collect stuffed animals for local childrens' charities. When the Hawks score their first goal of the night everyone starts throwing their animals down on the ice. We weren't really aware that this was going on, so we hadn't brought any, but we met a nice older couple on the way in who gave us a large bag of stuffed animals for the boys to throw.

It was a pretty amazing sight to see animals flying for a few minutes. At the end of the night they announced that they had collected over 12,000 stuffed animals.

We were also treated to a really ridiculous fight at the end of the game. After spending the whole night stopping fights the refs let a couple players throw their gloves off and punch each other a few times at the end of the game. The kids were impressed, but it seemed a little contrived to me.

The highlight for Grayson and Rowan was meeting Tomahawk, unfortunately some yahoo decided to jump into our picture. Oh well, it was a fun night. Even if it did take 3 hours to play 3, 20 minute periods.