As a person who avoids sports and exercise like the plague and has almost never watched any kind of game on TV, I did not know what to expect from the first real hockey match I’ve ever been to this past Saturday. The teams playing were the Atlanta Gladiators and the Cincinnati Cyclones. At the first moment I walked through the doors, I was already surprised by the size of the setup and the amount of people there. Even though this makes no sense, I didn’t imagine that there would be anything else in the building besides ice and seats.

Whenever hockey was brought up previously in my life, somehow nachos were always mentioned along with it. At this game, sadly I did not eat nachos, but I thought it was cool that there were tables to eat at without chairs. I did not know that there wouldn’t be people hawking their food and goods to sell in the stands. It was also nice that the crowd didn’t have to sit on bleachers like I expected; we had comfortable seats that we had reserved by paying for tickets.

In my opinion, the players were great, and I was very impressed with how fast the referee could skate. However, soon after the game started, my parents told me that the teams were not very good, since Cincinnati had already scored a point within 25 seconds. Nevertheless, the Gladiators did make a comeback in the end, winning 6/2.

I even witnessed a fight between two of the players, which was the only thing that really captured my attention that evening. The crowd was enthusiastic throughout the whole game, and I found it enjoyable even though I don’t care for sports. Overall, I have to say the big winner of the night was the $5 Gladiator fleece blanket that was being sold at the entrance.