2002.04.26

So it's the end of the 2001-2002 NHL season, and wouldn't you know it, the San José Sharks won the division and finished with the third seed and home-ice advantage for the first time in their existence. The only thing tougher than that was trying to get tickets to the playoff games; after missing out on tickets for games 1 and 2 (because I went to the website about 10 minutes after they were released for public sale), I made sure not to miss out on game 5, where the Sharks had a chance to wrap up the series.

So after five minutes of hammering the ticketmaster.com server, the tickets were released, and I got four seats in the nosebleed section (come on, I'm a poor grad student, and the GSI stipend doesn't leave much room for me to spend money on stuff like hockey games). And so here's how it went....

on the road

Getting to the Shark Tank (or rather, the Compaq Center...what a gay name!) was the fist part of the adventure. Since game time was 7pm, and the hours leading up to it are notoriously bad, traffic-wise, I skipped the EE142 lecture on Gilbert mixers and started driving down to San Jose.

Here's the first interesting thing we saw on 24W out of Oakland: some van's driver didn't realise that the back was still open.

Along the way, Yolanda and I stopped by Pasta Pomodoro in Union City for a quick snack. Here's what they have on the cover of their menu.

Further along 880, when traffic began to jam as lanes merged, we encountered this VW Bug...makes me wonder who out there has "MOOCOWA" as a license plate....

pre-game

So we made it to downtown San Jose with plenty of time to spare; parked for free around the corner from the Arena, and wandered into some sort of pre-game tailgate party that was going on at Autumn Street. Then we met up with Ted and Tracy, and found our seats, while on the ice, players were warming up

Here are two rink-wide shots of both teams warming up, and then just the Sharks in their end.

Here is an extreme-close-up shot of Mike Ricci and Patrick Marleau standing around center ice

And this is a shot of Jeff Jillson, rookie defenseman.

This is Miikka Kiprusoff, backup goalie.

And of course, once game time neared, they upped the eye-candy in an attempt to get people in the crowd hyped up...

Here they flashed the logos of the seven remaining Western Conference teams in the playoffs at the time (the Chicago Blackhawks had already been eliminated): the Wings, Sharks, Avs, Canucks, Blues, Kings, and Coyotes.

And while I was off using the bathroom, Ted and Tracy got a hold of my camera and took a picture of themselves...again.

And as is tradition at home games, the Sharks are introduced skating out of the mouth of the gigantic shark head. I think this here is Miikka Kiprusoff skating out.

And here Evgeni Nabokov takes his place in goal for the Sharks....

the game itself

My take on the game: it was a good game, since the Sharks won. And except for that b.s. call on the penalty shot late in the second period, the officiating was pretty good. Here are a few highlights from the game's action:

Here's a faceoff in the Sharks' zone during the first period.

Here, I tried to get a shot of the red light behind the net after Partick Marleau scored the first goal of the game and the crowd went nuts.

Here are two shots of the Sharks players on the bench during the third period.

Late in the third period, Teemu Selanne gets two minutes for roughing...ha! Teemu? Roughing? Huh?

And after the final horn sounds and the Sharks win, streamers go flying, and the team comes celebrating off the bench.

Afterward, this is the "best tradition in pro sports": the post-series handshake between the two teams.

in the end...

For the first time ever, the Sharks clinch a playoff series victory at home, and afterward, the crowd goes nuts and cheers like mad along Santa Clara Street. No rioting, or anything, but a lot of honking and slow traffic and stuff like that.

And on a random note, this is a SUV we saw parked in a parking structure next to Ted's car....since when is an SUV a "small car"? And is it ok if Tracy kicks it for fun?