Contrary to popular belief, I do have more to contribute than smart ass remarks and the occasional picture of clown shoes. I bring you photos from "Taco Bell Blackhawks Night" at the Rockford IceHogs game this past Saturday.

I had bought my tickets a couple of weeks ago with the hopes of scoring some autographs and a great hockey game. I got one out of two at least. I ended up picking up KofC on the way as she wanted to go and had luckily grabbed a ticket before they sold out. So after a stop at the IceHogs store at the local mall (I bought a puck), food and a walk around downtown Rockford (they have some cool old signs and buildings down there) we headed over to the MetroCentre.

There was already a long line to get in - they opened the doors up shortly before six. Myself and my gf headed directly to the line for the autographs. I had brought three pucks I got for an early bday present to get signed, and my gf was tasked with getting my brother's Versteeg jersey signed. The line was ginormous - the had the cattle gates set up and it resembled the lines at Great America in July. Apparently at some point the line stretched almost completely around the arena. After an hour, we had just reached the cattle gates and guys left for the pregame festivities. Before they did, I ran over and snuck a couple pictures by the signing table:

You can see Mike Haviland and Niemi in the foreground. TOFTBO, Versteeg, Fraser and Brouwer are behind the burly man in the suit. After they all left, we decided we paid to see the game, so instead of waiting for them to come back at the intermission, we'd head for the seats. We ended up sitting just inside the blue line of the goal the Hogs shot at twice. 

As you've probably seen, the Hawks came onto the ice for the ceremonial puck drop via convertibles. Here is Niemi & Versteeg's ride:

Meanwhile, Fraz, Brouwer and TOFTBO await the second convertible:

I really want to know what they were laughing about. Any thoughts?

Onto the game, here are some familiar faces:

Corey Crawford

Jake Dowell & Bryan Bickell

The early highlights included two beatdowns. The one in the first period involved the Hogs' Kyle Hagel and the Rivermens' Mitch Love (yes, that's his name):

Hagel went to the dressing room afterward to get a little sewing on his face. He was back out in the second period. And of course a great fight is always followed by the scraping of the blood off the ice:

The second period featured a scrap between Adam Hobson & Ryan Reaves:

Hobson has the classic post fight expression:

As for the game itself, it was fairly evenly matched. The Rivermen scored in the second. Skille had a sweet breakaway that he missed on (Doh!). In the third, the IceHogs got a powerplay for goalie interference with less than two minutes in regulation, and with Crawford pulled, Bracken Kearns tied the game at 1 with 12 seconds remaining. That was very exciting - I would have been disappointed to not see the Hogs score at least once. After a scoreless overtime, it went to everyone's favorite skills competition.

Akim Aliu was the first shooter and scored.

Matt Keith was the second shooter and also scored. By the way, that's our newest Finnish goalie, Hannu Toivonen (he of the slow motion net pratfalls).

Crawford made the first two saves. The third Hogs shooter was Skille and he missed. The Rivermen scored on their third attempt. Since the AHL goes to five shooters (which I wasn't aware of and prematurely started cheering, thinking the game was over), and the final two rounds were scoreless, the game ended in a 2-1 shootout win for the IceHogs!

Overall I had a great time, and I will definitely try to catch at least one more game this season. And bless KofC's heart for putting up with my inherent dorkiness. I don't know how my gf puts up with me sometimes.

One last thing. I would be remiss if I didn't put a picture of this guy on here:

This little man in the taco costume had me in stitches all night. I don't know if he wore his taco costume in honor of Taco Bell or just felt like it, but I salute him!