Hockey! Blood! Tacos! Pictures from Saturday in Rockford
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:
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!
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Comments
Nice photos+recap
I wish I could’ve gone to the game, but I was out of town. It looks like it was a great time though.
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Thanks
As said, nice pics and recap! Glad you had a good time in Rockford.
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I'm loving all these recaps
Great pics! Glad you guys had a blast.
But when it was suggested to him that Toews v. Kane seems likely to become a sidebar to every future international hockey tournament, he smiled and said: "I'd like us to win something together, too."
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Thanks for sharing
Everyone’s recaps are making me want to take a trip to Rockford before the season’s over. Have to look into that…
I commented that he looked quite Kopecky-ish in the 1st period
but he picked it up considerably in the 2nd (true he missed the breakaway (and the SO) but that’s not necessarily a “bad” play) and played pretty good in the 3rd.
Well, folks, I want to thank you for being here for the recording of my live comedy album. Funny material and laughter will be dubbed in later.
by ChicagoNativeSon on Mar 3, 2010 6:41 PM CST up reply actions
for some reason I read it as "blood tacos"
and scrolled down furiously for the accompanying image. Little kid in a taco suit ain’t bad either, though. Appreciate the write-up and the pictures, and I’m glad you had fun!
mmmmmmmm
Blood Tamacos….
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by AirTrafficAJ on Mar 5, 2010 11:12 AM CST up reply actions
Great Post, Great Pix.
Looks like you had a good time, I try to go to at least one game each year with my daughter (shes in college nearby), but couldn’t get out there this weekend.
Who knew Toivonen would be an Icehog a few days after this game!
So what do you think of our new goalie? Think Niemi pulled some strings while he was there?
"My Father's name is Jack, and my mother's name is Daniels..."
I liked Fallon
Dunno anything about this new guy. Except we beat him saturday, lol
Second City Hockey
Damn. Wish I could've gone.
Or had remembered to get tickets and go. I haven’t been to a Hogs game yet this year..which is kind of inexcusable considering my sisters boyfriend has season tickets.
“
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)
Cherryvale and downtown..can’t tell you how many times I’ve done that…even though there’s absolutely nothing to do downtown, with the exception of a few really good restaurants.
Tremendously tremendous!
by allyouyounghockeyplayersoutthere on Mar 6, 2010 4:08 PM CST reply actions
You a Rockfordian as well?
There are some absolute hidden gems of restaurants downtown.
Rockford in the summer is actually quite tolerable, cannot wait to be able to go down to Carlyle on a Saturday afternoon and actually sit outside
Sort of.
I live a little north in the boonies, but I go to RVC so I’m in Rockford every day.
Yeah, summer’s nice, I like being able to walk from place to place. Especially when there’s live music going on in multiple places. And I’m quite a fan of the Irish Rose. Everything I’ve ever had there is ridiculously tasty.
Tremendously tremendous!
by allyouyounghockeyplayersoutthere on Mar 11, 2010 8:01 PM CST up reply actions
I've actually never been to Lino's.
Sacrilege, I know, especially considering I’ve lived in the area 15+ years.
I’ve heard it’s good, but also ridiculously busy most of the time.
Tremendously tremendous!
by allyouyounghockeyplayersoutthere on Mar 25, 2010 11:25 PM CDT up reply actions
Hey Chevrier30, thanks again for posting these. Great pics!
As promised I’m posting a few of my pics. I didn’t want to hog your FanPost until traffic died down. I had a ton of photos of the fights. I took about 1,000 photos total at the game (I usual set my camera to action mode at games, so it takes about 5-20 pics every time I hit the shutter release), but I usually narrow it down to about 50 that I keep. I had some silly fun with these.
Check out Love’s knees in the first pic and the ref’s mouth in the last…



Well, folks, I want to thank you for being here for the recording of my live comedy album. Funny material and laughter will be dubbed in later.
by ChicagoNativeSon on Mar 6, 2010 5:02 PM CST reply actions
Wow, those are neat!
Love the Batman captions.
Looks like you were probably sitting a few sections to the right of us and a little closer. I’ve always wanted to sit on the glass at a game. Perhaps since prices are cheap, I’ll do that at a Hogs game in the near future.
"FACEOFF!" "Makes the pass." "FIGHT!" - 8 bit hockey
Thanks
I always get to these fanposts late … but thanks for taking the time to post this, chevrier, it’s great to scroll through and see this stuff!
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Did any of you guys wait in line?
No way in hell I was going too… lots of people went to the game for that purpose though
I had just waiting 5 hrs a week or so before for Hull's autograph
so hell no. Was funny that the seats were basically empty when the game started.
Well, folks, I want to thank you for being here for the recording of my live comedy album. Funny material and laughter will be dubbed in later.
by ChicagoNativeSon on Mar 20, 2010 4:52 PM CDT up reply actions
I waited
From the time we got in (shortly after the doors opened) until when the guys stopped signing. We had just gotten to the cattle gates at that point. Oh Well. Thinking about going back up there for the game next Saturday night – depends on if something else pops up.
"FACEOFF!" "Makes the pass." "FIGHT!" - 8 bit hockey




































