My night with the Hershey Bears

Due to my obsession with hockey, I decided that for my 25th birthday I'd go see the Hershey Bears! What more perfect game than the day before my actual birthday and team photo giveaway and 90 minute after game signing night! So I took 11 of my best friends and headed up to Hershey. We all headed up in different ways considering the way relationships work. Whatever. Anyway, we went to Chocolate World prior and it was alright. We got to hang out in a Hershey Kiss for like 2 minutes and learn about the history of chocolate. Who doesn't love that?

Anyway, it was a decent game. A bit slower than NHL but then when you go to Caps games, those aren't exactly typical this season. Anyway, they ended up breaking their 24 home game winning streak and I'm pretty sure I'm bad luck now :-/ It was against the Adirondack Phantoms who are the farm team for the Flyers and apparently they aren't making playoffs anymore, so they had nothing to lose and it definitely showed. They were feisty.

Anyway, here are some pictures:

Fistycuffs!

Karl Alzner. He's pretty good. Washington's 1st round choice (5th overall) in 2007 draft.
Keith Aucoin. Has 35 goals in the AHL this season so far and 94 points. Good? Yes.

Francois Bouchard. Washington's 2nd round choice (35th overall) in 2006 draft. He's pretty awesome. I think the players with longer hair were convinced to wear hats since they had to since pretty much right after the game.

Bryan Helmer. El Capitan. 39 points away from becoming the all-time leading scorer among AHL defensemen. Although that could have changed since the last time I checked the stats. Man, I love stats.

Anton Gustafsson. Came back to the Bears a week ago or so and I don't believe has played due to injury. Son of Bengt Gustafsson. However, majority of the people there didn't know who he was and his line maybe had 3-4 people at a time. He was bored at times and would get up from his seat and color in his numbers stealthy while looking behind him as if we were up to no good. He's great and very friendly.

Braden Holtby. Sadly this was the best picture I could get since his line was too long and it was about closing time. He's a pretty good goaltender and happened to be the Caps' 4th round pick (93rd overall) in 2008.Boyd Kane. Not bad, not bad. 22 goals and 40 points. Originally with the Philadelphia Phantoms (now Adirondack Phantoms).
Chris Bourque. Was affiliated with those Penguins, but we're glad he's back. Has had a pretty good season thus far with 22 goals and 66 points.

Alexander Giroux. 40 goals and 93 points this season. Very, very good.

Mathieu Perreault. I will admit that Mr. Perreault is my favorite Hershey Bear and was ecstatic when he signed my team photo with Happy Birthday Katie, despite the fact he didn't know how to spell Birthday. I guess it should have been Bon Anniversaire! Washington's 6th round pick (177th overall) in 2006 draft.

Sean Collins. Played with the Caps last season for 15 games (Defense).

Sadly, I didn't have time to get Andrew Gordon to sign anything or have a picture with him, but he's a great guy. There was an elderly women in the bleachers who couldn't go on the ice and Andrew climbed to her and had a picture with her and climbed back. Awwww. As far as I know it was his grandmother, but it was still nice.

I love hockey.