Cheap Seats

On Saturday night, I went to the Rangers home opener against the Ottawa Senators. A friend has season tickets, which, in previous years, were located 8 rows behind the net, on the 7th Avenue side of the Garden. This year, however, he downgraded his two seats to the 400s, all the way up on the ninth floor of the Garden, where smoking is not necessarily discouraged, the roof leaks, and the nearest bathroom is one flight down, two sections over. 

This is the only place to watch a hockey game. 

The fans, most of whom sported a Rangers jersey and/or a mullet, were completely into every aspect of the game, from before the team introductions to well beyond the final buzzer. You haven’t experienced a hockey game until a zaftig woman in a Jeff Beukeboom road jersey a few rows over starts yelling about the waning efficiency of a team’s line change from period to period. She was right, too, and if the NHL had enough sense to broadcast every hockey game from the cheap seats, sports fans would flock to hockey faster than an Alex Ovechkin slap shot.