Hockey Game: Free Suite and Food

This past weekend, Sue and I, along with Shauna and her friend attended a big league hockey game between the Ottawa Senators and the Detroit Red Wings. Along with a few other families, we were treated to a suite courtesy of Shauna's connections through her work.

We also had a suite last time for the last time we attended a game, two years ago, when I won the tickets at a lottery for JJ's hockey team. That was nice enough, but this was even better.

For one thing, this was a larger suite with perhaps fewer occupants.

For another thing, there was free food, which I shall get to shortly.

Here we are pre-game, enjoying our beverages. Mine was Coca Cola; the others were boozing — moderately, of course.

While the food was included with the suite (or box), the drinks were extra. They will be billed to the owner of the suite, so they were still free to us.

Sue and I are not always too wise to the ways of the world. When she ordered wine, she didn't understand fully that she (or someone) would be paying for the whole bottle. And brother sister, did that bottle cost. Sue just about had a conniption when she saw the charge at the end of the game when Shauna had to sign the bill.

Would you believe, $65!!

We are pretty frugal folks, and Sue nurses about one box of wine (cost ~ $40) for a whole month, so this hit her pretty hard. To add insult to injury as it were, she had only consumed two rather small glasses of the bottle, not realizing that it was all hers. It could have served the others in our group too, but the rest of us are not particularly white wine drinkers. In my case, in point of fact, I am not much of a drinker at all. A box of red will last me for quite awhile, depending how often Shauna visits, for she really likes red wine. When she wasn't drinking much last year, one box lasted me for 3 months.

Anyway, the food.

This was part of the table of appetizers that was already laid when we entered the suite.

We munched on that while the pre-game warm-up was taking place. Ottawa Senators on the right; Red Wings on the left.

Back to the food.

By the time the game was beginning, the main course dishes were brought in: pasta, rice, veggies and chicken.

A close-up of the veggie and chicken dishes.

While I do not drink much, I do like my food, and I found all of this quite wonderful indeed.

Here we are drinking (me ginger ale) during the game. There were other seats in the box just below, but we just remained at the counter for the duration as it served as a good holder for drinks and food.

Our hostess with Sue's wine bottle.

Once the second period began, snacks were brought in. I had a slice of pizza and a few egg rolls. Both were quite good.

Dessert was brought during the third period, but it consisted of just cookies. I felt robbed. lol

As for the game itself, we lucked out there too. It was a close match, tied 3-3 at the end of regulation, so we were treated to overtime.

The five minute OT period features just 3 players plus a goalie for both teams. With all of the extra space to work with, the action can be very exciting and usually results in a goal.

However, there was no goal in this case, so there was an additional bonus — a shootout. Our team, the Senators, scored in 1 of their 3 chances, while the Wings missed in all of theirs.

So, the good guys won, and we went home full and happy.

What a treat to enjoy all of those perks, including the free-for-us drinks.

I searching for my post of our previous game here, I also came across a post about JJ actually playing a game in this big arena, here. I didn't remember it because I wasn't there, but I still posted about it here 3 years ago.