So, Sunday I just kinda hung around the house all day. I did some significant amount of cleaning and organizing stuff around here, and I went to Ikebukuro to eat a lot of sushi for dinner, but I didn't do any significant packing at all, so I'm somewhat screwed, being as I need to leave the house in around 14 hours for the airport. On the other hand, if I don't sleep tonight, I'll sleep better on the plane I guess :)
Monday was today, and I went up to Nikko to watch hockey! It was a rematch of one of the games I saw at the Shin-Yokohama Arena back in November -- last year's champion Nippon Paper Cranes vs. the ragtag home team Nikko Icebucks, who look like the Flyers in orange and black. Last time, the Icebucks beat the Cranes, but this time... not so much. I heard that basically they've been overusing Bud Smith and Takahito Suzuki and so both of them are totally worn out at this point in the season, and yet the team still puts them out there most of the game. (Suzuki is my favorite player, though I still don't have a favorite team. When people ask me, I just say I used to be a Seibu Rabbits fan, and they don't exist anymore.)
It took me about 2.5 hours to get there via local trains, using up the last day of my Seishun 18 ticket, so it was essentially free. I got to town and found a bus to the arena and waited outside with people -- there were a bunch of volunteers taking donations for the team, which has apparently become somewhat financially strapped. Between
yesterday and
today it seems that they took in around 900,000 yen... which is a lot considering there were only around 1500 people there each day, but isn't that much when you realize that probably pays salaries for like, 3-4 players, if that?
Once I got into the place, I wandered around just looking at things since I'd never been there before, and out of nowhere I hear "DEANNA!" and I look over, and it's my friend Daigo from the Lotte ouendan! (Well, formerly of the Lotte ouendan). Apparently he and some of the other ouendan folks come cheer for the Nikko Icebucks in the winter, because he was totally decked out in stuff, and his girlfriend was also there, and some other MVP people... and no, they don't know if they're gonna go to baseball games at all this year. It was really cool to run into them though -- basically, unlike the games near Tokyo, there were NO other white people at this game, as far as I could see, so I was getting kinda tired of being stared at by strangers. It was nice to run into some familiar faces and chat for a while. I think Daigo was about as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
Anyway, there was a hockey game. Oh, one more thing: the seats there are FANTASTIC. Not a bad seat in the house as far as I could tell, but I was in the front row -- unlike some other arenas I've been to, here the front row is in an upper deck above the rink, so it was completely and totally unobstructed, perfect for taking photos. Also, the Cranes' bench was right below us, so when there were some weird things in the game I could actually hear the guys arguing/discussing it with their coaches!
The Cranes got out to a quick lead, scoring a goal in the first 21 seconds of the game, no joke. By the end of the first period they were leading 3-1 -- the Icebucks just couldn't seem to get anything done, even when they had a power play, until at 19:44 in that first period, one guy shot at the goal and missed, there was a scuffle, and Bud Smith got the rebound and WHAM, shot a goal.
The second period was hella boring. Both teams seemed to be struggling, there was a lot of back-and-forth and what seemed like a lot of icing calls. Chris Yule added another goal for the Cranes and that made it 4-1.
The third period was where stuff got interesting, finally. They started off with what looked like the Icebucks scoring a goal in the first 50 seconds, but it was called not a goal, and then there was a biiiiiiiiig long pause while refs and players argued, and eventually play continued... only to have the Icebucks score a goal 10 seconds later! The Cranes put another one up to make it 5-2, but the Icebucks actually got their act together and scored two more goals to bring it to 5-4, at 4:16 and 11:13 respectively. The latter one was after Takahito Suzuki and Daisuke Obara got into a huge fight and both got sent to the penalty box. It was weird because they were teammates last year.
Anyway, in what I guess I would think of as an act of desperation, but I'm sure is a standard hockey move, the Icebucks coach pulled their goalie at around 18:00... but rather than it working out for them, what ended up happening is, first Masahito Nishiwaki made a shot at the entirely unprotected goal from about halfway across the rink, and it went in... at 19:11... and then at 19:33 the same damn thing happened, only this time it was the Cranes players mostly scrambling to get the puck from the Icebucks guys and happening to make a lucky shot. At this point a ton of Icebucks fans got up and left, probably to beat the traffic out, and the Icebucks put goalie Naoya Kikuchi (also former Seibu) back in, and the game ended with the Cranes winning 7-4.
It was a pretty exciting third period though. And at one point a puck flew off the rink and into the Cranes' bench, and the dude next to me yelled to the coach for it and the coach actually threw it up to him! Neat.
I should mention that I'd actually printed out a few of my hockey photos in the hopes of getting them signed, but unlike the last games I went to, this time there was no obvious way to bug the players! Doh.
After the game I packed up my stuff and ended up waiting like 20 minutes in what was apparently -4 degrees C weather (so like 25 degrees F) for the bus back to the station. That SUCKED, and my feet were actually tingly and unhappy for like an hour or two afterwards, riding the trains home, I could still feel them thawing out. I slept for most of the train rides anyway.
(Yes, I went to Nikko for the day and all I did was watch hockey. I didn't see any touristy crap. Whatever.)
Came back to Akabane and I had yakiniku for dinner by myself, because I felt like sitting in front of a hot grill cooking meat for half an hour sounded like an excellent plan. Went through Yokado, played a game of Pop'n, got some plastic containers at the 100-yen shop for some of the papers I still need to put away, got my last taiyaki for a while... how sad!
Now, home. Still procrastinating, but I'm about to get out my suitcase and start stuffing it. DAMN it's cold in here.
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