The best bar in town is owned by the coach of the local hockey team, and now that the season's started I can switch sports. The team isn't in Utsunomiya, it's in Nikko, so I jumped on the train with some buddies and some beers and headed out. The IceBucks are part of the Asian Ice Hockey League, and they were playing China's only representative in the league, the Sharks.
Took a lot of pictures, most of them look like a hockey game. Here's one of me with Pat and Dustin.
They have the same cheering section like they do at the baseball games. I went up to join them.
It was a great game. IceBucks were loosing 1-0 with three minutes left. Bucks pulled the goalie and scored right away, 1-1. Less than a minute later, they scored again, 2-1. Then China pulled their goalie, and the IceBucks put in an empty netter to win 3-1.
We took a cab from the train station to the arena, but when we left there were no cabs in sight. There was a bus, and we asked where it was going. When they said the station, we jumped on. Standing room only, and 3 gaijin stick out pretty good. I made friends with an Expos fan. I wouldn't have remember him if it wasn't for the hat, but then he showed up at IceMan's bar later on.
These guys sat in front of us at the game, and they ended up at IceMan's, too. While I was at the bar, every other person there had come from the hockey game.
I called it a night kind of early, had the last baseball game to go to in Tokorozawa bright and early the next day. I headed to the station and bought my shinkansen ticket, only to find out it was delayed, for what might be the first time ever. There was some sort of computer glitch, one signal light got stuck red, and the trains were stopped for 4 hours.
I took the slow train down to Tokyo and out to Tokorzawa and got there just in time. Not in time to find a seat in the cheering section, though. The hangover, long train ride, and noisy cheering section made it a rough day. So I left early.
The display on the train coming in said the shinkansen was fixed, so I bought a shinkansen ticket for the ride home. When I go to Ueno station to transfer over, though, the train was still delayed at least 2 hours. I sort of ran through the gate and jumped on a train that was headed for Utsunomiya without using my ticket on the gate. But the train was crowded, so I had to stand. Then I figured out that it was an all reserved train that I didn't have a ticket for. Then, the announcement said the train doesn't stop in Utsunomiya, so I had to bail in Omiya.
In Omiya, the trains were still stopped. I waited there for another hour before I finally got on a train home. Rough sports weekend.
