Nice day for a walk

I watched most of the really important football today. Actually I watched all of it except for the time when it had put me to sleep and I was napping.

For actually important football which interests me, FC Nantes has entered the competition for le Coupe de France with a 1-3 road victory over something called US Bouscataise. This was a game in the 7th round of the tournament, the round in which the Ligue 2 teams enter. I think there is at least one more round before some of the Ligue 1 teams appear.

After watching the local important football on the telly I went ahead and spent an hour outside. The temperature was in the 20s, the sun was bright and the sky was blue, a nice day for a winter walk.

Walking fitness was good.

Long range forecasts indicate that bicycling still has a chance to make a couple more appearances but even an eternal optimist such as myself has to admit that there needs to be a major improvement in pavement conditions from what I observed out there today before I myself will be venturing out on skinny high pressure tires.

One website says 50s for Thanksgiving Day.

Meanwhile in domestic news our major shared weekend activity was the hockey. We love the hockey. Those of you living within easy driving distance who are not attending the games are missing out on a cheap ($1 admission for many games) but highly entertaining form of hockey. Shame on you if you call yourself a hockey fan and haven't seen this team play.

Earlier in the season our new sophomore scoring sensation notched a pure hat trick against a conference foe. A pure hat trick is one of the rarest of scoring feats, three straight goals scored all by the same player. This game was early in the season but even so it was a bit surprising that not a single hat was thrown onto the ice in the traditional fan display of appreciation for three goals in a single game. It was such an odd omission that in her post game YouTube interview even the player herself said she was a little disappointed about the lack of hats.

We have been season ticket holders for a while but we haven't seen lots and lots of hat tricks. We have never actually thrown hats onto the ice but I was taken by the disappointment of the player that no hats were thrown. I agreed with her that it was disappointing.

So in Friday night's game she scored FOUR goals. On the third goal a bunch of hats got thrown onto the ice. Again we were not participants.

We arrived early for Saturday's game and had a chance to chat with several other of the regular attendees. There are two distinct groups of every game attendees, one of which is the parents of the players. The second group is people who love hockey. It is a decently sized group but small enough that we all know who all of the rest of us are. We see each other at every game.

We chatted with the couple the male half of whom was, from my perspective across the ice, the first person to actually throw his hat onto the ice in appreciation of the third goal. The female half said she had decided to bring a hat to the game from now on even though she wasn't wearing one. She had it in a bag and just wanted to have something to throw onto the ice if another hat trick occurred.

TOPW attends hockey games with me and I discussed this and considered that in the future perhaps we should follow that lead. She said she had several caps that she doesn't really wear anymore, as do I, and we should be prepared.

The new scoring sensation got a goal in the first period and when she got another with 1:41 remaining in the second we decided we had to act. We could not afford to be unprepared any longer. We went to the merchandise counter in the corner of the arena, checked over the available stuff and purchased two of the cheapest hats available.Right after that but before play resumed I was standing watching the Zamboni when the hat chucking couple passed by. I reached into my pocket and showed them my hat.

They laughed and thumbed up.

Just 1:48 into the third she struck again, HAT TRICK! Out of the pockets and onto the ice went our very, very recent purchases.

The on ice officials gather up the hats and deliver them to the penalty box where the off ice officials turn the refuse over to arena personnel. TOPWLH had learned from the other couple that you can just approach the people in the tunnel and they will give you your hats back. She did so and they did so.

One of the other regular attendees who sits behind us noted that we hadn't even owned the hats long enough to remove the tags. So there they are, our Amanda Kessel Hat Trick hats.

We are not worthy.