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This article is a tad late as it relates to an event last Friday, but as happens every now and then, that work stuff has gotten in the way of what's really important. Anyway, went to my first ice hockey game - San Jose Sharks versus LA Kings.

First off, I have to say that I quite liked the game. Unlike the more traditional baseball and American football, this was fast moving and interesting. At least for the first period anyway as unfortunately the Sharks were terrible going down 5-1 which really meant that the second and third periods were very one sided.

Some interesting things though. When there's a break in the play, the TV coverage cuts to commercials. The game doesn't restart until they get the go ahead from the network to make sure that the viewers don't miss anything. Initially this seemed like a really strange concept until my mate who I went with pointed out that it's not like the blatant advertising in the UK where our teams had sold out and put the sponsorship across the front of their jerseys. And I do remember when advertising on shirts first came into soccer and there was the discussion on which teams were selling out and I guess we've just gotten used to it now. I hadn't really thought about it, but other people think it's sacrilegious to desecrate the team jersey.

The next thing (and I'm told this is relevant to Sharks fans only) is that the crowd seemed to be needed to be told what to do. The display boards frequently came up with instructions like "make some noise" and really bad chants like "beat LA". OK so maybe "Blue Army" isn't the most inventive, but we did have a lot of very creative songs as well like "When You're Smiling". Just to sidetrack for a second - I just searched to see if anyone had put these songs up on the web and yep there's a great website ForFoxSake and the songs are on there so now you can see how bad the songs are.

Finally, whenever the Sharks had a "Power Play" which, contrary to what I thought is not when a player runs over a flashing power up and then starts running twice as fast as the other players for 30 seconds, is actually when the opposing team goes a player down after they've committed a foul and been sent to the sin bin. Anyway, at this point the fans are instructed to make this weird motioning with the hands - I guess to look like a shark chomping on something, but it's unfortunately the action I've taught William that you do for a crocodile. Regardless, it looks like some demented version of the Birdie Song.

Don't get me wrong though. I did enjoy it.