I have been arguing to my Sports buddies that the best place in the city to see hockey is down at Exhibition Place – the Ricoh Coliseum. There is not a bad seat in the house. No nose bleeds – this a place to watch hockey. What makes matters more interesting is that the Toronto Marlies are playing better hockey.
Here is some of the action I saw the other night versus Wilkes-BarreScranton Penguins. By the way this is AHL hockey – these teams are the number one farm clubs to the NHL. And with injuries and impatience plaguing NHL teams these guys know that they are just one break away from the big time. So the quality of the play is pretty good.
In fact as the pictures imply the speed is as good as the NHL. And so is the hitting. The biggest difference is the quality of the passing and playmaking. In three games at Ricoh I failed to see games without a lot of passing turnovers. At times it looked like a NBA game gone wrong – turnovers galore as neither team could get a shot on net before coughing up a pass to the opposition.
To be sure, there were some tic tac toe passing plays – and then the second weakness became obvious. The ability to put a shot on Net. Okay so the shots were on goal – and the NHLers are far from perfect. But OUCH! – the number of errant shots, it was scary.
However, for sheer fun of good up and down the ice hockey – these games are hard to match. And best of all you can find a great seat for just over a double fin. Not too shabby!
