Royalty sees AHL hockey in Springfield, Massachusetts!

Prince at MassMutual Center

After the King and I went to the Basketball Hall of Fame, we got in the car and we drove over to nearby downtown Springfield. We parked the car up the block from the MassMutual Center, home of the Springfield Falcons, the minor league affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets. It's also the home of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference aka the MAAC tournament which takes place in March. We parked by a meter around 5:15PM but we didn't have to put money in because the sign said they're only in effect Monday-Friday.

We proceeded to walk around to look for a place to eat. I was hoping to find a place called the Red Rose which is an Italian restaurant that people we know rave about.

Unfortunately we walked the wrong way trying to find it. As a result, we wasted precious time. By the time we walked back and we went in the other direction it was too late to go there. When we passed by, it was jam packed with people eating and waiting to be seated.

As a result, we wound up settling for Crown's Fried Chicken which was fast and convenient.

After we ate, we walked over to the arena. There was a guy who said he had an extra ticket. We approached him and he said he wanted $5 for it. It happened to be a complimentary ticket but it was better than paying $20 at the box office. With that being said, we bought it. We walked down the block to the box office and there was a long line of people who were waiting to buy tickets. So we went back outside and asked around for a ticket. After a short time, a lady came to me and she said I have an extra ticket from my company. She proceeded to hand it to me and we happily went inside. We wound up getting a pair of tickets for $5.

We got in the building as the players were still warming up. It worked out well as we found seats in the same section as the ticket the lady gave me so we went there and we sat down and enjoyed the game together.
As for the game we saw, the Falcons were hosting the Portland Pirates who are the Phoenix Coyotes' farm club.
In the first period, the Pirates took the early lead as Chris Brown scored to make it 1-0 7:11 into the game. The Falcons got even late with 2:03 left as Wade MacLeod scored to tie it at one. In the second period, Boris Valabik scored his first goal of the season to give the Pirates a 2-1 lead with 5:01 left. In the third period, the Pirates got an insurance goal as Rob Klinkhammer buried the biscuit to give the Pirates a 3-1 lead with 11:27 to go. They went on to beat the Falcons as the announced crowd of 3,776 went home unhappy except for the handful of Pirate fans who made the trip down.

Stay tuned for the special post that I'm going to do about our adventure to Lewiston, Maine for some more AHL hockey.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman