San Diego Gulls

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What you missed at the Gulls' home opener

By Larry Knowles

November 7, 2005

San Diego--The San Diego Gulls home opener took place at the iPay One Center on Saturday night before a near-capacity crowd and plenty of pageantry.

The pre-game hoopla elicited enough bemusement, mirth, and grief to last the entire evening.

Mr. Yellow Pages, the mascot of the Verizon Yellow Pages, received a tepid welcome during introductions. Flanked by two Gulls mascots, the block figure looked left and right for a little love. What he got was silence. The befuddled crowd didn’t know what to make of Mr. Yellow Pages.

Then the Stockton Thunder took the ice, ignominiously—without introductions and to a healthy chorus of boos.

Politics, just then, seemed a little too self-serving. Soon, though, the puck dropped and attention turned to Gulls hockey.

If sport is like entertainment, then the beginning of this contest played out like the opening scene in a Bond movie: Action came immediately, before the opening credits.

The puck still had Sanders’ fingerprints on it when the Gulls’ Guillaume Fournier scored at the 1:22 mark, triggering a Pavlovian reaction from the crowd.

Opening night for the Gulls also happened to be Teddy Bear Toss night. The first stuffed animal shot over the glass and landed behind the Stockton net. Then a half dozen objects flew over the glass. In a matter of seconds, thousands of stuffed animals were floating through the air—the closest thing to a flurry San Diego’s seen in ten years.

The good times didn’t last long, though. Stockton answered on a power play goal by Mike Lalonde at 6:56. The crowd reacted with silence, then showered the arena with boos.

San Diego fans are knowledgeable. When the puck got tied up on the boards at the 11:15 mark, a half dozen orange and blue clad gents on the opposite side of the glass jumped to their feet and gesticulated for the fists to start flying.

At the first intermission on-ice entertainment continued. First, the Gulls Girls took center ice and performed a routine routine to Van Halen’s “Panama.” Then, as part of the season-long Gulls Survivor contest, a half dozen fans competed in a hot dog eating contest.

At 11:37 in the second period, the crowd surged to life when the Gulls’ Frantisek Skladany scored off a soft rebound to the right of the net to give San Diego a 2-1 lead.

But boos once again cascaded onto the ice three minutes later when Stockton scored off a series of precise, one-touch passes around the Gulls net. Mike Lalond notched his second goal of the evening, while Maris Ziedins and Aaron Foster assisted.

The first fight occurred less than a minute into the second period.

Throughout the contest, Gulls Girls stood at all exits and performed routines during breaks in the action. There were male cheerleaders, too. But, while the Gulls Girls looked sexy, these guys just looked insane. They boogied and high-stepped up and down the aisles while waving white t-shirts and pandering to the crowd.

At the second intermission, the Girls performed their best-choreographed routine of the night. Then an odd sketch between a 91x DJ and a pratfalling panda bear on ice skates had the crowd scratching its head. Finally, thousands of orange projectiles sailed through the air as part of a fan contest called Chuck-a-Puck.

In the third period, one of the largest fan reactions occurred during a bit called Kiss Me. In this between-action segment the PA announcer identified couples in the stands and asked them to kiss for the cameras. One tough guy waved his finger defiantly at the camera as his girlfriend sat stoically next to him. San Diego is a chivalrous town and the crowd expressed its disapproval in no uncertain terms.

The game really heated up in the third period. The Gulls showed more competitive fire than in the previous two periods. As the game clock ran below 5:00, the winged scavengers seemed to sense that their home opener was heading for a loss.

The play became more physical and the second fight of the match broke out at 16:38. The crowed cheered and rap music played on the PA system as the two players traded haymakers.

The Gulls’ grit paid off.

With 2:34 remaining Skladany scored a split second after teammate Richard Keyes won a face-off in the Stockton end. The crowd erupted.

The game went into overtime. But tonight was not meant to be for the Gulls. Only 53 seconds into the action, Steve Slonina tucked a shot past Gull keeper Tyler Weiman and clinched the game for Stockton.

Patrons began filing out as a throng of blue and yellow Stockton shirts congregated in front of the San Diego net.

Notes: The announced attendance was 12,920, but the actual attendance fell a grand or two short of that...The Gulls next home game is this Sunday, the 13th, against the Phoenix Roadrunners.

San Diego Gulls official site: www.sandiegogulls.com