Last night, thanks to my girlfriend, I had the pleasure of enjoying a Sunday evening away from my studies. My girlfriend got me tickets to the Monarchs v. Lynx game because she knows I'm a Monarchs fan, but also that my girl Candice Wiggins plays for the Lynx. As I mentioned before, I went to the Monarchs v. Sparks game (also courtesy of my gf) to see the other Candace play. I was also debating which Monarchs Jersey to get, #21 Ticha Penicheiro or #14 Nicole Powell. After the Olympics though, I decided I better represent with #20 Kara Lawson diggs (See Kara in her #7 Olympic jersy above). In my very first post on this blog I spoke about my love of Ice & Ace, lesson learned, talk about it on the blog, and it might just happen! ...just kidding sweetie ;)
Anyway, while the Monarchs were victorious 78-71 and Wiggins didn't play particularly well, the true story of the evening was everything else on and mostly off the court.
First: My grilfriend tells me she's not quite sure where our seats are, but doesn't think they are that great. As it turns out we are in the fifth row, practically on the court, almost dead center but just left of the broadcast table. When we sit down (in a crowd of dykes) I start looking to the court as everyone is warming up. Someone sitting court side catches my eye. Its an older woman and I'm wondering why she looks familiar and then it dawns on me, its freaking Tara Vandaveer! Later in the game Jayne Appel showed up too. She is looking really fit, I know she got a lot of crap for her endurance last season and I am excited to see what she has in store this year. There were a lot of Stanford fans there in support of Wiggins, so I guess its only fitting her former coach and teammate would be there too.
Second: There were a lot of Kings in attendance. I think its nice that they are out in support of the women's team and seemed real friendly to all the fans.
Third: My girlfriend and I have been getting lucky this summer at sporting events, we always sit near really funny female hecklers. At the Giants v. Dodgers game we had an amazing heckler that had us and everyone close by laughing to the end. Thats a story for another day. The woman behind us last night was a season ticket holder, witty, smart, and had the perfect voice for yelling at the referees. She put the woman at the Dodgers game to shame.
Fourth: The referees were just really off last night, which was made all the more hysterical by the aformentioned woman. On duty was #8 Daryl Humphrey, #43 Brenda Pantoja (take that link with a grain of salt), #50 Shelly Nakasone. Of all of them, Daryl was making particularly bad calls.
At one point, after a few bad calls by Daryl, Shelly was doing an inbound on our side of the court, and Daryl was across under the hoop. It was pretty quite in the arena and the woman behind us yelled, "Hey Shelly, I think you need to give Daryl a little help tonight, I don't think he's seeing clearly." All three referee's heard the comment and started laughing. In the interview I linked you, Daryl said, "You hear the comments sometimes, but as long as they are not too unprofessional, you can deal with them. You appreciate good humor and clever remarks as well." I think this was one of those moments. Later that night she was yelling at another ref to make a call because "Daryl swallowed his whistle". These types on comments were going on all night, and really at one point the fans were encouraging Coach Jenny Boucek to get a technical foul and just go off on the refs for their poor officiating. One of the funniest comments of the night came when Nicole Powell made an amazing block and they called her for a shooting foul. The woman said, "Shelly, you better remember that, its going to show up on your training video!"
All in all it was another wonderful night to remember at Arco Arena. Now its Monday, and I'm back to the grind of law school. I hope to get my head out of the books and update more often!
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