For those that don’t know me, let me introduce myself! My name is Megan Bonti, I’m 21-years-old and I’m from Southern Maine. My background primarily consists of film and photography and I’m very much excited to be writing for The Puck Authority. I want to thank Armand Klisivitch and Justin Levine for getting me started!
I never expected to fall in love with hockey like I have. Growing up in a small town in New Hampshire, the two most popular sports were largely baseball and football. Nobody in my immediate family was interested in it and schools in my area didn’t have teams.
I wasn’t exposed to it until my sophomore year of high school. As a student of the French Club, I was a part of a yearly trip to Old Quebec City. The first night we arrived, I had downtime in the hotel room and turned on the TV in an effort to find a station broadcasting in English.
The only one that I could find was a station broadcasting a playoff game between the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks. It was late for us, but I stayed up the rest of the night to finish watching the game. On previous occasions, I had found it difficult to enjoy watching sports, but hockey had me hooked from the very beginning. After returning home, I started watching whatever games I could catch on TV after school.
It wasn’t until over a year after I had graduated high school that I attended my first hockey game in November of 2018. One of my close friends decided to purchase tickets for us to attend a Maine Mariners v. Worcester Railers game and I was bouncing in my seat the whole way there. Upon entering the Cross Insurance Arena, I could already feel the excitement of the other spectators around me.
We had the cheapest tickets in the arena and the farthest away from the glass that we could possibly be, but I loved every second. There’s something about the sound and the energy you hear and feel in the arena before and during a game. The anticipation of the initial puck drop at the beginning of the game.
When the home team scores and the entire arena jumps from their seats in elation. You can feel the buzz and the energy long after it happened. There’s excitement when a fight breaks out on the ice and you can feel the disappointment when the opposing team scores. I think that it’s one of my favourite places to be.
This season, I was lucky enough to attend three Maine Mariners games. One against the Adirondack Thunder, one against Brampton Beast and the last against the South Carolina Stingrays. I told myself this season was the one I’d attend every possible game that I could.
Coworkers can attest to my love of the game. I’d be buzzing with excitement the evening before. There were multiple day-off requests submitted in order to attend more games, but unfortunately with the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was cut short and I was unable to spectate any others.
Disappointed as I was, (and I still am disappointed), I continue to remind myself of my love for the game and the fun I have at games, even on my own. Fellow attendees sitting next to me become friends, even if just for the night as we each give our own commentary and share our frustrations. I love to listen to the skates across the ice and the pucks hitting the glass during the game.
I love to watch the players move almost seamlessly to execute plays and score points. There’s nothing else like it and I can’t wait to attend another.