159. SKA St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg's professional hockey team since 1946 is known as SKA (short for "Sports Club of the Army"), or SKA St. Petersburg. SKA plays in the KHL (Kontinental Hockey League), which currently includes 27 teams from seven countries (21 of the teams are from Russia). Apparently it's considered the top hockey league in the world after the NHL. Currently, SKA is enjoying a very successful period, and is the reigning 2016/2017 Gagarin Cup and 2017/2018 Opening Cup champion. Although it seems that FC Zenit is the main draw for sports fans in St. Petersburg, SKA runs a close second.
SKA's home games are played at the Ice Palace, a stadium on the east side of town. It's on the outskirts of the city but basically a direct trip from my apartment in the city center via a five-station ride on the Metro orange line. I attended a game on a Monday night after work, to watch SKA take on Barys from Astana, Kazakhstan. The stadium was almost full with 12,060 fans in attendance out of a capacity of 12,300. I believe the breakdown was approximately 12,040 SKA fans and 20 Barys supporters! Security was tighter than I've seen before - I was patted down, had my bag inspected twice, and had a picture taken of my face when I scanned my ticket. Guards stood in every section and security personnel formed a ring around the tiny delegation of Barys fans. I'm not sure if this is normal now at sporting events in Russia or elsewhere in the world, but there was nothing like this in place at the FC Zenit game I attended in the summer.
I think it has been approximately 17 years since I last attended (or watched on television) a hockey game, so I can't say that I'm a big fan of the sport or even understand all the rules. But it's usually a fun experience to enjoy the spectacle and excitement in person, and in this respect I was not disappointed. It's hard not to have fun when the home team wins 9-1! The score was 4-0 after the first period, scoreless in the second period, and 9-1 at the end of the game (with SKA notching its final point with just six seconds left to play). So the action continued almost non-stop. The only interruptions were four or five goals that were subject to video review by the referees (I have no idea what triggers a video review in this sport/league). This process took up to 10 minutes per review, so it was a bit of a momentum killer. But otherwise, this was definitely a great game.
Now I know what the Kazakh national anthem sounds like:
The SKA super fan section:
This is the entire fan section for Barys supporters (surrounded by security guards):
SKA's home games are played at the Ice Palace, a stadium on the east side of town. It's on the outskirts of the city but basically a direct trip from my apartment in the city center via a five-station ride on the Metro orange line. I attended a game on a Monday night after work, to watch SKA take on Barys from Astana, Kazakhstan. The stadium was almost full with 12,060 fans in attendance out of a capacity of 12,300. I believe the breakdown was approximately 12,040 SKA fans and 20 Barys supporters! Security was tighter than I've seen before - I was patted down, had my bag inspected twice, and had a picture taken of my face when I scanned my ticket. Guards stood in every section and security personnel formed a ring around the tiny delegation of Barys fans. I'm not sure if this is normal now at sporting events in Russia or elsewhere in the world, but there was nothing like this in place at the FC Zenit game I attended in the summer.
I think it has been approximately 17 years since I last attended (or watched on television) a hockey game, so I can't say that I'm a big fan of the sport or even understand all the rules. But it's usually a fun experience to enjoy the spectacle and excitement in person, and in this respect I was not disappointed. It's hard not to have fun when the home team wins 9-1! The score was 4-0 after the first period, scoreless in the second period, and 9-1 at the end of the game (with SKA notching its final point with just six seconds left to play). So the action continued almost non-stop. The only interruptions were four or five goals that were subject to video review by the referees (I have no idea what triggers a video review in this sport/league). This process took up to 10 minutes per review, so it was a bit of a momentum killer. But otherwise, this was definitely a great game.
Now I know what the Kazakh national anthem sounds like:
The SKA super fan section:
This is the entire fan section for Barys supporters (surrounded by security guards):
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