I just walked in my front door after attending my first ever National Hockey League game tonight. Sadly, the Capitals lost.

I’ve never been a big fan of sports. I played soccer as a kid, and I enjoyed it, but I’ve never been able to follow pro-soccer as an adult. I’ve given considerable thought that I would probably enjoy hockey, because from what little I know if it, soccer and hockey have more than a passing familiarity with each other in terms of how they’re played.

And I know that probably sounds weird, but, well, this is me saying it.

In any case, when the opportunity presented itself, I accepted an invitation to accompany a coworker to tonight’s game, against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The shuttle from work took forever, so we actually got to our seats just after the National Anthem.

Hockey’s a violent sport, I’ve been told, but it seems to me a lot of that just stems from the nature of big guys ice skating at top speed towards each other. They run into each other. They slam each other against the big plastic wall. My coworker, a generally quiet guy, surprised me by cussing: like, quite a bit. I meanwhile, think I surprised him by not cussing: usually I’m all about the “fuck this, fuck that, fuck it all!” at work as I rat-a-tat my keyboard, channeling Al Capone behind a Chicago typewriter.

The game itself was fantastic … I mean, not in the sense of how the Caps played, but my own reaction: I can’t ever recall being so excited at a sports event before. Coworker mumbled about the Caps playing defense, and kept urging what I thought was player number Seven to shoot: turns out he meant Alexander Semin, and I only know because I finally asked him, “Dude, I don’t see anyone with a number 7 on their jersey.”

In any case, I enjoyed myself, and parted ways with my coworker. He’s leaving the country at the end of the summer, and mentioned putting me on to his “dealer”: a friend of his with season tickets who misses several games a season and sells them cheap. It’s a far cheaper option than purchasing my own season tickets, but I think, especially next season, I could find myself actually following the Capitals.

After the game, I opted to skip the crowds at Chinatown — although I did not cuss at all in the Arena, I did nearly scream “WTF IT IS A GODDAMN CROSSWALK YOU GODDAMN NASTY-CURSE WORDS AIMED AT YOUR GENDER!” at a woman who made a right-hand turn into a crosswalk as people were, y’know, crossing at the intersection of 7th & H. I actually wound up walking to Farragut North, where I picked up the L2 to ride it home. However, no sooner did I arrive at Woodley Park, then I remembered the other errand I had to run in Chinatown: picking up a ticket to the 7pm showing of Watchmen. I sighed, disembarked the bus, and promptly descended into the depths of the Metro station.