Sometimes, it's tough being a visiting team fan.
You risk having beer poured on you by the more belligerent set of home fans, you take abuse for your jersey from some corners and the arena goes oddly quiet when your team does anything good.
And when you're this Dallas Stars fan at Friday's game against the Vancouver Canucks, Kari Lehtonen shoots a puck at your head. Sure, the Stars goalie didn't mean to flip the puck over the glass and right into this guy's nose, but things like that happen in warmups.
Like most players do when things like that happen (like this memorable incident where Trevor Daley gave a young fan his stick after a broken glass incident), Lehtonen tried to make things right. He got the fan a towel and eventually passed along his goal stick.
Unfortunately for the fan, the female fan next to him was a little overenthusiastic about the towel and tried to swipe it as her own souvineer. It all eventually worked itself out, but it made for some funny video as chronicled here by Puck Daddy.
After the jump, more on the Stars loss to the Canucks and tonight's game with the Sharks, as the Twitter world turns and some karma to the man who started the Phoenix Coyotes ownership mess.
- Like I wrote in last night's recap, most Stars fans I knew were more than slightly disheartened when we found out Roberto Luongo had injured his neck during warmups and Cory Schneider would start in his place. And as it turned out, we had good reason to be worried as Mike Heika details in this paywalled gamer. [DallasNews.com]
- With less than 24 hours to prepare for their next game, the Stars were ready to turn their focus forward. [ESPN Dallas]
- Although it was the Stars poor defense that eventually did Dallas in, the Canucks were in the position to win the game because of a superb outing from Schneider. [The Province]
- In a way, I guess I shouldn't feel too bad if I believe this story - the Canucks have played a lot of desperate teams recently and gotten wins over most of them. [Vancouver Sun]
- Two notable updates from the Twitter world. First, despite claims to the contrary (and RTs from DBDers not to be mentioned), Adam Pardy has not joined the Stars Tweeting contingent. And after the game, Jamie Benn and Adam Burish found some time for a little moose love. [@DallasStars/@otter2nine]
- This update on the Stars playoff hopes was written before Friday's game to the Canucks, and that makes me very, very sad. [ProHockeyTalk]
- Brenden Morrow was one of only two Stars players to finish on the plus side of the ledger on Friday, and even though he's still making a few too many trips to the penalty box, the Stars captain said he's finally getting himself up to speed. [DallasNews.com]
- Pekka Rinne is quite good. [Puck Daddy]
- Not that it mattered much to the Los Angeles Kings on Friday, but Jeff Carter's ankle injury is significant enough that he's on crutches and wearing a walking boot. [LA Kings Insider]
- Meet the enemy, part the first: The Canucks had been in an offensive slump before playing the Stars, and we all know how that worked out. The Sharks, meanwhile, are also struggling to find the back of the net. Only the Stars know if history will repeat itself tonight. [San Jose Mercury News]
- Meet the enemy, part the second: About that goal scoring thing - some of those trades they made from areas of strength, specifically moving Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley, are a big part of the reason while the goal total has dropped. [CSN Bay Area]
- Around the Pacific Division, the game: Stars fans turned into Edmonton Oilers fans for at least one night, but the Oil were rather hapless in their 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings that gave LA control of the Pacific Division. [Edmonton Journal]
- Other scoreboard watching: If the Colorado Avalanche end up catching the Stars, there's more trouble than I want to admit, but they extinguished the Calgary Flames for good Friday with a 4-1 win. [CBC.ca]
- Jim Balsillie, the man who is single-handedly responsible for the Phoenix Coyotes ownership mess after tempting Jerry Moyes into an illegal bankruptcy, has seen his net worth drop by $3 billion. Yes, you read that right. When you can't play well with others in the business world, shockingly, people stop buying your product. [Forbes]
- The post-game interviews weren't up by the time I went to bed (and for those of you who see how late I post on Twitter, you know exactly how late that must be), so instead, I present to you how the Stars spent their Friday morning.