I CONTINUED my education of North American sports tonight by attending an ice hockey game in Vernon.
I was talking sports with the guest services manager at Silver Star and he told me my visit to this part of British Columbia would be complete unless I saw the Vernon Vipers play a game at their home ground, so tonight we ventured down the hill for three periods of action on an arena of frozen water.
And it was good, very exciting, and so much better live than on television.
The Vernon team plays in the third level of competition - there are the pros in the NHL and a semi-pro circuit that nearby Kelowna plays in, and tonight I saw the boys aspiring to play professional ice hockey working towards getting drafted.
The highlight, and all-in brawl in the final minutes of the match when every player on the ice was involved in a fight.
And they weren't playing, punches were thrown and it took the umpired several minutes to break up the brawl and another long block of time working out all the penalties.
