I was so excited for the Wenatchee Wild game tonight. After a long road trip the Wild were returning to home turf to play the last team from whom they took 2 out of 3 games deep in enemy territory, Wasilla, AK (enter political commentary here). The boys had undoubtedly made new “friends” in the last few games and were now going to treat their new “buddies” to a little home cookin’ for the holidays.

 This was the perfect night to introduce the entire Tarr family to Wenatchee Wild hockey. My oldest daughter, my sister, her fiance, and my brother were all here from out of town for the holiday and so we rounded up a hodge podge of tickets in 4 different spots across the arena. We weren’t going to be able to sit together but were going to enjoy the game regardless. I fugured we’d probably text each other a few comments here and there throughout the game and then debrief at dinner after the game.

 I arrived earlier than the rest of the crew and walked down to my regular seats, right at the intersection of the glass and visitor penalty box; the center-most seats on the glass in the arena. When I got there, or at least near there I knew there was a problem. There were people sitting in my seats! I politely told the couple sitting in there that there must be a mistake and that they were in my seats, the seats I paid a lot of money to procure the right to sit in. We all pulled out our tickets in something akin to a wild west shoot out and to my surprise and embarrassment, they were in the right seats. Due to a few growing pains in the new arena, my new season ticket book had my seat numbers wrong. I knew in principle that the folks were sitting in MY seats, however the numbers don’t lie.

 I must admit, I was the very first person in line to buy season tickets to the new arena, before ground had been broken and when the Wild were nothing but a twinkle in the eyes of Rocky Flynn. I sheepishly left the seats to find a representative of the arena to help me sort this out. After a quick ping pong of radio calls, it was decided that our entire row of seats were off by 2 leaving the 2 seats at the end of the row, MY seats open for sale. They had been quickly swiped up by a nice couple included in the nearly 3000 folks that made it to the game last night.

 To my utter amazement and joy, the solution to this clerical faux paux was to put my entire family and I in a luxury box for the night; those well furnished and appointed cubbies usually occupied by the “upper crust”.  Yup, we were going big time! What an incredible way to experience the game. I’d stopped by a few boxes in the past to say hi, but I’d never experienced it as anything but an interloper. This time the luxury was all ours. We may have looked like the Clampetts on their first trek to Cal-E-forn-I-A, but we were loving it! How lucky, on the night my entire family was in attendance, scattered throughout the arena, in a great gesture of customer service by the folks at Town Toyota Center, we were all able to sit together for an exciting Wild win. The cherry on top of this incredible sundae of serendipity was certainly the goal by our own #4 Kyle Brodie!

 Thank you Ron, thank you Amy, and thank you Linda for taking such great care of us. So as Ferris Bueller said about a certain Ferrari, I will say of the luxury suites at the Toybox: “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”.

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