as the week went on, hopes continued to rise and on friday, i got the news that he WOULD in fact be coming. there was a chance he might be able to get tickets for myself and the donahooligans, but we wouldn't know until game day, and possibly very late.
we decided to go ahead and purchase tickets-we just couldn't miss it! a couple hours before the game i got word from spencer that he wasn't able to get the tix, so it was a gamble rewarded.
we got to the staples center very early. SO early that most of our happy little group had to kill some time while i was picking up my tickets, waiting for the doors to open.
just as rach and i finally entered the arena, about 40 minutes before the game, i got another text from spencer saying that he'd gotten a couple of tickets. we headed back outside to wait at will call* for the jazz to drop off their tickets, at which point, we grabbed the two, and worked our way back inside.
*sidenote: THIS conversation made me feel like the coolest person ever:
me: have the jazz dropped off their tickets yet?
will call agent: um, i don't know, are you EXPECTING tickets
me: yes (thinking, DUH)
will call agent: okay, i'll check.
will call agent: here you go, they just barely dropped them off
me: thanks
i know it doesn't SEEM that dramatic, but trust me, it totally was.
about 15 minutes later, we got another text from spencer saying that he'd gotten a couple MORE tickets, so we all decided to head down. all told we ended up with 6 tickets in the lower sections (there were 7 of us).
but, what had been an obstacle before turned in to a blessing. the jazz/clippers game was the first of a double-header and would be followed by a laker game. the tickets were good for both games, so that meant that getting tickets through 'traditional' means was a non-option, and i had to resort to those resell ticket sites.
because all those ticket holders were laker fans however, the arena was dead empty for the first game. so empty we could hear what the players were saying to each other on the court. so empty that when we cheered for spencer's entry in the game, the volume was deafening (and probably embarrassing). truly i've never seen a sporting event so poorly attended and i even felt a little bad for the clippers!
we were able to sneak our extra person in and all of us ended up with really good seats...jen, nic, rach, and i were in the 8th row of the bottom section. i'll probably never have seats like that for anything ever again!
needless to say, it was soo exciting and moving to see spencer take the floor for warm ups. the jazz wrung a lot of tears from me back in the malone, stockton, hornacek days. they were a team that i invested body and soul into, and had my heart broken over and over and over. i know people sometimes have difficulty understanding obsessive fandom, and i don't know that i can explain it rationally, i just know that for several years, i was so connected to the success of a sports team that any given day could be elevated or destroyed based on the outcome of a game.
when i left utah, i left my obsession behind. partly because the team was changing so much and partly because it is very difficult to follow a non-local sports team, and even more so then. that fire needs fuel, and when you're on the other side of the country with little to no broadcast access, it's easier to let sanity take control again:)
so as you might imagine, seeing spencer play with the utah jazz held a lot of meaning for me.
.....continued in part 2......
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