Okay, one last Surprise story from the NHL All-Star Game in Dallas.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the game itself took place during the intermissions, when two full-sized stages, filled with instruments, amps and other musical paraphernalia, were lowered--that's right, lowered--from the rafters of the American Airlines Center to ice level, one at each end.
In between periods 1 and 2, country duo The Wreckers played a couple of quick songs at the North end and scooted, but in between periods 2 and 3, uber-hip powah-rawkahs The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus delivered a more inspired, somewhat lengthier performance at the South end.
Suddenly, a showdown. The intermission clock was counting down, and fast. The boys were in mid-set, jumping about and pouring their hearts out, while the ice-scraping Zamboni growled and steamed like a bull at the other end of the rink, waiting for its cue to clean.
The Zamboni made its move...and so did the stage...
15 feet or so up in the air, that is.
The oooh, ahhs and pointed fingers at this somewhat precarious spectacle equaled, if not out-did, any of the thrills provided by the players that eve.
So as the Zamboni did its turns around the ice, the Red Jumpsuiters did theirs high above it.
And one can only wonder the initial reaction in some NHL boardroom, during the debate on how to deal with a band that wanted to play and an ice surface that had to be polished, when someone raised his or her hand and suggested "Hey, why don't we just raise the stage?"
It's this type of (pardon the pun) pie-in-the-sky thinking that is the embryo of great Surprise.