A UMass Hoop Game, the Boston Garden, Thunder Sticks & the JumboTron

Image credit: J. Anthony Roberts/The Republican

My college roommate, our husbands and our six kids high-fived Sam the Minuteman on Saturday during something we rarely get to enjoy these days: A night out together that had nothing to do with youth sports or school activities. We watched our alma mater, UMass-Amherst, face off against Boston College in a men's basketball game at the Boston Garden.

Going to this raucous college basketball game after a long, stressful week was awesome for three reasons, despite the fact that my team lost in the end:

• I got to sit with my gal pal and make snarky wisecracks. (I need more time with friends, sans kids. Seriously. It happens too infrequently.)
• We got to yell at the top of our lungs and not be accused of spousal or child abuse. (My voice was hoarse after the game.)
• We got to make a lot of noise with the plastic thunder sticks the folks from Powerade distributed to the enthusiastic UMass fans (who far outnumbered the BC fans and we were in Boston), even though the people who run the Garden made an announcement saying that thunder sticks were banned from the arena.

It proved extremely cathartic to be able to scream, "Booooo!" in response to the refs' questionable calls and bellow from the pit of your stomach when the situation called for it because, in real life, I can't "boo" my kids when they tick me off or loudly make noise at people who irritate me.

As for the Picket Fence Post kids, their favorite moments included:

• Spending gobs of (my) money on food and drink. (Why are chicken fingers so freakin' expensive in arenas?)
• Appearing on the JumboTron three times while dancing like little maniacs and waving the thunder sticks during time outs for the express purpose of making it onto the Jumbo-Tron.

The Spouse and I joked afterward that we should bring the thunder sticks to The Youngest Boy's hockey game, just as a joke, to satirize folks who go overboard in their cheering/booing/screaming at youth hockey games, but then thought better of it as we weren't sure people would get that we were being ironic.

Image credit: J. Anthony Roberts/The Republican.