took me more than a few strokes down the rink before I noticed that there was something odd about the crowd. In the first place, they let out a whoop of excitement when we skated onto the ice. If this were a home game, that would be perfectly normal. But how many fans could we have this far from home? And the cheers and hollers did not let up. The clapping and stomping actually escalated as we skated, as if The Rolling Stones were due to follow us out for a command performance. Raising my head, I tried to make sense of it. The first thing I saw was a sea of color. Some of it was on the people.
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