Wednesday morning, Aiden Lampard attended his first-ever hockey game. The third-grader from Ironwood Elementary School said his favorite part of the Tucson Roadrunners’ 5-3 loss to San Diego was all the fighting on the ice.
Eight-year-old Ava Taggart, meanwhile, enjoyed all the scoring.
She saw five goals in the final 15 minutes 34 seconds — just none by the Roadrunners. The visiting Gulls prevailed in the Roadrunners’ inaugural School Day Game, played in front of 6,521 fans at Tucson Arena. The Roadrunners donated tickets to local schoolchildren and moved Wednesday’s start time to a kid-friendly 10 a.m. The Pima County Schools Superintendent’s Office worked with the club to pull it off.
“I think it’s good for the community, having a new team here and a lot of kids seeing hockey — maybe for the first time for some of them,” Roadrunners forward Mike Sislo said. “It’s a good experience.”
The Roadrunners gave visiting students a workbook that included educational connections to the sport of hockey and provided video answers for fill-in-the-blank questionnaires. A video of captain Andrew Campbell revealed his favorite music is country (specifically, he likes Eric Church) and his favorite food is steak.
Sislo said he hopes the Roadrunners will do it again next season.
“I think it would be something that’s smart to continue to do and get more kids in the community involved and here to see some more hockey,” Sislo said.
The schoolchildren charged the arena with energy, which the players said they enjoyed.
“It was loud. I couldn’t hear myself talk,” forward Michael Bunting said. “It seems like they had fun and too bad we didn’t get the win for them.”
The Roadrunners jumped out to a 3-0 lead behind goals from Sislo, Mario Kempe and Bunting. San Diego cut the lead to 3-1 with 34 seconds left in the second period, then scored four goals — three by left wing Giovanni Fiore — in the third period.
“Anytime you’re at home and you go into the third with the lead, you expect to come out strong and to close out the game. So it’s definitely disappointing,” Sislo said. “Some things we’ll learn from and correct going forward.”
The Roadrunners will play a weekend series in San Antonio before returning home next week.
