utah 31, ucla 6

As we were having a couple of beers at the Leprechaun Inn on Saturday, my phone rang: it was my work friend Jody.  She had been given two VIP tickets to the football game up at the U that afternoon but since it was currently snowing, and she gets cold very quickly, she and her husband wanted to know if H and I would be interested in going, since we spend a lot of time outdoors in the cold.  Of course we said yes! and since kick-off was going to happen in about two hours, we paid our tab, rushed over to Jody's house to pick up the tickets and then hurried home.  We quickly donned long-johns, wool socks and various fleeces and then drove off again to the Trax station.  Our timing was perfect and we jumped on a train without waiting for more than five minutes, changing to a different line a couple of stops up the track so we could go straight to the U.

Party in the Club room

It was snowing pretty steadily when we got to Rice-Eccles Stadium, about twenty minutes before kick-off.  It took us a little while to figure out where our seats were but once we did, we were thrilled: in through the VIP gate, up the elevator two floors to the Club level and then out to our seats that were completely covered so that  although it was cold (about 34 F) we were totally dry.  Back inside, there was a huge room filled with tables and people eating a complementary turkey dinner, a hot dog station, platters of brownies and gallons of soda and hot chocolate - all for free.  We missed out on the dinner since we didn't get there until right before the game started, but we absolutely availed ourselves of the hot dogs, hot chocolate and dessert.  I don't know if we can ever go back to sitting in the bleachers!

Pretty happy with our tickets

The snow kept coming down until well into the second period and we felt sorry for the hoi polloi down there in the uncovered seats.  In fact, we probably wouldn't have been dressed warmly enough if we'd been out there getting wet.  The play was pretty sloppy for the first half, both teams struggling with the wet field and wet ball but once the clouds lifted, the Utes figured things out and kept giving the ball to John "The Wolfman" White, who rushed for 167 yards and scored three touchdowns.

After the game, we got back on Trax and cruised on home.  We hadn't thought that we would get to a Ute game this year since tickets are all but impossible to come by now that Utah is in the PAC 12.  But we got lucky - thanks to my very nice friend who thought of us - and had a great, if unexpected, evening cheering on the boys in crimson.  Go Utes!