Like hockey? Like dogs? Then take your four-legged best friend to see the San Antonio Rampage play the Peoria Rivermen at the AT&T Center Saturday. The Spurs-owned American Hockey League franchise’s fifth annual “Pucks and Paws” night will “attempt to set a world record for most dogs at a sporting event,” writes Jim Charshafian on the team’s website.
Admission is $15 for human hockey fans and $5 for canine puck lovers, with all proceeds from the “dog tickets” going to the Alamo Area Partners for Animal Welfare.
Inviting dogs to sporting events isn’t a new concept (baseball staduims have opened their doors a few times), but it might take hockey rinks a bit more effort to accommodate the animals. Writes Charshafian:
Fans are allowed to let their canines roam around the entire lower level of the concourse as long as they are leashed and water stations for the dogs will be available. There will be no additional stations provided by SS&E for pets to relieve themselves at the event but Rampage staff will be on hand for any accidents or incidents that may occur on site.
(That said, a “relief station” will be outdoors on the west side of the arena.)
It’s not clear from the Guinness World Records website if there already is an actual record for “most dogs at a sporting event.” San Diego’s baseball team, the Padres, took a shot at it last summer, opening Petco Park up to as many as 750 dogs, but when the game actually took place, the record that the team got certified by Guinness was “most dogs in a costume parade” (the definition of “costume” being very loose), with 337.
A Guinness World Record was also set at the Ballpark in Arlington last June, for “most people wearing sunglasses in the dark.” Reliant Energy, who sponsored the event, passed out more than 30,000 free sunglasses to fans (including former president George W. Bush) before an Astros-Rangers game, though only 424 official sunglasses-at-night wearers in a controlled section were required to set the mark.
All of which brings to mind The New Yorker‘s Calvin Trillin, who in 1977, volunteered to set the world record for most times saying “so what?” to the setting of arbitrary records.
But, record or no record, the real point of “Pucks and Paws” is the Rampage’s charitable partnership with AAPAW. There will be adoption stations set up around the AT&T Center, with some of the available animals getting showcased via a Zamboni ride. (Zamboni not included with adoption.)
