I've only been to two NHL games in my life. The first one was years ago when I was in my late teens/early 20s. My buddy and I purchased scalpers to a Toronto/Red Wings game but managed to get some decent seats for a decent price.
Toronto was up 7-0 on the Wings and I told my bud, a die hard Wings fan, well, this game is over. He told me lots of game left yet, Irv, but I thought it was just wishful thinking.
Long story short, the Wings came back and won that game.
My second NHL game was 10 yrs ago when I took my then 10 yr old son to his first game, a Toronto/Flyers game.
The Leaf's were fighting for a playoff spot and needed to win this game but you wouldn't know it. Half way through the second period, my son leaned over and put his head on my shoulder and said, dad, can we go.
He was bored as was I. It was an absolute boring, non eventful game up to that point and I remember thinking, more than once, I see way better hockey when I watch my Oshawa Generals, and for about an 1/8th of the price.
I told my son lets stick it out for the rest of the second and then we'd decide.
Before the second was over, Mikhail Grabovski had a goal scored from off his face. I forget the player who took the shot, but that's where it went before it deflected into the net. He was uninjured.
When that happened, and the place erupted in laughter and cheer, we decided to stick out the rest of the game.
Toronto ended up losing and in all honesty, my son never mentioned about ever going to another game, and personally, it really took away a lot of desire for me as well.