People of Our Pack, Chapter 6: On Top Of The Action

It's the fastest game on earth, and Jay Rader sits as close as you can get.
"You're a part of the game," he says, recollecting on the hundreds of Coyotes games he's watched from the glass as a season ticket member since 1996.
First row. Behind the net. Those seats didn't come without a price tag, though. Just like hockey players, hockey fans exude brute toughness; playing, persevering, and watching through pain.
A puck to the face? Conor Garland isn't alone. The story goes back to the team's days at America West Arena, where he and his family enjoyed seats away from the glitz of the glass.
"I was walking into the arena, my wife Sherry had driven to the game with my son Josh. When I got in, there was a bunch of people that were on top of someone - it looked like someone had a heart attack. It was my son. He had gotten hit by a puck. He was walking to our seats during warm-ups and a puck nicked his eye, it got his forehead, it missed his eye by less than half an inch."
Back then, the NHL had yet to institute protective netting at the ends of the ice. Jay and his family had corner seats, lower level. But that would be the last of that.
"They let us sit in the first row for that game."
And they never looked back.
"After you've sat in the first row, it's hard to go backward," he said with a laugh. "We loved it from the first moment. I immediately got four tickets on the glass, and I've been sitting on the glass ever since the team has played in Glendale."
With such high profile seats come regular candid appearances on TV and in photographs, usually capturing moments of celebration, elation.

Game-by-game and year-by-year, Jay's presence has become a fixture in celebrated visuals from Coyotes games, and people have noticed.
"Because I've sat in the front row for so long, I've had people in restaurants walk up to me and say 'you sit on the glass at the Coyotes games'. I've gotten on airplanes, I've had it happen on two separate occasions, where the pilots have come up to me when I was boarding and say 'I know you, you sit on the glass for the Coyotes games'."
There are many vantage points to enjoy a game, one of the many beautiful aspects to the sport. Some fans enjoy watching from up high, some from center ice, and others from the corner.
"There's pros and cons to sitting in every seat, and the cons of where I sit are obvious - you can't see the plays at the other end of the ice as well, you can't see the plays developing as well, but on the other side of the coin, watching everybody flinch when the puck hits the glass is really funny, and seeing the players get smashed into the boards right in front of your face is intense."
But of course, he's closest to some of the memorable moments in franchise history, the first to see the puck cross the goal-line for some of the biggest goals ever scored at Gila River Arena.
"Ray Whitney's goal, the 2012 Western Conference semis, Game 1 overtime. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Packed house, we had the whiteout, that moment was just incredible."
He and his son, Josh, were right there to see it.
Jay hopes to see more playoff hockey soon, as the Coyotes continue to scratch and claw to secure a berth, to bring back the whiteout, and to create more lifelong memories.
"I hope in my lifetime this team wins the Stanley Cup, and if they do, I will absolutely positively hug my son and start crying. If I could get to see that in my lifetime, win the Stanley Cup, and if I die right then and there, it'll be okay - and I mean it."