“Watch out for flying pucks.”

That advice is posted at Yost Ice Arena in at least four places, warning spectators that the sport they’re watching involves a frozen, rubber disk moving at high speeds.

But it’s easy to ignore such a warning. A layer of glass, netting behind the goals and an overwhelming sense that the action is separate from the stands removes fans from the action on the rink.

How often does a puck make it out of the stands anyway? Once or twice a game, tops.

That was certainly what I thought last Friday night while watching Michigan’s 3-0 loss to Bowling Green from the student section. One of my friends mentioned during the third period how he would like to get his hands on a puck.

“Impossible,” I said. We were sitting in the first row behind the glass. For a puck to land anywhere near us would take an act of God — or at least a couple crazy bounces.

Less than 10 minutes later, I was proven wrong.

You see, somehow the impossible happened. A puck jumped over the boards, probably deflected off the netting, maybe the glass, and knocked right into my head.

My first instinct was to go for the puck, which was right in front of me on the ground. About two seconds later, I saw the first drop of blood land on my hand.

“Weird,” I thought. “Who’s bleeding?”

It took just a few more seconds for me to realize the blood was mine.

As I walked around Yost’s south stands to get some medical attention, I saw the warning for what must have been about the thousandth time: “Watch out for flying pucks.”

We see so many warnings in our life that it’s pretty hard to take most of them seriously.

How many of us are more careful when we see one of those yellow, “Caution, Wet Floor” cones in Mason Hall?

How many times have you gotten to the intersection of Arch and Packard late at night when there’s no traffic and said, “Why is it right turn only here? I’m going straight.”

How many text messages have you sent in class, probably in clear view of the professor or GSI, even though you were explicitly told on the first day of class that no cell phones are allowed?

We’re old enough to make smart choices, and even when you follow warnings it doesn’t always prevent that bad thing from happening.

I was watching Friday’s game closely before that puck hit me in the head. But the puck popped into the air, and I lost track of it (ask anyone who was sitting with me; I wasn’t the only one surprised when it landed in our row).

So now I have five stitches in my head, reminding me that the next time I go to a hockey game, I probably should “watch out for flying pucks.” Maybe those stitches are telling me to find a safer seat when I go back to Yost.

But one bad experience doesn’t mean you stop trying. It doesn’t mean you move from the first row to the back of the section because it’s a “safer” place to sit.

If there’s one thing we all learn in college, it’s that mistakes do happen — a lot. So what?

When Michigan plays Michigan State on Saturday at Yost, I’ll be there.

And while “watch out for flying pucks,” will probably be in the front of my mind, I’m not giving up that front row seat for anything.

— Sandals can be reached at nsandals@umich.edu.