One of the best videos ever. Ev. Er.
Allen Iverson can't get excited about practice but I sure can! Especially when it's a San Jose Sharks practice and I rarely get to attend one due to my work schedule.
So the day before the Penguins game, my daughter and I decided to head to San Jose in the hopes of catching at least one and possibly two practices. Unfortunately, the Pens practiced at HP Pavilion which is closed to the public. But we did not feel at all let down.
It was a fairly serious practice with Todd, sometimes known as Koala, working extensively on special teams. Especially our atrocious PK. Quite a bit of cursing ensued which caused one mother on the bleachers to repeatedly cover her young son's ears.
Jumbo still found some cause for levity...as he always does.
One thing I have to say about practice that I love is just how much the players are like boys out there having fun! There's always a lot of smiles (I'm looking at you Pavelski) and laughter.
And usually some messing around with each other, which was definitely the case on this day. Jason Demers, who is having a pretty hard season so far, was being picked on by Jamie McGinn and Benn Ferriero. At first Jason just kept telling Jamie to stop...which of course he wouldn't. Soon it evolved into a battle.
DISCLAIMER: I know most of the following pictures are terrible. The glass was completely scratched up and that's all my camera wanted to focus on from my seat in the bleachers. But it was just too cute to not post.
This one is Jamie wrestling Jason, and Benn sits on him for good measure.
Jason starts to get the best of Jamie (which, in a real fight, I seriously doubt would occur). And then Jason wins!
Of course this happened at the end of practice, after all the serious work had been done. There was a lot of lecture and the players who were not actively participated listened intently.
Nemo is looking at me. tee hee. Yes Mr. Niemi...I am the sniper.
Brent Burns received a lot of one-on-one instruction and asked a lot of questions.
I have to just stop a moment to say that Burns is incredibly goofy and incredibly hot all at the same time. My goodness. And the tats. *swoon*
Okay, I've recovered now. Sorry about the 15 year old girl in me getting loose. Happens quite a bit on Twitter. Back to the photos...
Our fourth line has been really, consistently good this year. These guys seem pretty dedicated to that. They hung out after the formal practice was over talking (about hockey, I assume) for well over 20 minutes.
Another interesting note was Jim Vandemeer teaching Winchester some fight moves. This would come in to play the very next day as Winchester took on the Pens Craig Adams at the end of the first period.
Winchester won handily...not sure if that can be attributed to the tutoring from Vandy or the fact that Harvard grad Adams is not known as a fighter at all.
As you may have noticed in an earlier picture, there was a relatively new face at practice. James Sheppard. Although he was trying to go incognito by wearing Pickles' shirt, he watched practice from the "loft".
And then joined the boys on ice at the end of practice for some conversation, laughs and shooting practice.
And on that note, I will say with regret that - once again - Marty Havlat eluded me. I go to training camp, he is scarce. I go to opening night...he doesn't play. I go to practice, he takes practice off. LOL Luckily he did play the next day against the Pens and I got my very first Havlat fix. Still no good pictures though. Damnit.
After practice ended, they boys were really good about stopping and signing for the fans. They always are and it always impresses me. Hockey athletes are truly the best in that regard.
After practice, Adrienne and I headed to Santana Row for a quick lunch and some cupcakes to take home. We ate at Wahoos, which was delicious and healthy. And then spoiled it by buying Kara's Cupcakes next door.
But this wasn't really to be a healthy eating day anyway. We headed to San Francisco to meet my sister Rose at her office and then head to dinner. We wanted to eat at Elizabeth Faulker's restaurant Citizen Cake in honor of her competing on Food Network's Next Iron Chef.
Rose and I had eaten at Citizen Cake at it's previous location and the food and patisserie were absolutely wonderful. Not so much today. I won't go into much detail about the food, but I will say that the best things about dinner were the Brussels sprouts, potato chips, wine, and baked beans. In that order. Dessert, though, was delicious. Some photos...
My dessert was in another picture which I cannot seam to find. Oh well. It was an interesting tasting and visually beautiful pistachio mouse couture cake.
This is me and my sister. I'm the one with long hair.
And my beautiful daughter. Who actually forbid me to put her picture on the internet. But since I don't think people actually read this blog and it's mainly for my own edification, it doesn't count, right? I mean, RIGHT?
Just in case it counts, I made it small. lol
