Captain's Practice Numba 2! 8-26-10

I'm developing quite a habit of putting miles on my car.  Ahhhhh, just like old times!  Although there seems to be a distinct lack of disparity in my activities these days.  Hockey and baseball.  Baseball and hockey.  And...as my dear friend Sadako would say..."that's about at it!".   But what can I say??  I luvs it!

So the week of August 23rd it was reported by various eyewitnesses that there were a few new skaters on the ice. Of most interest to me were the two Joe's.  So off I went to San Jose on my day off.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Roll call!!

Ya got your Burger Line:  Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley (Jumbo heated patty). 

Patrick Marleau is a Screamer. Who knew? Capitals at Sharks 1/7/12

"Dan made a great play to see me and Patty just gave a little scream so I knew where he was." Thornton said.  "Patty just talking made that all happen."

All Adrienne wanted for Christmas was tickets to this game...and after the aborted Tampa Bay game, I made sure it happened. I ended up buying tickets off of Craig's List, which always makes me super nervous.  Consequently, I paid more than I would have liked and the seats were the highest we have ever sat in the Tank.  But it's all good.  We were there and got to see a stellar effort from the Sharks. 

And of course some fun in warmups...

Day 3 of the "Quick Road Trip of Epic-nous" 3/24/11

So a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...  Not really, but I'm having an Alzheimer-y moment of my own and can't remember exactly what happened a year ago.  Sad...very, very sad.  

Usually I rely on my photos to help along my memories when I blog belatedly. Today, that is adding to the confusion.  Reason being that I only have hockey photos edited and saved for "day 3" of our vacay last year.  But...but...but... We HAD to do more than that on day 3.  I really thought we went to Disneyland all three days (having a 3-day pass and all).  But surely, knowing myself, I would have had some photos...

...Oooohhhhhh.  ::lightbulb:: I realize what happened.  Some of the pictures that I credited as being on our first day at Disneyland were actually on the second day.  Now I'm trying to decide if I want to go back and edit or if I want to just leave it as is...hmmmm....this kinda sucks.  And because I'm sick and feeling fairly terrible, I'm having trouble filtering my thoughts which is why you get to hear my whole process.  lol  Sorry. 

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Okay, decision made.  I see what I did and I'm not going to undo it. lol  Not really that important....the memories are still there; it doesn't really matter that I combined the first two days. Everything that I posted happened, just a bit out of sequence in a few spots.

We'll just devote this post to the hockey portion of the day.

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And on with the story:  After spending the morning and early afternoon at Disneyland, we headed  back to the hotel to get ready for the Sharks vs. L.A. Kings. We had bought tickets online as well as a parking pass.  I've been to Staples before, but only for X-Games.  And that hasn't been for a few years unfortunately.  So of course that equaled to us getting lost trying to find the parking lot we were assigned.

It took us several turns around the building to find it and it was several blocks away which was not what we were hoping for with the intermittent showers.  But find it we did and we hustled our asses through the busy streets to try to make it for warm-ups.  

Saw a lot of Sharks fans - a welcome sight since you never know how you're going to be received in an away arena. We made it inside and found our seats.  

My Day at Sharks Training Camp

The things I'll do for my new-found passion....I didn't realize the transition from casual hockey fan to passionate Sharks fan would put so many miles on my car!    I left Sacramento @ 5:47 a.m. on a Sunday morning to head to Sharks Ice in San Jose for day 2 of the Sharks training camp.  I should have been snuggly in my bed.  But, les presents d'occasion as they say. 

It was a semi-eventful drive - hit some rain in Dixon...saw some crazy looking mountain sheep on the side of the freeway near Sunol...saw a dude dressed in Raiders gear come out of a perfectly barren field to walk up to a CHP car that was monitoring the road construction.  Asking directions to Oakland perhaps?

I pulled into Sharks Ice at 8:05 and immediately walked over to the nice old gentlemen who were handing out wristbands.  Mr. Wristband asked what my tattoo meant....I answered "Peace & Harmony, Hope, and Honor" to which he replied "Well, I like the honor part".  hahahaha

Even though some people were lining up outside of the entrance to South Rink (for autographs presumably?), I headed over to the North Rink to grab a seat.  Settled in at center ice in the second row at about 8:16.  The Zamboni came around at 8:18 and kept me awake for the moment. 

I woke up in full a few minutes later when I heard a booming voice entering the rink. No, it was not Joe Thornton...  It was a fan whom I shall call Mr. Friendly.  In a demonstration of my usual luck, Mr. Friendly chose to sit right behind me, although there were many open benches on the bleachers. 

"Hi!  Hello!" said Mr. Friendly to just about everyone... "How long have you been a Sharks fan??" was a question put to most.  "ZOMG! I love the Zamboni!!"  Mr. Friendly put a strange (although possibly accurate) emphasis on the syllables.  Zam-bone-EE!  He proceeded to give a history of the Zamboni and then go on about how much he wants to ride one.  A couple people agreed that it would be really fun, at which point he sounded disgusted that they had fallen into his trap. "It's just an ice scraper.  No big deal."  Did you know that the ice at the Tank is only 2" deep? 

BTW, it was too fucking cold in the North Rink. I wonder how deep the ice is? :-p  And that Winnipeg is colder than Edmonton (or vice versa)?  I confess (as if you can't tell it from my prose thus far) that I was reading Solipsist and therefore feeling somewhat cynical and superior.  There are some good points in that book but I digress.  Mr. Friendly is glad when football is here because it means hockey is right around the corner.  He goes on to enumerate why all other sports suck...

...but suddenly I'm distracted because it's 8:39 and Antti Niemi enters the ice.  Thomas Greiss follows exactly one minute later.  Mr. Friendly is quite an asshole - yelling at Greiss (very LOUDLY) 'go away!  put him back in the cooler!  he sucks!' What a dick.  Now I don't feel bad about mocking him.

Group B practice was scheduled to start at 9:00 a.m., but as mentioned, the goalies and their coaches were on ice at 9:40.