Oh, Canada

As far as out-and-out madness goes, this was probably the biggest weekend of the season (at least regular...you never know come playoff time). Kristi and Tom on the road seeing western Canada. This is our story...and I think we can stick by it.

We'll pick up our adventure on Friday (since Thursday was fairly uneventful. Just a straight burn to Spokane. Get that one, Kristi??? LOL). We left the hotel at about 5:00am and just started driving like mad. We went up through northern Idaho (it seemed beautiful. But it was kinda hard to tell with it still being dark and all through most of it). The first interesting character we ran into was the Canadian border guard. After going through the usual questions, he asked us "why hockey"? I snapped back without hesitation "because we LOVE IT"! The guard kinda snickered "I thought Americans hated hockey". "Well", I said "at least a couple of us love it". He then gave us our stuff back and told us to have a good time.

And as the sun was coming up, we hit the mountains. Everywhere you looked there were tall peak after tall peak. In the Cascades, there are alot of hills with maybe a smaller mountain popping up here and there. But up there, they were all smaller mountains with larger mountains all around them. We pulled off in Cranbrook for a quick gas stop. While we were there, we made a quick once-around for the arena there just so she could see it. Believe it or not, as small as that town is, we couldn't find it (lol). I remembered about where it was. But it's a pretty tiny building (at least alot smaller than even say Tri-Cities or Kelowna). And we also didn't look all that hard. We were on a schedule, afterall. I did find out in Cranbrook that my ATM card doesn't work in those ATM machines that they have in the gas stations.

Going through Fernie, BC we saw a newer style Volkswagen Bug. But this one was a little different than the ones we're used to seeing. It was painted yellow with red and green stripes running up the middle. And on the front of the hood and on the side of the door, it had a cannibus plant painted on the side. Ahhh.....nothing like a free ad for some of that famous BC Bud (lol).

Somewhere in some little town along Crowsnest Pass in Alberta, we stopped off at a gas station to buy a road map of Alberta. And, in a very rare occurance, I decided to hand the keys over to Kristi so she could drive for a while. When we went up to Kelowna last April, she mentioned the first time she saw my car that she would love to drive it sometime. So I was kinda thinking about it along the way on Friday. And I figured that since she had never brought it up since and was patient about it, I would go ahead and let her drive for a while. And she did a really good job; nice and smooth. No sudden bursts of acceleration or testing the limits of the vehicle (lol). She seemed most facinated with the cruise control on the car (lol). At one point, in the middle of some long stretch, a smile washed over her face and she said "cruise control is awesome"! She was also amazed at how well it accelerated. Although I had to tell her that I was somewhat dissapointed in the acceleration of my current Mustang over the last one I had. But she still thought it was great. The only little bump she had was when she first started out, she stomped on the breaks a little hard and almost sent us through the windshield. "Oops! Sorry" she said. "I'm used to having to slam on the break peddle on my car to get it to stop". I told her that it was alright and to just keep going.

So about a half-hour from Calgary, she pulled over and let me back behind the wheel. As we headed into the city, you could see downtown from a good 15-20 miles away. I guess that's how it goes when you're on land that resembles a pancake. Of course, we stopped at one of the two Hooters they had there (Kristi has dubbed Hooters as "our place" ever since Kurt and I took her to the one in Beaverton. Although we've been to more Denny's than Hooters over the last year or so. I believe the count at this point is Denny's 4, Hooters 3. But I think she wants that to change...lol). After we were done eating, we each wanted a shirt. Me; a regular black one like I normally buy. Her; a tank-top. But our waitress came back to us and told us that they were all out of all women's wear except for sweatpants. So Kristi left somewhat dissapointed.

Now, since my ATM card didn't work at that gas station in Cranbrook, the one thing we needed more than anything was Canadian cash. And since Calgary is a rather large city and we didn't have time to hunt all over the place for a bank, we decided to press our luck and try to find one in the much smaller Red Deer. And since we only had about 90 minutes to get up there before the banks closed at 5:00, I decided to follow that age-old wisdom "when in Rome, do as the Romans do". Well, in this case, it was "do as the Albertans do". But you get the drift. Anyway, I just decided to hook-up with the fastest train of cars along the freeway and run with them. The speed limit along the way was 110kmph. Now, I believe that's around 70mph down here. All I know is that at times, we were hitting 90mph along with the other 8 or so cars heading up there. So time flew by rather nicely for us.

After we checked into the hotel, we asked the girl behind the counter if there were any banks around. Luckily, there was a mall just a couple blocks down from our hotel and she said that there were a couple of banks there. So we went straight from the lobby of the hotel to that mall. We found a bank there and made it inside with 7 minutes to spare (lol). So that little bit of stress was taken care of.

On the outside of the hotel, the place looked like an absolute dump. But once inside, the joint ruled! I had to rent out a suite there since it was all that was available. Which I've done before at other hotels. But most of those other suites basically just had a couch or two in them and not much else to distinguish them from the other rooms in the same hotel. But this one had the works! Not only did it have a couch and a recliner in it, it also had a full kitchen in there complete with a full-sized fridge and an oven. I think I had stayed at one other hotel like that in my life. And that was when I was a kid and my mom and step-dad had rented out this huge rudy-poo room at an over-priced hotel in Ocean Shores. So I was pretty thrilled with what I had gotten for only about $125.

After we rested for about an hour, we headed up to the Enmax Centrium for the game. I went in and picked up our tickets for the game and went back outside to hang with Kristi for a while. As we were doing that, we had our first encounter with this one guy. Basically, he was probably somewhere in his late-40's and was.....well......retarded, frankly. I don't say that to be mean. He just was. Although he definitely knew his sports! He knew it so well that he recognized my Tacoma Rainiers PCL North Division championship shirt I was wearing and even knew that Tacoma had been swept by Nashville in the PCL Finals. So he would ask us a couple of questions and we would answer them and then he would walk away. And that's just kinda how it went with him for the entire night. Seriously....this guy was something out of an episode of the "Twilight Zone". It seemed like at every turn, while we were standing there talking with each other or someone else, he would just kinda shuffle up from out of nowhere and start in talking with us again...asking more questions. I remember at one point during one of the intermissions, we were standing around talking to a couple of guys. I turned around to see what this crashing sound was that I had just heard, and there he was. Never even heard or knew that he was there. And he was just staring at us like we were aliens or something (well, I guess we are Americans. And there probably aren't too many Americans who make Red Deer and the Rebels a planned destination for vacation). I didn't mind him too much. He seemed like a nice fellow with a heart of gold. But he was definitely on Kristi's nerves (lol). But I just told her a couple times that he was harmless. But I don't think that helped much (lol).

Now, those two guys I was just telling you about that we met. One of them was names Steve. And, for the life of me, I can't remember what the name of the other guy was (and neither could Kristi). But they were really cool. One of the first things we found out about each other is that we all had standing room tickets for the game. They told us where the perfect place to "stand" was. It turns out that they had put in some bleacher seats that, at first, we thought were actual seats that they sold. But they weren't....they were for us "standing room" folk. So unlike Kelowna last season, we actually got to sit this time!!!

Another cool story from Red Deer. A few minutes after we had gotten into the place, this little old man came walking up to us as we were exploring the arena. "Excuse me", he said, "I couldn't help but notice that you (Kristi) had a Thunderbirds jersey on and you (me) had a Seahawks jacket on. Are the two of you really from Seattle"? We told him yes....more or less. "Oh, I love Seattle. I have a son who played for the Thunderbirds for a few years. But that was about 15 years ago". I asked him "so what is you're sons name? Maybe I remember him". He looked at me and beemed as he told me........

"Glen Goodall".

Kristi and I just looked at each other with that "holy shit, we hit the jackpot" look on our faces. Even Kristi, who has only been following the game for a few years, knew who that was. For those not in the know, Glen Goodall is an absolute legend in the WHL. At one point, he was the all-time leader in goals, assists and points (he's still #1 in goals with 262. But has since been passed up by Brian Sakic....Joe's little brother....in assists and points). He also still has the record of most games played in a career with 399.....all with Seattle. And, even with all the great players who have gone through Seattle over the years (Glenn Anderson, Ken Daneyko, Dave Ross, Chris Joseph, Petr Nedved, Lindsay Vallis, Turner Stevenson, Chris Osgood, Mark Parrish and Cody Rudkowski to name a few), he's still the only one to have his number retired.

So we wound up asking a bunch of questions about his son. He's still playing over in Germany as he has for the last 10 years or so. At one point, he was reunited with his former linemate, Vallis, for a couple of seasons. And he really enjoys it over there. So after talking with him for about10 minutes, he told us "I gotta get back to work now" (he was an usher there). "I'm only supposed to talk to people for one minute. And I've gone way over that here with you two". So I told him "don't worry, Bud. That was just one really long minute if anyone asks us". He smiled and told us to have a good time while we were there.

The game itself was rather boring. The Rebels were playing the Calgary Hitmen. And, for what is supposed to be a "rivalry", there was next to no intensity out there. It had all the feeling of one of the pre-season games we had gone to over the last few weeks. Calgary wound up winning 4-2. Perhaps the most entertaining part of the game was the "standing room" section next to us on our right. That's where the Hitmen Booster Club was sitting. I recognized one of them from the past. He's this older, heavyset fellow with grey hair and a beard. He has a Hitmen jersey that reads "HOHOHO Santa" on the back of it. There was also this one clown running around in a gorilla mask with a Hitmen jersey on. At one point, Krist swore that he shouted out a racist slur. I didn't hear it. But she seemed pretty sure about it. So I'm taking her word for it. I found that to be kind of a shame.

Other than that, the arena was pretty much dead. But Canadian fans are alot different than American fans. They just kinda sit there like I do and study what's going on on the ice. If one of their players do something good, they just politely applaud a little.....no loud roars or anything like that. And if one of their players screw something up, they just mumble a little about it amongst themselves.....no jeers and original, intelligent statements like "you suck" and "you're worthless" and so on. And most amazingly, they really don't complain about the refs too loudly. They might grumble about a questionable call or non-call. But they have the basic understanding that the refs job is awfully difficult to manage alot of the time. So you also don't have the fans claiming that there's some sort of conspiracy against their team like you do in the USA (especially in Seattle. But they also do it in Everett, Portland, Spokane and the Tri-Cities, too).

So I've always figured that that's why I love going to games up in Canada so much. Not only is it the home of hockey, the fans are also on about the same level of understanding as I am. I love talking about the game with people. But the only ones I can talk to on a regular basis with a true understanding of the game itself are Kurt and.....yes....Kristi (at least when it comes to goaltending. She knows her goaltending, for sure; styles, strengths, weaknesses, etc. I'm trying my best to teach her the X's and O's of the game. But she'll get all of that here fairly soon if she listens to me.....lol).

After the game, we stood around inside the arena where the players come out when they're done in the locker room. The one reason Kristi really wanted to go on this trip was so she could visit one of her favorite players, former T-Bird and current Rebel, Matthew Hansen. While we were waiting there, a nice lady came up to us and asked if we were there to see Hansen. Kristi told her the story about him and then the lady told us that she was his billet for the season. She also told us that he had family in town and that he wouldn't have much time to talk once he did emerge from the locker room. But that it also would only be a few more minutes until he got there. So armed with that information, I decided to head out to the car and wait there for her. I could tell that she was somewhat annoyed with me standing around with her, crimping her style and all (lol). But at the same time, I didn't want to just ditch her there like she wanted me to and head back to the hotel and have her find out a way to get back there herself. The hotel there wasn't like the ones in Kelowna that are just a few blocks from the arena. The one we had there was about a mile or so away. So, after I was out in the car for about 15 minutes, she got back there and into the passenger seat. "So, did he finally show up" I asked. "Yup. And that was definitely worth the trip for me" she said. "Thanks Tom! Now I'll have a smile on my face for a week because of that"!

We were both pretty hungry at that point. So we went to another popular place with us....McDonalds.....for dinner. Only this time, we just went to the drive-thru. I have a feeling that, unlike Kelowna last April, we BOTH would have fallen asleep in there this time (haha). So we just went back to the hotel, ate our food, and promptly crashed asleep for the night. Afterall, it had been a long day for the both of us.

On Saturday, we got up around 7:00am. After pulling ourselves together, we hit the road around 8:00am. After stopping in Calgary for breakfast (yes.....Denny's), we started back west for Kelowna. As we were going through northern Calgary, we came across some of the leftover stuff from the 1988 Olympic Winter games. From the road itself, we could clearly see the ski-jumping area and the bobsled/luge course. There were also signs pointing towards where the Olympic Village was. So Kristi grabbed my camera and snapped away taking picures of that stuff.

And then there were the mountains; the Canadian Rockies. To me, the coolest thing about them was just in how they stood there. I mean, we're driving along on this very flat land. And you can clearly see where these mountains start to rise. And it doesn't take a very long time for them to start climbing very high into the sky. It really is a beautiful sight to see.

But the one thing you should probably remember is that, after Banff, there's just about nothing out there except for mountains, mountains and more mountains. So if you ever go driving through all of that, just remember to hit the mountains with plenty of gas in the tank. I don't think we even saw our first gas station until we stopped in Golden, BC. And I think that was after well over 100 miles of no civilization.

And on through all these small British Columbia towns we went that we had known of different players coming from over the years; Revelstoke, Sicamous, Armstrong, Vernon and on and on. We had some time there between Sicamous and Armstrong that, at the time you're really annoyed. But when it's all over, you kinda laugh about it. We got stuck behind this one middle-aged woman driving a blue Ford Escort with this old, gray and balding man sitting in the passenger seat. She was the kind of moron who drives REALLY SLOWLY in areas where you can't legally pass. But then steps on the gas once she hits an area where you can pass her. And on and on our little duel with this woman went. And it wasn't just me....there were a few other cars behind us who were equally annoyed. Perhaps part of it was because I had a hard time properly predicting and choosing a time to pass her so they could follow suit. It got so frustrating that, at one point, Kristi started telling me that she was about to reach out the window and throw her water bottle at the car in front of us. Of course, going at the speeds we were going, this would be a pointless task as the empty bottle would wind up going behind us and strike one of our allies. Which, also at this point being associated with Dubya's Kingdom of Fear, wouldn't bode well for us Americans. I wasn't in the mood to fan those flames. So I talked her out of throwing the bottle at the car (although she did carry out her other threat and flip the finger at her when I finally did find an area to pass. Frankly, a gesture that I normally wouldn't condone, but was well deserved. And I couldn't help but imagine how proud Tom W would have been with her. Which he was when I told him about it today.....lol).

So, we finally got to Kelowna. And again, after getting some rest in our hotel room, we started walking out towards the arena. Along the way, after talking to Karin for a bit on the phone (her and Rick were in Yakima for a country concert and had watched some of the sprint cars that were there that weekend practice and qualify), we headed into a casino across the street so Kristi could buy some more cigarettes. While there, I was taken by this slot machine that was titled "Fistfull of Dollars". It was taken from the movie and had Clint Eastwood on it. I was tempted to try it out, believe it or not. But of course I didn't (lol).

Of course, it was Kelowna. So once we got inside the doors of the arena, we did pretty much what we did last April.....head straight for the beer stand (lol). I had three of them before the end of the first period. And, of course with not having eaten anything since breakfast, I drank all of that on an empty stomach. So I was fairly well buzzed after those. With that buzz going, I really don't remember a whole lot from the game (lol). I do remember that we watched the first period together (in seats that I bought that I thought she would really like down in the 2nd row by the goal where the Winterhawks shot twice during the game). But we got seperated somewhere during the first intermission. So I was pretty much left there in these seats that I couldn't stand all by myself. I do remember that I talked to Karin for pretty much the entire 3rd period (and Lindsay for a little bit, too). But the exact details are still hazy at best. Mostly just a couple of comments here and there. I do remember there being a couple of fights near the end. I also remembered that Portland won the game 6-3. Other than that, don't ask me about the game because I don't really remember it all that well (lol).

So when it was over, I just shuffled my way back to our room. I flipped the tv on looking for some WHL scores that I promised Karin I would pass on to her. But I didn't have to wait all that long since Tom gave me a ring with all the updates that he heard on the radio. So after I text messaged Karin those results, I just crawled into bed and fell asleep.

I set the alarm in the room to go off at 4:00am. When it went off, I looked over to my left and saw that Kristi had somehow gotten back to the room at some point during the night. So I just quietly got ready to go and woke her up after I was done. Probably the absolute best thing about Kristi on these trips is that it doesn't take her a long time to get ready to go. And when I tell her that we absolutely HAVE to leave by such-and-such a time, she's always ready by that time....usually alot earlier. So I had no problem with letting her get an extra 15-20 minutes worth of sleep.

Kelowna at 4:30am on a Sunday morning is an absolute ghost town. We didn't see another car on the road until we were almost out of Westbank. And even after that, I counted a grand total of five other cars on the road between there and Merritt (about 70 miles or so). And with Kristi sleeping that entire way, I was back to my lonely self that whole time (lol).

I decided to stop off for gas while in Merritt. Gas prices there are even worse than they are here in the States. I paid $47 for about 3/4 of a tank. The guy next to us spent $90 to fill up his truck. And there are still questions as to why I'm cutting down on alot of the games this season.

So we just screamed along the freeways of British Columbia until we got to the border. And that turned out to be a fairly decent experience. There is this sign about a mile before you get to the border that tells you how long the wait is in line at the border. The sign said that it was 5 minutes. I think that from the time we hit the back of the line (granted it wasn't much of a line. There was only one other car in front of us), we were there for about 2 minutes. He just asked a couple of basic questions and let us go along on our way. No trunk search or nothing. I don't think I've ever spent more time getting into Canada on a trip than I have getting into America. But it happened....it REALLY happened (lol).

And since we spent so little time going through customs, we decided to curl off in Bellingham for breakfast. Once again, it was a Denny's (lol). Kristi wasn't too happy since the waitress screwed up her order. Other than that, it was your typical breakfast at Denny's.

After that, we just drove back to her mom's apartment. We unloaded her stuff and hugged each other good-bye. And the last image I have of Kristi is her walking towards her mom's building towing her luggage behind her with her mom up on the balcony waving madly yelling "hi Tom"! And I had this image of Kristi getting upstairs and telling her mom to "stop acting like a whore" (lol). Whether it happened or not, I don't know. But I do know that it's happened in the past...I was there (haha).

Then it was onto the Seahawks game. Since I didn't really have enough time to get back down to the Federal Way P&R, I decided that I would bite the bullet and pay for parking. I parked in the same lot that I park in when I go to the Mariner games. For those, it costs me $5. Today it cost me $25. But the thing is that, for the Seahawks, all the free spots are basically taken up by about 9:00am on gameday. So ultimately, I had no real choice in the matter.

When I got to Qwest Field, Dubya's Kingdom of Fear once again reared it's ugly head. The line to get into Touchdown City in the Convention Center was unbelievable. I must have been standing in the same spot for about 5-7 minutes before I just gave up. See, now when you go to an NFL game, not only do they search through every bag with a fine-tooth comb, EVERYBODY has to go through a very thorough pat-down. Basically, you're treated with about as much dignity as a criminal caught in the act. It's just strange to me that you can enter the country from Canada (a place where it's known that alot of these terrorists live until they feel like striking) with almost no harrassment at all anymore and THEN get treated like crap once you're in here. Although I liked getting through customs quickly like today, I kind of prefer it the other way around.

The football game itself was a laugher. The Seahawks ran over the Arizona Cardinals, 37-12. Shaun Alexander had four touchdowns on the day for Seattle. Matt Hasselbeck was just about as flawless as you can get. The receivers didn't drop that many balls. But I was most impressed with the defense. They just flew all over the field making good tackles, slapping the ball out of the air, and just absolutely punishing Kurt Warner and then, later on, Josh McCown into submission. Of course, they went into that crappy prevent defense at the end. But by that time, McCown was so shell-shocked and his receivers were so jittery, they were unable to do anything about it.

Of course, everyone up here is once again talking like the Hawks are going to the Super Bowl. But if I remember correctly, we were saying the same thing about them after this same point last season. Then the Rams came in and ruined all of that after Holmgren and Rhodes decided to turn to that rotten prevent defense. Next week, they go to Washington, DC to play the Redskins. Then, after that, it's off to St. Louis to face the Rams. And that game will be the real test. If they can beat both Washington and St. Louis, then I think all of this talk will be waranted. But until then, I'm still not completely sold. They're a good team. But Super Bowl contenders????? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

So there ya go. How did that sound for a weekend??? (lol) I had a GREAT time, though. Got to see a couple of cool new cities, hang out with Kristi and meet some cool people along the way. Not too shabby for a three day period.