October 1-2

This was a more normal weekend for me. No huge trips or anything like that. After next weekend, these types of posts will be more of the norm. But that's not to say that nothing interesting happened.....

We'll pickup the story on Saturday afternoon. It was a foul weather type of day...even by our standards up here in Washington. My partner in crime that day was.....well.....the same as always when we're talking crime; Tom W. We made our first stop at the Hooters on Lake Union (geez...what a suprise there, eh???). When we got there, we took a table over by the window. We sat there without anyone coming up to us for about 12 minutes. When the first girl finally came over to our table, she asked us if we had been helped yet. I said that we hadn't. "How long have you been sitting here" she asked. Without even flinching, Tom hollered out "at least a half-hour. Maybe more".

I knew this wasn't true. But I decided to let things play out to see what happened. She took our order (I asked for a bottle of Bud, but wound up getting a bottle of Bud Light instead. Which is usually what happens there. I think they have some policy about Bud Light being first or something). So after we got our drinks, the manager came over to us. "Hey guys" he started out with, "I heard that you had a bit of a wait to get served here". Tom, once again at full-volume so the entire place could hear "YEAH!!! AT LEAST A HALF-HOUR!!! MAYBE MORE"!!! The manager apologized and said "so there are no hard feelings here, anything you drink here will be on me tonight. Whatever you want, you drink for free". There were no hard feelings in the first place. But our wily friend Tom had scored us free drinks the rest of our stay there. I immedietly ordered another bottle of Bud....which, of course, magically came back as yet another Bud Light.

After that, it was back in Tom's Blue Monster (aka his little Ford Ranger). As we were approaching the Seattle Center parking lot, my phone rang. When I answered it, Karin was on the other end. "Hey! Where are you" she asked. "Well, we're coming up on the par.....". At that point, without a trace of warning, Tom slammed on his breaks in order to get into the side entry of the lot. "Parking lot" I finished. "Sorry about that" Tom said sheepishly. Karin asked "what happened"? "Oh nothing" I answered. "I was almost sent through the f-----g windshield. That's all".

"Oh. Well, we have a little problem here" Karin continued on with seemingly no concern for my safety. "The Key Arena is flooded". My brain was still rattled from our sudden change of direction. "Flooded" I asked. "Yeah" Karin replied. "And they aren't letting people in". Now I needed answers. "Did the ice melt or something"? "No" she said "it's the concourse. There's water everywhere". It turns out that about an hour earlier, there had been this sudden rain squall go through there. And the water was coming so fast, it literally just went right through the door and flooded parts of the concourse. When the two of us finally got there, the gates had opened on the upper level. But they were still mopping up the mess down near the main entry.

Right after we descended the stairs, I turned around and saw Kelly just a few steps behind us. So the three of us hooked up and walked over to our seats. She had a bunch of pictures of her washing the Qwest Field roof back around Labor Day. They were actually pretty cool pictures. She landed that gig through a friend of a friend. Now apparently that same company has a bid in to wash the roof of the Tacoma Dome. Tom and I were kinda hoping that Kelly could find a way to somehow make that pile of crap burn down "mysteriously" so we could maybe get a newer, better place for a new hockey team here.

The opening ceremonies for the T-Birds was possibly the most memorable that I've ever seen. Well, at least what I could actually SEE of it. When they were introducing the team, they had the usual fog machines spewing out their mist at the end of the ice. Well, with the storm blowing through the area outside, they claim that there was a thunderclapper that suddenly took out the scoreboard, PA system and the ventilation system all at once. But the fog machine was uneffected. So with nothing to vent it out with, the fog comletely clouded the entire arena. When the lights finally came back on, you could barely see the other side of the place. I joked with Kelly that it was RJ Reynolds night at the game and that Joe Camel was gonna drop the ceremonial first puck.

After the haze went away (for the most part. There were still some leftovers hanging around even after the first period was over), the Thunderbirds came out playing hard. They scored their first goal of the night 51 seconds into the first period. They had a second one just a couple minutes later. But that was all the scoring for the Birds on that night. Their offense was just about as sad as it had been over the last couple of years. It was so bad that, to the best of our collective memories, they had only one shot on goal the entire 2nd period. Kamloops tied it up with less than a minute to go in the 3rd period at 2 goals apiece, then won it 1-0 in the shootout.

As far as my first regular season views of the T-Birds go, I thought that Ryan Gibbons looked pretty good out there for them. Barthel and Stamler were fairly solid on defense. Bryan Bridges was looking sharp in net (sorry Kristi....he did....lol). James McEwan got into another fight...and lost again. But he still skated off with that happy-go-lucky grin on his face. I guess it's nice to know that he enjoys his job.

But my main impression is that the T-Birds season is going to come down to two things. The first one is the power play. It looked just as impotent as ever out there. I don't think I've ever seen a team as talented as Seattle look so confused out there when they're a man-up. I know that there are goaltending coaches and skating coaches. I wonder if there are such things as power play coaches out there. Because if there are, the T-Birds can certainly use it. But their penalty killing unit looked good. Tom commented at one point that they looked more dangerous shorthanded than they did on the power play. And he really wasn't exagerating.

The other thing to me is the play of Chris Durand. He obviously has the talent to be a 40 goal scorer in the WHL. But everytime I watched him all night, he seemed to have himself on cruise control out there. I hope there weren't any scouts in the crowd from the Avalanche. If there were, I would think that they were thinking that perhaps they had wasted their 2nd round pick last summer.

But it was still cool seeing all the people up in Seattle again. Not just Kelly, but Jeff, Jennifer, Tom (yes....there's another. He's Jeff's old man) and Elspith outside. Rick was there with Karin. Apparently he bought a weekend package so he can at least make a few more games this year (lol). Later in the game, I looked across and saw Carl and Mary...my old neighbors in the Tacoma Dome from the Sabercat days. But I never got to go over there and say "hello". But I'm sure there will be plenty more chances for that as the season goes along.

All night long, Tom was pestering me about him wanting to drive me down to Portland the next day. And, of course.......

.....at 8:00am on Sunday morning, he called saying that he was backing out. After all that whining and begging, he backs out! How Winter-like was that??? (hahaha)

But at least I was gauranteed a fairly safe drive down there (lol). So I met Kurt at the I-205 Hooters there in Portland. We sat there watching the Seahawks game. Kurt had never seen me rooting for a particular team before. Since I don't root for any of the hockey teams around here, he's never seen me all that into a game. And he said he didn't like it when I was rooting for the Seahawks (hahaha). In fact, I think that the only person on here that's ever seen me root for the Hawks is Lindsay (and Dan if he reads this...lol). I'm just a bundle of nerves while watching. When I'm here at home, I'm up and pacing all over the living room during their games (as I was while I was in that hotel room in Kennewick during the first week). I did have to take a little walk after Josh Brown missed that potential game-winning field goal with time running out in the 4th quarter. But other than that, I just sat at the table watching....with my legs bouncing up and down furiously and my fidgiting with my cell phone in one hand while constantly knocking the table with the other (lol). And as Dan has heard me bellyache on numerous Sunday's there at Qwest Field, I had several choice words for both Mike Holmgren and Ray Rhodes after the Hawks tried a safety blitz in overtime which backfired when former Husky, Mark Brunell, completed a pass over the middle to put the Redskins into scoring position. I went on this long, foul-mouthed rant as the Redskins kicked the winning field goal. I think Kurt was embarrassed (lol).

Eventually, Kristi showed up, too. I had accidently written down the wrong freeway when I sent her directions the night before and she got lost (the exit number was the right one. It was the freeway's name that was crossed up). So we sat there shooting the bull for the next couple hours. We told Kurt all about our trip up to Red Deer and Kelowna the week before. She gossiped about the Winterhawks. I was still whining about Ray Rhodes and Mike Holmgren. We laughed at the guy sitting behind us who looked like Rick "Superfreak" James. Tom called. He was wondering why we weren't across the street (Karin and Kelly get that one...lol). Kurt and I got our jollies telling it like it is about Keith Tkachuk with Lindsay over the phone (donuts anyone?????). Some people just can't handle the truth (hahaha....jokin' Lindsay).

Then it was off to the Rose Garden. Got to see Kurt's parents for the first time this season. They're two of the nicest people you'll ever meet. But sometimes I think they wonder to themselves "who are these freaks that our son hangs out with"? I don't know if it's so much me as it is Tom W and Kara. Lord help them when they meet Kristi (lol). That's another reason Lindsay has to get up here.....so they can meet someone in our circle who's normal (well, at least if she gets to go to Portland if she gets here).

The first couple of minutes between the Winterhawks and Prince George Cougars was, dare I say, old school jumior hockey. A fight off the opening draw, a Portland goal followed immediately by another fight before "TNT" could even get started. Followed by a couple other dust-ups, and another fight. But after all of that, not much happened. Prince George eventually won the game, 3-2. But I was still VERY impressed with the Winterhawks. They were playing like a team that has an idea. It seemed like every pass hit the stick. It just so happened that the PG goalie was on his game that night. And if he was ever out of position, the Hawks were unable to capitalize on their opportunity. If I were just judging from what all I've seen so far in this young season and the pre-season, I think that not only are the Winterhawks the favorites in the West, they may just go ahead and win the WHL title. I think the only real thing they need at this point is a better goalie. But if they play their hand right, I don't think that will be too hard to come by.

After the game, it was the long drive home. I knew it was hockey season as I drove through another driving rainstorm in Vancouver. And as I sloshed through all the puddles that accumulate so quickly along that stretch of freeway, I was wondering to myself "will they ever finish this construction project"?

That's about it for this week. Next weekend, it's St. Louis. It'll be interesting to see if the Seahawks invent another new way to blow a game.