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I got my second career hat trick tonight in hockey!

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An interesting e-mail went out last week to my div 5 team:

Darren took a look at our stats this season and found that we score almost half as many goals in the first period as we do in either the second or third. We also give up way more goals in the first period than we do in the other two periods. This almost surely has to do with the fact that we aren’t warmed up and ready by the time the puck drops. We realize that everyone is busy, but leaving just 10 minutes earlier would make a HUGE difference.

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When I tell people I play hockey in Seattle the conversation goes a little like:

Them: ‘You play hockey? That’s a little random. Where do you play?’

Me: ‘Well, there’s no rinks in Seattle so we play in Kent, Everett, Renton, North Kirkland and some random rinks off highway 99′

Them: ‘Wow, that sounds like a lot of driving. What time do you normally play?’

Me: ‘Games start times are usually between 9pm and 11pm’

Them: ‘You must get home late!’

Me: ‘Getting home at 12:30am to 1am isn’t the problem. The problem is falling asleep.’

For me it normally takes two to three hours to unwind after a game. Tonight I played two games back to back and got home at 12:45. It’s now 2:15am. Good times! …We complain about this until someone mentions having to wake up at 5 or 6am to drive their kid to hockey practice on a Saturday morning and then we shut-up.

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My six year old Bauer 1000’s are on their last legs. Turns out my feet sweat a lot and I wasn’t taking out the footbeds and so the rivets rusted out and rooted the floor of the skate preventing re-riveting of the tower. Turns out this was probably a good thing since skates have come a long way since and my skates were actually a size too big. To replace them I spent most of the day Saturday (before going to Vancouver) trying on all the skates NW Pro Hockey had. My feet ended up liking these Easton 1200c’s the most (fortunately they didn’t like the $650 high-end Bauer’s):

EastonSkates Hosted on Zooomr

I’m looking forward to a new season of hockey beginning in a week or two (but not the $1000 in league fees).

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This past weekend we drove up to Vancouver primarily to see a hockey game but we did some drinking and shopping too. Here are some photos from the Canucks vs The Ducks pre-season game. This first photo is from our $20 seats (face was ~$30) in the 300 level:

Canucks vs Ducks Hosted on Zooomr

Then after the first period we moved down:

Canucks vs Ducks Hosted on Zooomr

Last weekend we were also in Vancouver, that time for some shopping, etc. Here is a photo from the boat show on that little island that’s not really island whose name I’ve forgotten:

Vancouver Boat Show Hosted on Zooomr

Both times we stayed at the Hotel Georgia for ~$100/night via Priceline.

Oh, and on the way home yesterday there was a huge line to get back into Canada. It must have been over three hours long. We’ve never seen such a line before. Anyone know what the deal was?

Update: Border-guard walkout creates traffic backlog:

Dozens of guards walked away from their posts at four border crossings in the Vancouver area, causing a massive backup of vehicles attempting to enter Canada on a busy Sunday night.

The guards walked off the job after they got word that an armed, murder suspect in the United States was headed toward the Canadian border…

Apparently Canadian border guards aren’t armed and walk off the job when there’s a known dangerous situation headed their way. Imagine if the US border was secured in a similar fashion!

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This summer hockey season on Red Army has been my best season yet (started with a hattrick!). Unfortunately it’s been cut short by sailing. Here’s how I ended:

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Today we played our first hockey game of the summer season and I scored a hattrick. It’s a career first!

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In between the main hockey season and summer season a bunch of us from Red Army have signed up for hockey camp (it’s run by the Seattle T-Bird’s assistant coach). It’s 1.25 hours twice a week for five weeks. Sadly, we’re all pretty bad at the basics. We never really realized it until they took away all the distractions and it was just two guys going down the ice trying to get a couple of passes on the tape. Unfortunately I don’t think 1.25 hours twice a week is enough. I think we need something more instense like 2 hours three times a week.

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