HOCKEY SEASON IS HERE BABY!

You heard me. Let me say it again. Because it sounds just so darn good*

HOCKEY SEASON IS HERE.

It started last night when CTV aired Team Canada's scrimmage online. Live hockey!! It was... well, it was a scrimmage. But it was still LIVE HOCKEY. Sure there was very little to like from seeing Crysob score in the shootout (and on his own goalie too). And I did decide to nickname the five goalies: Floppy Flambe, Boring Marty, Faily Wardy, Shrimpy (Mason) and....Fwap (Luongo). Or in shorter form: Floppy, Boring, Faily, Shrimpy and Fwap. Sounds like the seven dwarves. Kinda.

By the way... there is something kinda pathetic about Heatley being booed by the people in his hometown.

ANYWAY.

Today I met up with Grrreg and we headed off to take a tour of the Bell Centre. I had no idea that you could take a tour of the Bell Centre. To sum it up quickly: It was flipping awesome. We were in the press gallery (I want a job in the press just so I can get that view of the ice. AWESOME). We were in several other VIP lounges (including where all the little kidlets of the players hang out). We walked through the press room where the coaches have to sit after games. It's a lot smaller than it looks on TV.... we saw some random thing about Youppi. And yes, we were in the Habs dressing room. Sooooooo awesome. I think the most awesome part was when we left the dressing room and got to walk out (a bit) onto where the ice was. I kinda got chills imagining what it would be like to walk out there with 20,000 + people screaming. Awesomeness. I didn't have my camera but I'm bugging Grrreg for his pictures so I'll have something up then!

Hilarious bit: there was a woman and I guess her mom or something who were Leafs fans. Her kid however was a Habs fan. And damn, did he know his stuff (he was 10). We were looking at this photo of a pile of players when they were like... in their 60s and older. And the kid recognized almost all of them. For the records, I failed to recognize my own (distant) relative in the photo. I fail.

AND!

The day wouldnt' be complete without some live hockey, right? And where does one find live hockey in AUGUST? Why at a Juniors pre-season game of course! HAHAHAHA! Yup, it was off to the Juniors pre-season game which was... well, a pre-season game. But actually you wouldn't necessarily know that early on as there was lots of hitting, good energy from the players and the crowd. I'm hoping the two Juniors who got smashed up aren't seriously injured. They didn't look so good as they were walking off the ice... It's supposed to be a pre-season game, people. Ick. Anyway... the Juniors took 12 penalties and their goalies faced 30 shots compared to just 2 penalties for Gatineau who's two goalies faced just 16 shots. Thankfully for the Juniors, they got all the lucky breaks and scored 3 un-answered goals before Gatineau finally got one on a 5 on 3 PP in the 3rd. They got in another one off of Etienne Marcoux and promptly had their little celebration right in front of me. Can we say "not impressed in the least?" But the important thing is the Juniors won for me and I'm happy!

Oh yeah.. and the Sox won. Yay!

*yes, we're in that stage in the season where we're really excited to see hockey.