Tag Archives: Boston

Shootout

Posted by on December 31, 2007 No comments

Today was a monumental day.  I was present to witness the first shootout in Gopher Men’s Hockey history.  It was a phenomenal display of individual talent for the Gophers.  Sadly, that seems to be all they have because as a team they just aren’t clicking.  The shootout was forced after the first over time ended with no score.  It was against Air Force, a team that the Gophers should send packing soundly.  It’s sad the Boston College beat Air Force so decidedly last night and tonight we were forced to go into a shootout with them.  I fear the worst when we have a real series against Boston College.  Some may argue that our best players are away in the Czech Republic, but I think it’s a chemistry issue and not a talent issue.  The shootout was wonderful however and Kangas really showed what he can do.  On one stop he spread full out and from skate to skate he was much wider than the goal.  I think that he should be our main net minder due to his very consistent performances over this year.  Today he was only beat once and scored on twice.  To clarify that statement, the first goal he stopped the first shot but an unfortunate rebound was picked up by a pinching defensemen(?).  That should have never happened because one of our D-men should have not allowed the pinch.  The second goal he was in decent position but let it in near side.  (This happened while Air Force had their goalie pulled to get the extra man with one minute to go in the third period.)  Kangas redeemed his mistake by making four saves to completely shut out Air Force in the shootout.  Barriball had an amazing five hole goal that I knew was going in the moment he touched the puck.  It was a definite high for fans who have had a rather mediocre season.  I can only hope that this helps the guys gain some morale and some momentum going into the second half of the season.

Sometimes I wish I could throw Lucia (The Don) some tips.  I would say:

  • It takes 15 seconds to score
  • Tic-Tac-Toe not Tic-Tac-Tic-Tac-Tic-Tac-Tic-Lose the puck
  • Teams are playing the Gophers aggressive.  Take advantage of that by getting them out of position.
  • Passing too much allows opponent goalie to set up.
  • Find someone else who can carry the puck in aside from Barriball.
  • Set Goals to get Goals.  Ever notice how a team plays their hearts out when they know how many goals they need to score?  Well go out there and aim to get 2 goals a period.  Not get as many as you can but get 2 a period.  If a hockey team can get 6 goals in a game they will win 95% of all games.
  • The D-Men need to learn how to clean up the garbage.  Our Goaltenders our doing a fine job most of the time but it is the second, third and even fourth shot that is killing us.
  • You’re not superstars yet.  I still want to see some hustle.
  • If you’re gonna pass, make it a good pass.  Tape to Tape.

I’m clearly not qualified to be a coach, but I’d like to think that if these pointers were followed they would do better.

There is a busy New Year’s Eve ahead of us.  I will try to get a better post up before the new year hits, but we shall see.

The Great Christmas Wrap Up

Posted by on December 28, 2007 No comments

…or Boxing Day if you have government funded health care.

So Christmas is over (or almost, Justin says he has something in the mail for me. He shouldn’t have, but it’s very nice of him to get me something and I’m excited to see what it is.) I’d like to thank everyone who went out of their way to gift me something and at the same time I hope everyone who received gifts from me enjoyed their gifts. I wish I had the funds to buy gifts for everyone and the time to spend the Holidays with all the people in my life, but sadly the world doesn’t work that way. In an effort to appear non-materialistic (ha!) I will now see how the list faired (the one’s in red are still missing):

-Needs-

  • Men’s Ware House Gift Certificates (Received some for Graduation)
    • Received a wonderful dress shirt and tie from Elizabeth’s parents, Thank you!
    • Dress Socks from Mom and Dad
  • Electric Blanket (Thanks for that already Mom.)
  • New Cellphone
  • New Slippers
  • Those fancy ear muffs that don’t mess up your hair

-Wants-

  • Nintendo DS Lite (Uber shocked to cross this out. Elizabeth is the greatest girlfriend ever.)
    • +Games!!!! (The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hour Glass, came with the Limited Edition Zelda DS)
  • Music CDs (Secret Santa: Uncle Craig got me $40 at iTunes.)
  • New Computer
  • Hockey Goalie Equipment
  • Spare Xbox 360 Controller (I purchased these items shortly after I put up the list.)
    • Rechargeable battery pack for Xbox 360 Controller
  • 2 More Wii Remotes
  • Digital SLR Camera
  • New earbud headphones

I received some gifts from Mom and Dad that I had mentioned earlier in the year and completely forgot about come list time. Most notable is a Makita Hammer Drill and Grinder set. After working at O’keef’s I’ve grown to love Makita products. In addition they gifted me more construction related tools and utensils. I’m pretty pumped because I find myself in need of tools and it feels like a sign that I am growing up. Purchasing a house doesn’t seem so far away. My sister bought me a pretty sweet zip up hoodie from Buckle. Look for me to be wearing it often. She also bought me some Jägermeister that, because it was a gift, came in a pretty cool metal slip tin. Now before you get all up in arms because she is underage, she had someone else purchase it for her and I am of age. Now all we need is some red bull.

To follow suit, I ‘ll do what Justin did and write what I got for others.

Elizabeth: 3 Different Types of Scarfs. She asked for a scarf for Christmas and not knowing what else to get her and not having the funds to buy what I really want to get her, I went over board and got her multiple scarves. I bought her a University of Minnesota scarf first because I knew the moment I saw it that I had to get it for her. I realized that it probably wouldn’t be appropriate for work so I figured I would get her scarves to match whatever she wore. I went with a fancy black scarf and a big fluffy white scarf. She seemed to be happy and I hope she likes them. I’ve already seen her wearing the Minnesota one. (After her gifts, though, I felt that my gifts just didn’t match the awesomeness of hers. She totally won this year and at the same time I win because of that.)

Melissa(sister): I got her $20 at Buckle because she loves that store. She is also going to Mexico for school this January so I tried to get her a CD that contained popular Latin Musica. Wow. Shopping for music in a different language is hard. I’m not terrible when it comes to Spanish, but I still struggled. I was able to find a CD that said it was the winner of 4 Latin Grammys. It was either that or one of the bajillion mariachi bands present in Wal-Mart’s Latin Music selection. So you can guess which one I went with. When we popped the CD in on Christmas day we were all pleasantly shocked. It was a pretty sweet CD. Juanes – Un Dia Normal, if you are interested.

Mom: Our family is big on “TV on DVD”. Mom is always hard to shop for. It seems that women are much harder to shop for than men. I think it is because women don’t like to express what they like and would prefer you guess. So I picked up that my Mom and Dad like Boston Legal. My Mom even told me that they really liked that show, so I purchased the first season on DVD for my Mom.

Dad: Continuing the theme, I purchased Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 on DVD for him. This one was pretty easy. We already own all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1 on DVD, my sister was picking up Stargate Atlantis Season 2 for him and we own Battlestar Galactica Season 1 on DVD. However, this is where I erred. I thought the extra “.5” meant it was season 2 with bonus features. Silly me. When I eventually bothered to check, I found that they split the season up. Those capitalist bastards. So today I actually went out and got Battlestar Galactica Season 2.0 on DVD so that we can watch them in order.

Secret Santa – Cousin Mike: He didn’t put anything down on the list. So I got him the multipass of gifts; a Wal-Mart gift card. I also made him a card with the following poem I wrote the morning of Christmas Eve:

Santa’s confused this Christmas Eve,
For on his list your name he does not see.
He’s checked it twice,
and he’s sure you’ve been nice.
It must be that you’ve asked for naught.
Now you’re stuck with what he bought.
Lucky for you, he’s a nice guy,
And left it up to you with what to buy.
A golden ticket to the land of lights,
Where they never close for holidays or nights,
A land of toys, games, food and mead.
A land with everything you may need.
Santa hopes you’ve learned this year,
Forget again and you’ll get a kick in the rear.

That is all the giving and receiving I was involved in. Christmas Eve was spent with the family at Andy and Theresa’s. We managed to set the house on fire only two times. We had to open all the windows, get the air flow going and clear out the smoke. It wasn’t so bad when we did it before most people arrived because the sun was still up and it wasn’t too bad outside. However, when it happened right before dinner it was dark out and much colder. To be fair, I think only one involved actual fire and that was with the ham in the oven. The earliest incident was just turkey juices spilling over in the oven and being turned to steam. The rest of the evening was a run of the mill family event with everyone playing their normal parts. The most unlike normal role goes to Tigger (Andy and Theresa’s cat) for actually being playful with so many people around. He was pretty good until people took his playfulness for granted and got him all ornery again. Dakota was in heat so we had to keep her penned up (don’t worry she has a nice heated garage.) It’s too bad too. She is such a wonderful dog and it has to be hard for her to be excluded. It doesn’t help that her new friend in life, Chase, is away at training.

Everyone stayed for a pretty long time. Eventually we all made our way home and the night drew to a close. I couldn’t read the book I had read on the way up, Negotiating for Dummies, so I decided to sleep .

Christmas morning, I woke up at the bright hour of 10:00am. It wasn’t long after that we opened presents. Santa brought the family Scene It Deluxe Movie Edition 2 so we played that a bit and watched Christmas movies on TV. The day was spent relaxing with the family and it was very enjoyable. Elizabeth stopped by late at night after her family event had concluded. She stayed pretty late which was surprising considering we would be going skating the next morning. It’s a family tradition of hers to go skating the day after Christmas. Braving the winter weather she headed home around 2:00am and I was relieved to get a message saying she had made it home safe. My Christmas 2007 came to a close then as I went to bed to get some well needed rest.  I would need it, for the next day we would play hockey and skate.

And there you have it! The great Christmas wrap up of 2007. The culmination of a month or so of shopping and hours of preparation and cooking. I hope everyone had a wonderful time, I certainly did.