Wranglers to Black Out Midnight Game

The Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL will host their eighth annual Midnight Holiday Roundup on Monday, December 27th when they face-off against the Utah Grizzlies.
The Wranglers holiday tradition began in the team’s inaugural season and has remained a fan favorite. This year, the Wranglers have planned two special additions: a performance by Mini Kiss and an Orleans Arena Black Out.
“We are thrilled to bring back Mini Kiss,” said Wranglers President Billy Johnson. “They were a big hit when we had them here a few years ago and we can’t wait to have them back in the building this year.”
The Wranglers are also looking to make an impact with their Black Out of the Orleans Arena and $5 t-shirt promotion.
“We’re asking fans to help us by wearing black for the Midnight Game,” said Wranglers Vice President Matt Smith. “Be on the lookout for the $5 promotional t-shirts; they’re going to be a big hit!”
The Midnight Holiday Roundup on Monday, December 27th will begin at 11:59 pm and is sure to be the can’t-miss game of the season! For information on discounted group tickets, contact the Wranglers front office at (702) 471-7825.

I have listened on line to the past 7 midnight madness games and can't wait for the game next week! Nothing like listening to a hockey game at 2 in the morning to make your family and friends think you're nuts!
Check out this great sound clip from the 3rd Annual Midnight Madness game for a chuckle.

Hanging out with The Famous SD Chicken

Back in 2008 the family and I got the chance to hang out with the Famous SD Chicken (aka the San Diego Chicken). He attended the February 9, 2008 Delta Ice Hawks hockey game in Ladner, BC vs the Delta Devils of the PIJHL. Being a huge fan of the SD Chicken, my wife requested that we purchase tickets for the game as soon as she found out he would be attending. Being as the Ice Hawks generally draw about 150-250 fans per game, we knew we would have a great chance to meet the chicken. Kaden spent a good part of the game sitting front row, side by side with the chicken, even helping him out with some of his props! I'm not sure Kaden really knew what to make of some guy dressed in a chicken costume making such a ruckus against the glass all during the game!

As well as a ton of photos that I took, both Sara and Kaden got autographed photos for their collections.

Canadian Men's Hockey Wins Olympic Gold!

I was in front of my TV... where were you?

56 ways to "Improve" the NHL All Star Game

On January 27th, 2008, the NHL held the 56th Annual All Star Game (and Skills Competition). As a big hockey fan, I can't help but be bombarded with NHL All Star news and coverage each year. But year after year, I become less and less interested. At this point, I had stopped watching the All Star game, and pretty much just watch the All Star Skills Competition, and this year, even that didn't seem interesting enough for me to tune in.
I did however happen to be flipping channels during the last 20 minutes of the Skills Competition, and I happened to catch the new breakaway format they adopted this season. Instead of just a shootout contest, they added a new twist, by having a panel of 4 judges who saw and watched each players attempted goal, and then gave them a score of 1 - 10, giving points for scoring, as well as flash. Players were trying all sorts of wacky stuff including spinning with the puck, dropping to their knees and sliding in on goal, and flipping the puck up in the air and trying to bat it out of the air like a baseball. It all make for a fun and exciting event.
After catching just the end of this event, I really wanted to see the complete 2 hour Skills Competition, and after checking my online TV guide I found that it was not being repeated... drat!
Luckily, both the All Star Game and Skills Competition both showed up on iTunes recently, so I promptly purchased the Skills Comp and sat in front of my computer watching it from beginning to end. Great stuff!
That said, I still didn't watch the All Star Game.
It looks like I am not the only one who didn't tune into the All Star Game. Here is what The Hockey News had to say in their January 22, 08 issue, about the All Star Game, along with a list of 56 ways to save the All Star Game:

Let’s bring back some luster to the one and only contest that’s supposed to feature the best of the NHL

We came up with 56 solutions to fix the NHL’s marquee-game-that-really-doesn’t-mean-at-all.

And since the NHL All-Star Game (the 56th edition of which is in Atlanta on Jan.27) is meant as a fun weekend for the fans, players and sponsors - oh, the sponsors - alike, we tried to inject a little playfulness into the proceedings. Some suggestions are serious - like, let’s kill the conference versus conference format for ... any other format - while some are brainchilds that might have you thinking we played the game without a helmet for too many years. No matter. The hope is the NHL will embrace the event as a chance to showcase not only its great players, but its great personalities as well. And if we can improve the actual on-ice product in the meantime, well, it’s about time.

1. Change the format. How about introducing Age Rage, with the enthusiastic under-30 guys going up against the crotchety over-30 crowd.

2. Or, stars from the 15 northern-most teams versus stars from the 15 southern-most teams. Let’s get geographical on their ices …

3. Or, the left-handed shot all-stars versus the right-handed shot all-stars.

4. Or, the visor-wearing all-stars versus the all-stars who, for some reason, doesn’t wear visors.

5. Or, the offensive all-stars versus the defensive specialist all-stars.

6. Or … well, you get the point. Change. The. Format.

7. Mic up every player and broadcast the best clips during breaks in the action. To take it a step further, have stretches – while the game is being played – where the only audio is on-ice chatter.

8. Have all the players stay in the same hotel. On the same floor. With a 24-hour reality TV crew on hand.

9. Have AC/DC and Nickelback perform. They’re the only two bands that hockey players listen to. Might as well give them what they want.

10. Instead of a 60-minute game, hold mini-tournaments in which players are grouped based on their junior teams. Oshawa vs. Kladno, Kamloops vs. Boston College, Red Army vs. Modo, etc.

11. More commercials featuring players as fun individuals (remember the NHL’s prank ad last year – “Ovechkin!”) instead of boring automatons.

12. Invite top junior and college players to the skills competition (John Tavares vs. Marty Turco in a shootout drill, followed by Alex Ovechkin vs. Simeon Varlamov).

13. New kills competition: Bodychecking. Imagine Dion Phaneuf vs. Shea Weber in the final, skating full force into a tackling dummy – whoever makes it fly the furthest, wins. Seriously … fans would go nuts.

14. Shootout contest with judges (Denis Savard, Wayne Gretzky, Mike Myers) and mediocre-goalies-turned-VIPs in net (Darren Pang, Garth Snow, Glenn Healy).

15. Fix the ballot nomination process (there was no Patrick Kane or Sergei Gonchar on the ticket this season, despite the fact the list was finalized in early November).

16. Give the players real incentive to win: the MVP gets a car and is exempt from all media requests.

17. Make the skills competition more like the old Showdown in the 1970s – player vs. player instead of conference vs. conference. Crown an overall winner and give him a car, too.

18. A shootout championship, featuring the regular season leaders in shootout goals vs. the goalies who have the best shootout stats.

19. Bigger nets!

20. Small nets!

21. Play 4-on-4 – if not for the entire game, at least the last five minutes of each period.

22. Assign each period a point value. For example, winning the first period is worth one point, the second two points and the third three points. That keeps the game interesting should the score be lopsided entering the third.

23. As a nod to defense – the grossly under-appreciated all-star trait that is grossly over-appreciated in regular season games – award bonus points for blocked shots and takeaways/intercepted passes. Accumulated a pre-determined total and you get a penalty shot as a reward.

24. Go back to the old-style meshing on the nets so the twine actually budges when a goal is scored.

25. Have a celebrity or hockey legend do the PA announcing on goal calls.

26. Dispense with the conference jerseys and go with throwback sweaters. The home team wears a throwback from the host city – this year, you could bring back the old Atlanta Flames look – while the visitors’ shirt is chosen online by the fans. (Our first vote would be for the California Golden Seals).

27. Forget the two-referee system – try the no-referee system. Rarely is there a penalty and it’s not like Jason Spezza is gonna go after Henrik Zetterberg. (Or is he …?)

28. Play the game on international ice. Give those all-stars room to move.

29. The winning conference gets home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup final.

30. Copy the Young Stars Game. No faceoffs.

31. Two words: More cheerleaders!

32. Two more words: No cheerleaders!

33. Play music during the action.

34. Every penalty, anywhere on the ice, results in a penalty shot.

35. Bring back the glowing puck.

36. Just kidding.

37. After giving up a goal, you get to steal a player from the other team.

38. No bluelines.

39. No icing the puck on penalty kills

40. Like billiards, street basketball or Owen Nolan, if you don’t call your shot, it doesn’t count.

41. Play the game in Europe. Or a non-NHL North American city.

42. Secure sponsors to put up a financial bounty that’s big enough to impress even today’s multi-millionaires. Winning side takes all.

43. Forget trying to cut back on goals; go for broke. Eliminate goalies and make it like novice hockey where each skater takes a two-minute turn standing in the crease.

44. Maximize exposure by making the game a 15-minute contest during halftime at the Super Bowl. Invite Janet Jackson to preside over the ceremonial faceoff. But not Jastin Timberlake. Let’s keep the malfunctions to a minimum.

45. The Sean Avery Exemption: Each conference elects two agitators to liven up the game. The catch, though, is the shift disturbers actually represent the conference they don’t play in, so the guys who see them so often during the regular season – and have a good healthy hate on for them – get a chance to get in an all-star whack.

46. Scrap the Young Guns game; instead, make Kevin Lowe and Brian Burke team captains and have them select the remaining 28 GMs for a good, hate-filled game of 4-on-4. Just keep the shifts short.

47. Play it outdoors.

48. Play it after the season is over.

49. Play it in the pre-season. Fans are hungry for hockey after three long summer months … and anything that spices up the exhibition schedule is welcome.

50. Play it like they did back in the day: an all-star team vs. the previous season’s Stanley Cup champion.

51. Bring back the goalie helmet cam.

52. Have a shootout – everybody shoots – before the game and spot the winning team a 1-0 lead.

53. Borrow an idea from major junior’s Top Prospects Game and put celebrity coaches behind the bench. How about Stephen Harper and George W. Bush – what else are they doing? – on one team and Denis Leary and Pamela Anderson on the other. (Wonder who the fan favorite will be?)

54. Let’s see how talented these “all-stars” really are; intermission should be a talent show, where the players bust out the coolest moves they’ve got that are completely unrelated to hockey. Sure, they can blast slapshots 100 miles an hour, but can any of them juggle … skates?

55. Mandatory trash-talking. Who wouldn’t want to see Ilya Kovalchuk and Jarome Ignla fact-to-face, boxing weight-in style, at a pre-game press conference trading taunts and goal-scorers’ smirks?

56. Ah, what the heck, let’s see what happens if they throw two pucks on the ice instead of the usual boring, old one. Or, maybe one puck in the first period, two in the second and three in the third. Could make for some cool hat tricks …

Ft Wayne Komets 2007/08 Schedule Pen

Back on June 2, 2007, I posted about the 1953-54 Ft Wayne Komets Spinning Schedule, which was by far the most innovative and unusual team schedule I had ever seen. It seems the Komets like to produce schedules that stand out from the pack, so this year they produced a schedule pen. But not just any old schedule pen. I have seen other teams print their schedule on a pen (last one I can remember was two seasons ago when the Saskatoon Blades of the WHL produced a large blue pen with their home schedule printed on it.
Taking the idea of a schedule pen to the next level, the Ft Wayne Komets of the IHL have produced a very unusual schedule pen for the 2007/08 season. As seen in the photo above, this looks like a regular 'click' pen, but it has a small metal strip on the side of the pen, which can be pulled out to reveal the full Komets home and away schedule. When you let go, the schedule springs back inside the pen.
Very cool schedule for my collection, and a great idea for all kinds of businesses etc that want an unusual way to advertise!

Stuffed Animal Day, 2003

Stuffed Animal Day, Teddy Bear Toss, call it what you will, but the practice of throwing stuffed animals onto the ice at hockey games has become all the rage each Christmas season, as hockey teams help to collect the stuffed critters for charity by having a Teddy Bear Toss night where fans are encouraged to bring 1 or more stuffed animals to the game and then toss them onto the ice after the home team scores the first goal. Here is one of my all time favorite photos, which shows the Hamilton Bulldogs goalie hiding in his net as the teddy bears rain down onto the ice around him.

The International Hockey League is back... sort of!?!

I had today marked on my iCal as the day that the UHL would be announcing the changes for the upcoming 2007/08 hockey season. I knew that a bunch of the teams that payed last season would be gone for next season, as two teams are moving to other leagues and a few others are folding. But what I saw when I visited the UHL site tonight was pretty surprising!
The first thing I noticed when I clicked on my UHL bookmark was the the url quickly changed from theuhl.com to ihl-hockey.com. Then as the site showed up in my browser I saw that the UHL had indeed shrunk in teams from 10 last season down to 6 for the upcoming season. But more interestingly, the league had also changed its name from the UHL (United Hockey League) to the IHL International Hockey League).
My immediate reaction was that of excitement, after all, the IHL was my favorite hockey league until its demise in 2001. I was very disappointed when IHL folded.
Happily six of the IHL teams (including my favorites: Manitoba Moose & Grand Rapids Griffins), moved over to the AHL. I have a great T-shirt with those logos and the slogan, "the Original Six", as a homage to the original six of the NHL.
I always wished that IHL had not gone away, or at least that after a season or two they could have come back to play another season.
So here it is 2007, and we once again have the IHL, albeit a very different IHL.
Part of me thinks its wrong to change the name of the UHL to a name that already existed, but, at least 3 of the 6 teams playing in the new IHL were teams that played in the original IHL, so I guess that make this seem just a little 'less wrong', and possibly even OK.
I'll be very anxious to see the new IHL season begin this coming October. Once the season get going, I'll make up my mind if this is the greatest hockey move ever, or the worst move ever. Lets just hope they don't make a mockery of the IHL name.

1953-54 Ft Wayne Komets Spinning Schedule

I have been collecting pocket schedules for over 10 years now and have seen many different size schedules, team schedules with multiple (different) covers, odd shaped schedules, schedules on bookmarks & coasters, etc. But today I found a team schedule unlike any I have ever seen before. Its a home schedule for the 1953-54 Fort Wayne Komets of the International Hockey League. This unique schedule has a spinning front ring that allows you to chose the team or the month, and then it displays the game dates for the team or month you have chosen. As well as teams and months, it also has the category "Special"... not sure that that is for?
As a big fan of hockey radio broadcasts and a some time listener of Koemts games over the internet, I found it interesting that one of the sponsors on this schedule is Wowo radio. Pretty amazing that more than 50 years later they are still broadcasting Komets games on the same radio station in Ft. Wayne!

2007 Stanley Cup Fianls

It's finally happened! My two favorite NHL teams, the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals this year. It almost happened a few seasons ago when the Ducks made it in, but the sens lost game 7 of the semi finals to the Devils to miss the big dance. So this year, the Sens made it in, and I was waiting for the Ducks to make it in. I figured that this year it would be the Ducks who would make it to the 7th game of the semi finals before losing to the Red Wings to once again deprive me of my dream Stanley Cup Final! In tonights match up (game 6), the Ducks would move on to the the Final with a win. At one point in the game they were up 4 to 1. Then Detroit scored two goals to get me worried... was it going to happen again this year? The Ducks even spotted the Red Wings a power play, with just a couple of minutes left to go in the 3rd, with only a one goal deficit. The Ducks managed to hang on and defeat the Red Wings 4 to 3 to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. At that point I was doing somersaults around the living room. The 2007 NHL Stanley Cup Finals this season will be the Anaheim Ducks vs the Ottawa Senators. Now, if only I had gone to Vegas and put some cash on these two teams meeting in the Finals at the beginning of the season.

Idaho Steelheads Crunch

Ok, I love hockey, I love cereal, and I love advertising. So when I received this from a friend in Idaho, I was thrilled with this great new addition to my collection. Its perhaps the coolest looking season ticket holder brochure ever produced! The team is the Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL. They have gone with a cereal theme here with a box of Idaho Steeleads Crunch cereal on the front of the brochure. It looks to me like the cereal is Rice Crispies type cereal with little chocolate cookie "pucks" tossed in. I love all the marketing slogans used throughout the brochure: "New and improved ticket plans!", "Tasty offers inside!", "2 scoops of fun per bite!", "23 essential vitamins & benefits!", "Wait... there's more!" and "Part of a complete & balanced entertainment diet!". I absolutely love the "fake" Steelheads Crunch cereal box on the front of this brochure. I once made my own "fake" KISS (the rock band) cereal box... but that's a story for another day.

Victoria Vanguard Jerseys

Today on the way home from work I was listening to the local sports radio station and they were talking about the Vancouver Canucks and their jerseys. Of course as soon as I heard them talking about jerseys and new possible logos, I became very interested. They mentioned a Canucks fan website where there was a discussion going on regarding next season's Canuck's jerseys, along with fan made designs. As soon as I got home, I hit the web and ended up wasting a couple of hours at the computer. First I checked out the Canucks Canucks.com message board where the thread topic was "Modified Canucks Jersey - New Designs". There were some terrific looking jersey designs posted by the Canucks fans. This got me thinking about a logo I made a few years ago for the Victoria Salmon Kings of the ECHL.
When I first heard that there was a new pro hockey team coming to Victoria a couple of seasons ago, I was very interested to see what their name and logo would be. I was greatly disappointed when they unveiled their name (Salmon Kings) and logo (a sappy looking fish with a crown). Not the cool name and logo I had been hoping for. I decided I wanted to come up with something cooler. I remembered seeing some proposed (but unused) logos for the new team in Adirondack (check out my previous blog on this. I took my favorite unused Adirondack's logo and then mucked with it in Photoshop, changing the Adirondack Attack into the Victoria Vanguard. After spending some time playing around with, I made a nice desktop out of it, which pops up every now and then in my desktop screensaver mode.
Today I decided it was time to create some jerseys for my fictional hockey team. So, here I present the home and away jerseys of the Victoria Vanguard.

Congratulations New Westminster Whalers

On Sunday, March 5th, 2007, the New Westminster Whalers won the WHA Championship, beating the Lumby Fighting Saints All Stars 3 - 2 at home in front of a small but jubilant crowd inside the Queens Park Arena.

This was my son Kaden's second Championship winning game, as we watched the Coquitlam Express win the BCHL Championship last season. Pretty good for an (almost) 2 year old. Two years old, and two Cup winning games! I wonder who he will see win the Cup next season?

Lake Erie Monsters coming ashore

While visiting the AHL (American Hockey League) web site tonight, I found a great new team called the Lake Erie Monsters who will join the AHL for next season.
The new American Hockey League team that will begin play for the 2007-08 season in Cleveland at Quicken Loans Arena. The Monsters will operate as the primary affiliate of one of the NHL's most successful franchises, the Colorado Avalanche.
The team name was selected after an extensive amount of research was conducted with focus groups made up of casual fans, high level hockey fans, former Cleveland pro hockey season ticket holders, and others. In addition, considerable research explored names that would have a fun connection to the region. The Lake Erie Monsters was the top preference from the focus groups.
The "legend of the Lake Erie Monster" or "LEM," brings a fun geographical folklore connection to the region. The logo art reflects the menacing, powerful nature of the creature and features the hot yellow glare of the Monster's eye. Primary team colors will be wine, blue, yellow and black.
The home jersey will be white with wine shoulders and black trim segments on the arm sleeves and will feature the secondary logo on the front. The road jersey will be wine with black and white trim segments on the arm sleeves. Both home and road jerseys will have the Monster from the primary logo on each shoulder. Player numbers will appear on each shoulder sleeve and on the back of each jersey.
Leading the design and name development process with the organization's senior management team was Tracy Marek, Cavaliers/Quicken Loans Arena senior vice president of marketing. The team worked with Cenergy Communications on all elements of the name and design development process.
"Cenergy Communications brought a great deal of specialized expertise and insight to the table for this project. They really helped us develop an identity package that we'?re confident will engage our fans-to-be with a fun, but aggressive, team image they can be proud of and connect with. Monster Hockey is going to attack The Q like no other hockey team ever has!" said Marek.
I love the name and logo, but would make one small change. I would add the word 'Lock' to their name, making them the Lake Erie Lock Monsters. I think they probably avoided this name though, as there was another team in the AHL that used to go by the name Lowell Lock Monsters. They have since changed their name to the Lowell Devils (they went from a great name and logo, to a pretty lame name and logo in my opinion).
As well as the Lowell Lock Monsters, there was also a UHL team about 10 years ago called the Madison Monsters. I really liked thier logo, but their jersyes looked pretty funny as they were white with black pinstripes, which made them look like baseball jerseys instead of hockey jerseys.
While looking for the Madison logo, I also found this logo for the Vermont Lake Monsters baseball team.
It would seem that the name Monsters, is not as unique as I first thought. Uniqueness aside, I can't wait to add some Erie Lake Monsters merchandise to my collection next season!

10th Anniversary Logo Survey

Tonight while surfing the net, I visited the Bakersfield Condors web site and noticed they were going to be celebrating their 10th anniversary next season. To celebrate, they had a contest to vote for the logo they would use during their 10th Anniversary season. There were 4 logos to choose from. I always love seeing the logo choices, and then seeing which one ends up being used.

Of the four choices, I would choose logo #3. I love the claws grabbing the large ten "X". I would like to see them make the claws look a little more 'rough' as they look in their actual logo. A few claw marks on the "X" would look good too! Second choice would be logo #2. This one looks good, but the "X" in this one gets a little lost. It would look better if they had used the same "X" from logo #3 for this one. I do not like logos #1 or #4. Both are a little too busy and I don't think they would look very good on a jersey, when you see it for a distance.
As far as which one will win, I am putting my money on #3.
While we are discussing the Condor's logo, here is their original logo, back when they were known as the Bakersfield Fog. This is one of my all time favorite logos. I even have a Fog jersey in my collection. When I emailed them to ask why they had changed their name/logo, they told me that they changed their name due to the bad connotations that were linked with the name Fog, due to the fact that Bakersfield is known for its dense fog, and that many people have been killed due to the fog. Too bad, because this is such a cool logo and name!
And lastly, something else I found on the Condor's site. A piece of merchandise that I have not seen a hockey team sell before... toilet paper! The product details on the web site state: "This is a roll of toilet paper that has the Fresno Falcon's logo on it and says 'Wipe out the Falcons.'" I wonder if the Falcons have Condor's toilet paper for sale on their site?

Wranglers Midnight Madness

What were you doing at 11:59 pm Monday night (Dec 18)? I am enjoying my 4th annual Las Vegas Wranglers Midnight Madness hockey game via the net! Isn't the internet a wondrous thing? It's been marked on my iCal for months now, ever since the Wranglers released their 2006/07 schedule back in August. I stumbled upon the Midnight Madness game 4 years ago, and have looked forward to it each year since. Unfortunately for me, the way things work this year, I don't start my Christmas vacation until next week, so unlike the previous 3 years where I didn't have to work the next day after the Midnight Madness games, this time, I have to go to work the next day, and I don't expect this game to be over until some time around 3 am.
But I wouldn't miss it!... A woman bared her breasts on the big screen at the Wranglers' Midnight Holiday Roundup two years ago and tribute band "Mini Kiss" stole the show at last season's game. About the only thing one can count on at this unique promotion is that the game will go into overtime or a shootout, as the first three midnight games have at the Orleans Arena. We'll have to wait to see how the one turns out in a few hours.
Las Vegas president Billy Johnson came up with the idea to become the first pro sports team to play a midnight game. "I went to school at the University of Kentucky back when it was one of the first schools to do 'Midnight Madness' for the basketball program and it's the first time I've had an opportunity to be in a market to do something like that," he said. "It's definitely a top-five promotion for us, it's so unique. The funny thing about promotions in minor league sports is people like to take ownership of it."
Johnson said the Wranglers have averaged close to 5,000 fans per midnight game.
"I think it's a neat idea. It's something unique to our organization," he said. "We don't mind playing them. The guys get a nice Christmas break after them. It's always the last game before Christmas. And it's something to talk about with your kids or wife someday, that you played a midnight game until three in the morning in Las Vegas.
Here is a great sound bite from last years game, which occurred some time in the third period - around 2:30 am. The game announcer used one of my favorite hockey phrases after a goal... "He put it up where Grandma keeps the cookies", only, he was so tired that it didn't exactly come out as planned. It had me laughing for the next few minutes!

Unused Silvertips Logos

Here are some more unused hockey logos. I love this sort of stuff!
The Everett Silvertips WHL hockey team played their inaugural season in the 2003/04 season. Here are some of the team names and logos that were considered for the team before they became the Silvertips.
These unused logos were printed in the 2003/04 game night program. Some of the proposed names were the Admirals, Golden Eagles, Sea Dogs, Fleet, and Boomers. I kind of like that Everett Fleet logo. Add some stars to the sleeves, and a naval motif, and the Fleet jersey could be pretty slick!

Andirondack Frostbite

The Adirondack Frostbite was a minor league hockey team in the UHL (United Hockey League). They began play in the 2004/05 season and folded after the 2005/06 season. Before they were known as the Frostbite, they were the Adirondack IceHawks. When the IceHawks were bought by new owners, they decided to give the team a new name and logo. On the Andirondack team web site, they had a 'name the team' contest where you could vote for your favorite from the 6 finalists. The choices were the Frostbite, the Axemen, the Attack, the Mulleteers, the RedHawks, and the Spelunkers. My vote went for the Attack.
After seeing the 6 finalists, you have to wonder what names and logos didn't make the cut if the Mulleteers and Spelunkers made the list of finalists!

Scooore!

The Chilliwack Bruins franchise started off with a bang by winning in its Western Hockey League debut. Stephane Lenoski scored the winner and Alex Archibald stopped 17 shots as the Bruins defeated the Kelowna Rockets 3-1 Thursday for their first victory in franchise history to send a raucous sold-out crowd of 5,100 home happy.
The Bruins gave ways Inaugural game pucks, and souvenir tickets to all fans attending the game. I managed to score a few of each! I also bought one of the inaugural season pucks as well as an inaugural game program. I also scored a handfull of pocket schedules to trade with with my sked trading pals.
I have been to a number of inaugural games including the Vancouver Giants, Everett Silvertips, Burnaby Bulldogs, Burnaby Express, Coquitlam Express and the Vancouver Ravens NLL lacrosse team. As far as spectacle, there was not that much to be had at the Bruins game, although the sold out crowd seemed to be pleased with what they got. And unlike many of the other inaugural games I have attended, the home team actually won at this one which was a great way to get things started!

Home Opener Sold Out

The Chilliwack Bruins of the WHL announced today that Thursday's (September 21, 2006) inaugural game vs the Kelowna Rockets at Prospera Centre is sold out. Luckily this time I have my ticket and I am ready to go!

Prospera Centre opened its doors on September 10, 2004, and was the home to the Chilliwack Chiefs of the BCHL. The Chiefs have moved to Langley this season to make way for the Bruins. As well as seeing a few Chiefs games at Prospera Centre, I also got to see a pre season Idaho Steelheads game there, and most recently, saw Alice Cooper perform there.

I love attending inaugural hockey games, and always look forward to all the festivities and exclusive souvenirs. I'll be sure to give a report after the game.

My Friend Patty

My friend patty sent me two great photos that I thought I would share, along with a few notes she sent with each shot.

This is the hockey picture of my dad. This was the team that was supposed to be in the '40 Olympics; the war changed all that. My brother coloured my dad blue, just like Kaden's light saber, so that I'd recognize him. As if I wouldn't. He looked the same all his life, and I have his face.
Check out the guy on the far right. That's what happened when there were no helmet rules. My dad was lucky. The only disfigurement he ever got was a chipped tooth.

Here are some thoughts of the Christmas '53 photo. I was younger than two by a couple of months. I think I must have been teaching my older brother, Tom, to print and read; ever the schoolteacher. Look at me checking out the shiny new trike. It was Tom's; he was just under three. I would have liked to switch; I could have turned out to be a race car driver. A contender. I also received the doll in the highchair and the pram. The programming began early in those days. I must admit I was cute in a sulky kind of way.