~ What A Week ~

    

This week has been absolutely nuts!  I thank all of you that left comments and shot emails to make sure I was ok because of the lack of posting.  I truly appreciate and value your friendship.  I am fine, just trying to recover.  On Tuesday I crashed and burned.  I was exhausted from the wedding and week prior.  Yes Bill, and probably from staying up too late :)  I decided to call it an early night and I think I was in bed by 10:30.  Yes, that is early for me.  

 

Wednesday after work the girls went out to dinner.  My sister Marge wanted to treat us as a thank you for helping with the wedding preparations.  It was a nice relaxing dinner at Kelsey's.  The food was good, the company better.  It was after 9 when we got home and I just decided to veg a bit.  Getting up early and being on the go all day took it's toll.  I checked mail as quick as I could and headed off to bed.  

 

Thursday... ohhhhhhh Thursday was an day full of emotions.  I was excited in the morning as I was going to the hockey game after work.  I haven't gotten to many games this year.  We were playing the Ottawa Senators, and I knew it would be a good game.   I left the house a bit later then normal as I had changed my schedule to go in later and stay a bit later.  No sense in driving home after work only to head back down to the arena.   It was snowing when I left my house.  Not a horrible snow, but the flakes were huge.  Imagine silver dollars falling from the sky and covering the roads with a slick slush.  I got on the highway to head downtown.  Traffic was very light as it was well past rush hour, but everyone was moving a bit slow.  Visibility wasn't great because of the snow.  On more then one occasion I came upon a car I didn't even know was there as they had no lights on what so ever.  Grrrr they had to realize they couldn'tbe seen.  I had no problems slowing down to avoid them, but that really wasn't the issue.   I was in the center lane and could see a little station wagon in front of me in the right lane.  Plenty of room separated us, that was until I saw their break lights go on and the spin started.  The car twirled in front of me and I touched my breaks.  I knew I would slide on the slick slush and swerved a bit to the right as they were twirling to the left.  Another twirl and smack head on right in to the cement barrier between the north and south lanes.  I was paying attention to my car as I missed his tail end as he bounced off the barrier, twirled again and smacked full force again with the side of his car.  I was shaking and tense, white knuckles on the steering wheel.  I was going slow, almost stopped.  I pulled my car over in front of the smashed vehicle.  The whole time thanking a higher power for not having the road full of cars.  I got out of my car to check on the driver.  He was an old man, near 80 I would guess.  He looked dazed and a bit shaken but said he was ok.  I talked for a minute to make sure, then headed to my car to call the police.  I waited for the police to arrive and after they talked to him for a few minutes they came to me.  I gave my version of what had happened, or what I knew happened.  He was not speeding, but I had no idea why he stepped on the break.  Did he come upon a car that had no lights?  Did he start to slide and over compensated?  I don't know.  I was too busy trying to control my car to notice.  The man was ok, and off I went to work.  I got to the parking lot, pulled in my spot and sat there in tears.  I was shaking like a leaf and felt as though my life had flashed before my eyes.  I went into the office, but it was a good hour or so before I was calm enough or composed enough to actually work.   My arms, shoulders, and neck remained stiff for the majority of the day.  I didn't hit anything, I'm sure it was from tensing up in anticipation of the possibility. 

 

Work was done, yeah.  I was on my way to watch 'my boys.'  This part will most likely bore the hell out of most of you, and some may have already seen/heard it.  I found a spot to park and headed to the arena, camera in hand.  I waited for my guest and when they arrived we grabbed a bite to eat and found our seats.  Wow!  what a perfect vantage point.  We were about 16 rows from the ice off to the left of our goalie.  Only bad part about the seats is above the glass on either end there is netting to stop the puck from going into the crowd.  Ok, so it's a good thing it's there, but bad if you want to take pictures.  I took a few shots of them warming up through the glass.  You can see some of the 'scuff' marks on the graphic above.   I was excited to see Marty Biron would be in net.  He's been the topic of many trade rumors and it could be his last game in Buffalo.  I adore Marty!  I would hate to see him go but I also feel he deserves to be a starter, and could be on many other teams.  He has been nothing short of a team player and professional in his roll as back up.  As we watched the team warm up I looked around and saw many new faces.  We've had a rash of injuries and there were several kids called up from the minors.  It would be interesting to see how they faired against a good, healthy Ottawa team.  Ottawa has been pouring it on in the last few games and are trying to catch Buffalo in the standings.   Could the young guys step up?  Could the veterans keep their stamina for 60 minutes?  It was going to be a hard game to win, but I was excited none the less.  One of the young guys called up was a boy from the area.  How exciting to start in his first NHL game with the team he grew up cheering for.   My nephews know him personally and I was able to grab a shot of him at the bench.  That is him drinking from the water bottle. 

 

The boys were doing good.  Holding their own against a high powered offensive team.  About 5 minutes into the second period we were winning 3-2.  Then it happened.  It's been said around the league run our guys, they are soft, they can't play that type of game.  Chris Drury was in the Ottawa zone, he passed the puck off and a few seconds later in comes  Neil, making a beeline towards him.  The play was elsewhere and there is no reason to hit Chris, to say nothing about it being against the rules.  He hits him high and knocks off his helmet.  Down goes Chris, blood coming from his head/face.  One of the young guys comes to Chris's defense and goes after Neil.  I was proud of the young guy.  I don't condone the violence, but it had to be done.  A message needed to be sent.  You don't go after one of our best players and knock him out with a cheap shot.  The officials calm things down and start play again after giving out a couple penalties.  You think it is over?  Oh, my boys didn't.  The puck gets dropped and all hell breaks loose.  Players paired off and no matter where you looked on the ice there were punches being thrown.  Old time hockey.  Even the goalies got into it.  I will give kudo's to Emery (the Ottawa goalie) he is a boxer as well and lightened up on Marty.  He could have pounded him and didn't.  Like I said, I don't condone it but I was so proud of them.  They needed to stick up for each other.  Send a message it isn't ok to play dirty and try to take players out.  I watched and not once remembered I had my camera around my neck.  I could have gotten it all on video, but didn't.  Oh well, I was so caught up in the moment.  Twenty minutes, over 100 minutes of penalties, and three ejections later the game continues.  Both goalies get tossed out.  Ottawa did come back to tie the game.  It went to overtime and then a shoot out.  I didn't forget about the camera then :)  

 

           

 

Stafford gets a Gordie Howe hat trick.  A goal, an assist, and a fight.  He was the first to come to Drury's defense and scored the only goal in the shoot out.  A depleted roster of the Buffalo Sabres goes on to beat the Ottawa Senators 6-5.  It's unfortunate that Chris out for a few games.  He took some 20+ stitches to close a gash in his head.  We now have more players from our minor league team then regulars.  As of now the league has done nothing.  I thought for sure Andrew Peters would be suspended for fighting with the Sen's goalie, that Neil would get some type of punishment for his cheap shot, but nothing yet.  GRRRRRR  To top it all off........... they play again tonight.  More fireworks?  I highly doubt it.  The hype is usually bigger then the event, but you know where I will be tonight.

 

 

                

 

The last clip here says it all....................... a win!!