Amy's New Place

Here is a picture and text that Amy sent us last night from the place that where she is staying in Cumberland, MD. We miss her already.

My apt is third floor the window on left. Cumberland Maryland.

WV Wild vs Dayton Red Bombers (Squirts)

We drove to Dayton to two games with the Dayton Red Bombers. The Wild did well playing as a team, passing the puck, skating with the player during a breakaway, etc. The games were at different rinks, but we didn't know that. We always try to show up about an hour before the game. We showed up to the news that there was not 9am game, just the 3:40pm game. Kind of a bummer, then the assistant coach called the head coach to tell him. The head coach was at the right ice rink wondering where we all were. We raced across Dayton and made it in time for the game.

This is Isaac headed down the tunnel from the dressing rooms to the ice.Here he is after the game. They won 8-1. Isaac spent the last minute and a half of the game in the penalty box for tripping. He pretty much tackled the kid, it wasn't his fault. He was chasing the kid down from behind, got up to the side of him and the kid cut into Isaac. The pile up on the ice ended with 2 minutes for tripping.

The Emperor with No Clothes

The Alum Creek Elementary Drama Club has been trying since before Christmas to put on their play. Every time they have tried to perform, it was a snow day and all of school was canceled. This last Monday it finally came together. The play that they performed was "The Emperor with No Clothes". It was a cute play. Lots of singing. There she is right in the middle of the front row in the red shirt. Lexy was a 'parade organizer'. Here she is with the other parade organizers singing their song, half way through the song they spread out through the crowed offering fruit from their bags. But, they wouldn't let anyone take one.

The play was about a good emperor that had some crooks talk him out of this clothes. Brave kid, he spent the last third of the play in boxer shorts and a tank top under shirt.

Good Job Lexy..!!!

Jungle Jim's

This place is awesome..!! It is a supermarket on steroids. Cheese from 70 countries, produce for about a have acre, a bakery that is even bigger, seafood counter where you pick the fish and they clean and fillet it for you on the spot. Not to mention that they have sections for about 25 or 30 different country's. Specialties from all around the world. Check out their site if you have a minute.

There are tons of custom animated displays all around the store.

There were about 10 different flavored pickle barrels.

The hot sauces were in alphabetical order. If you are ever in Northern Cincinnati check it out.

WV Synchro gets a 'Smile'

The Charleston Gazette does a weekly column called Smiles and Scowles. It is quite opionion based as I see. The West Virginia Synchronized Skating Team was given a 'Smile" in the January 22, 2011 edition of the paper.

I don't think that I agree with some of the other comments on this one. But it's fun to see the Synchro Team get a good review.

Weekend Hockey Update

Isaac's team did well this weekend. They won both games at home. Isaac got a goal in Saturday's game. The league standings are here. When I looked they were in second, but this weekend's games had not been reported. There overall record is now 11-7. Still undefeated in league play and winless out of league. An interesting wrinkle in the league is that the teams only have to report 7 home games and 7 away games. So, the team that WV Wild beat 4 times in one weekend only shows 3 losses and WV Wild only show 7 wins.

Sunday's game is on UStream, if you want to watch for a bit...

For Real...?

So one day last week people were crowded by the window on one end of our office laughing. A little closer look and this is what they were looking at.

You must click on the picture to see it full size to see for yourself and get the detail that you need.

These clowns have used the winch on a car hauler trailer and a frame tow hook to hoist up this Ford Explorer. They backed the trailer up to the side of the Explorer, ran the winch cable over the top, hooked the tow hook in the door frame with the window down, and tipped the car up on it's side. If you look at the picture full side you can see the cable running from the top of the car to the front of the trailer. I wish that this picture showed them under the car, but it does not. When I saw them they were both under the car, one sitting and one laying on the ground, yanking on the fuel tank to remove it. My guess... They ran out of gas and were pulling the fuel tank to take it across the street to fill it up. Ha.

Backyard Brawl on Ice 2011

What a game, what a game. We have been pumping up the BACKYARD BRAWL on ICE, trying to get people that we know there to see the game and how much fun hockey can be. WVU vs PITT is big in any sport. Well that place was packed the other night and what a game. Scoreless first period, 2-2 tie at the end of two, then things really picked up. WVU took the edge with a mid-third period goal and appeared to have things locked down when PITT scored the tying goal with 30 seconds to go. At WVU time out came the coaches a chance to set up the play that was needed. The puck dropped in the WVU attack zone and the fury began. It seemed hopeless as the clock clicked down, 10... 9... 8... working, working, 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... and the puck hit the back of the net. The whole building erupted as WVU scored the go ahead goal. When I say the place erupted, it was crazy. Crazy enough that on of the local hockey boys watching the game hit the glass so hard from the outside that the glass shattered to the ice. With 3.1 seconds on the clock and glass all over the ice the refs ran out the clock. WVU wins.

Butch was standing right behind the kid that broke the glass, and he does have an extra piece to fix the spot. I was impressed.

Isaac before and after the game gathered as many players signatures from the WVU players as he could. Look at the mess his arms turned out to be.

The kids and I had lunch with a few of the player on Monday afternoon. We ran into Sean McFadden (#3, C), Luke Sonnefeld (#16, A), Christian Lewton (#25), and Chris Wilder (#33, Goalie). They had run the kids clinic one Sunday night and remembered Isaac. Lexy really liked the goalie #33, she made a sign from him that said, "Catch the Puck #33!"

Articles from The Daily Mail and The Charleston Gazette.

Now, why is it that they can barely mention the game at all. We need more coverage for hockey in Charleston. That would make the kids hockey program stronger. Maybe they could get some corporate sponsors to get the cost down a bit. If we can get enough kids to join there can be a house league here in Charleston, which in turn will keep the cost down. And maybe, just maybe, there will be enough going on to build the other half of the South Charleston Memorial Ice Arena. But that is just a dream at this point.

More from the weekend

Here are some more pictures from the weekend.

This is the hockey rink where the kids played. From the last post, the ice they were supposed to play on melted. This was just before the game. So while we were waiting for the ice to freeze at the Indian Hill rink the kids were all watching the sun rise and watching the ducks wake up and head to the little bit of water left. I found this picture that Isaac took Sunday morning when I downloaded the pictures tonight. Good one buddy.

Misc Hocky

Isaac's team was scheduled to play two games on Sunday morning in Cincinnati's Indian Hill area. We drove up the night before and stayed, thank you Priceline. We rolled up to the ice rink at 7am for the 8am game. Nice place. It is a country club with an ice rink. So, Isaac headed to the locker room to start getting ready. By 7:30am we learned that it was not just a bad Zamboni job that made the ice look so bad. The compressors had been turned off. There was a quarter inch of water on top of the ice and it was not freezing. They opened up all the doors to let in the cold air from outside in to help. By 8:30am they were calling other rinks in Cincinnati trying to find some ice for them the play on. What a long shot... But it came through, they found some. Our boys got to play one game at 10am in downtown. After all that, the game didn't go real well for our boys. They got beat pretty good. These other boys played a lot more physical than what our boys have been taught. By the second period our boys figured out that they had to put their bodies into the game and they did a lot better. Isaac ended up full on checking a kid a couple of times. I need to edit the video that I have to see if I can get it better to watch.

So, I don't have much for pictures from the game, so here is the team picture. And this is a pre-game pep talk from Coach Phillips, at home in our locker room.

So, to go with the story at the top of this post. I am thinking that we need to travel with Butch. He keeps the ice and facility so nice at our home rink that we need to take him on the road to make sure that we have good ice to play on when we are on the road.