Friday Night at Queen Victoria

(Yet again I'll be posting recaps of the tourney in segments. This time at least I had my laptop with me, but there was no usable wi fi in the hotel, so I'm editing and cleaning up my notes, one by one. Here's part one...)

This hotel allegedly has wi fi but but no one can get it to work, so I'm writing this now and will post it later. I'm having a blast, as usual. We got here plenty early enough yesterday to check in and chill out for a bit before heading to the rink for our first game. Just like last year, we beat our opponent with in a shutout (I'm pretty sure it was the same team actually), winning 6-0. I actually only had 6 shots against, and as much as that sounds like it was an easy game, it wasn't, mentally. I worked pretty hard at keeping myself focused, and found toward the end that I was thinking “I better get out of this with a shutout, because if I let in a goal on only 6 shots that's ridiculous”. Yeah, I know. Bad thinking. So I squelched it the best I could, and when all was said and done there was still a big fat 0 on the board.

I was a little apprehensive about our team after that. Due to scheduling issues only 6 members of the regular D team were able to come to the tournament, and we filled our roster out with a few “kids” that came last year, and some of their friends. They're all college age girls who have been part of the organization since they were younger, but haven't played in about a year. So, we do have ringers, but they are very respectful ringers (most of the scoring in that game was done by the “old ladies” for example), and don't take over the game. Not only that but they were exhausted to the point of “omg I think i'm going to throw up. No really. I totally think I'm going to throw up” after the game. It's actually pretty hysterical hanging out with a bunch of college girls. It makes you feel old and young at the same time.

Much to all of our surprise, they were excited about coming to the tournament, and even came right to our room after the game, to hang out. Yes, our room turned into the social gathering place for the night. We had the most beer, so I guess there's little mystery there. It wasn't long before the girls excitedly taught us old farts a very complicated but very fun drinking game. It got progressively more hilarious the more we drank and less we remembered the rules. It was then that I tweeted something about hanging with college girls being good for learning new drinking games, and minutes later, after checking her phone, one said “Hey, who's Derek Boogaard?” Nothing harshes a buzz faster than finding out a 28 yr old guy on “your” team, who was so well-loved by his teammates and respected by opponents, has passed away suddenly and with no explanation. The party ended a little bit after that, and I spent a little while scrolling through tweets, trying to get my brain around it. I guess 28 year old guys die every day. And every one of those deaths is sad. But reading the comments and memories from his teammates (mostly from the Wild, who he played longer with) was really heart-breaking. And I really have nothing to say that isn't going to sound cheesy, so safe journey, Boogey. R.I.P.