It’s our last day.  Our last day in Canada, our last day in Saskatoon, and our last day with our friends Bella, Terry and the 2 munchkins, Tom and Bob.

We’ve had a fantastic time here in Saskatoon, and it’s been awesome catching up with friends and seeing some fantastic hockey.  If not for Bella and Terry we would never have seen Dane Cook live, or seen the Blades take on Lethbridge, or see snow in Regina while seeing the Moose Jaw Warriors play Scott Glennie (Stars draft pick), Brayden Schenn and the Brandon Wheat Kings, or take a pilgrimage to Prince Albert to see where Mike Modano played his junior hockey.  We want to send a shout-out to Kirk, Kelly and the kids.  While we never got a chance to catch up with Kelly, we had a great time with Kirk and promise to do it again at some point in time!

Canada has been pretty fantastic, and while we may be leaving early tomorrow morning, we will never forget the great times we had up here.

Tomorrow we head down to Dallas, and then drive to San Antonio where our extended family, “The Shorts” live.

To Bella and Terry, thank you for putting up with us for the last 12 days.  Thank you for accepting us into your house and the amazing time we had.  You guys are the best.

Did you watch the Grey Cup game tonight?  We did… and will get onto that a bit later in the post.

The day was a quiet one.  After a late night reading after we got home from the PA Raiders game, we finally got out of bed at 9:45am.  Well, I did.  Wendy stayed in bed and slept in til 11am as she wasn’t feeling all that good.

We decided to shoot up to the Starbucks and get a coffee and maybe a goodie or 2.  The local Starbucks here do a killer Oatmeal and Candy cookie.  It’s actually an Oatmeal and M&M cookie, but i’ll let them call it candy.  So I got one of those and Wendy got a double chocolate chunk cookie… what in Australia we’d call a double-choc cookie.  Being bold I tried the Gingernut Latte… a double-shot coffee with ginger syrup.  Not bad, but really not all it’s cracked up to be.  Wendy went for the Peppermint Mocha, which is one off the nicest drinks i’ve ever had.  Upon getting home though, it seems the peppermint latte and Terry’s Caramel Latte got mixed up.  Wendy had a couple of sips of hers before going to catch some sleep.  Terry was wondering what happened to his latte as it tasted weird.  It turns out Wendy had the latte and Terry had the mocha.  Bit of a mix up there.

After lunch (coffee & cookies) we decided to head back out to the Market Mall as we wanted to pick up a few more hockey cards.  We shot through to the shop and found it full off people playing “Magic The Gathering”.  Think of a small shop, full of geeky people playing roll playing dice games (similar to the old Dungeons and Dragons).  An interesting sight, i assure you.  We didn’t go there for the MTG though, we went for the bin of hockey cards they have at the front of the store.  The cards are all random packs of about 20 – 30 cards per pack, which sell at 4 packs for $5.  The cards themselves range from 2009 edition cards, to special edition rookie cards, to vintage cards, to WHL prospect cards… quite literally a bit of everything.  We ended up picking up 24 packs off them, for a total of $30 (+ tax).  After a short stop at Safeway we headed home again to prepare for the Grey Cup.

The Grey Cup is the Canadian Football League (CFL) equivalent of the NHL’s Superbowl.  It’s the penultimate prize for CFL players, and the chalice for which they sleep, eat and play the game.  If you think i’m hyping this up, you’re right; but for a very good reason.

Here in Saskatchewan, the Roughriders are like a religion.  You’re born with “Rider Pride”, and when it comes to the team, normal everyday people transform into bloodcurdling, slightly psychotic green machines.  Seriously, i don’t think i’ve ever met more passionate sports fans than those of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.  Last weekend the Riders won the Western Conference final, earning their place in the Grey Cup, where they battled it out today against the “Als”, or as they’re formerly known the Montreal Alouettes.  The Als had beaten the Riders in both their meetings this season, so the Riders had a thing to prove going into this game.

And so they did… at least, for 59 minutes and 55 seconds.

The Riders were solid and actually outplayed the Als across the vast majority of the game.  Going into the 4th quarter of the game the Riders had 20-10 lead and looked to continue their strong play in the final 15 minutes of the game.  The Als however had a thing or 2 to say about that, and erased a 16pt deficit in the final 10 minutes of the game.  With less than 10 seconds left in the game, and 2pts down the Als had a shot at a field goal to win the game but Damon Duval (Als punter) missed!  That’s it, game over… right?  No!  All of a sudden there are flags on the field and a penalty called against the Riders for too many men on the field.  The Als now had a second chance at the field goal, and this time Duval didn’t miss, putting the Als ahead and guaranteeing an Alouette’s a victory by a 28-27 scoreline.

If Obi Wan Kenobi were here we would have sat down in shock and felt like he heards thousands of voices call out and were suddenly cut off.  That’s how it felt for Riders fans, so see their team throw an amateurish stupid penalty in that point of the game, to cost them not just a game, but THE most important game of the year.   We’re not even fans of the game, but we felt the massive letdown, like a punch to the gut.

After the game we were all kinda quiet, which I think was partly due to the game and partly due to most people in the house not feeling too good.  The rest of the night was spent relaxing, catching up on reading and watching the hockey on TV.

Tomorrow is our last full day here in Saskatoon, and we’re planning on heading to the second hand bookstore again to pick up some good hockey books.

Saturday dawned to be cold and lazy. The whole family was up by the time Sam and I dragged ourselves out of bed. Bella’s still sick, and Terry was making pancakes for everyone else! They were good too! Since Bella wasn’t well, Terry decided to stay home with her and the twins instead of coming to Prince Albert with us – which was definitely understandable. Sam agreed that if he’d been in Terry’s shoes, he would have stayed with me too. I think Bobby still isn’t feeling too great either.

Since we were gearing up for a trip to PA (Prince Albert) this afternoon, we took the morning pretty easy and just hung out at home, catching up online and charging the batteries on my camera. By 3:30pm though, we were on the road on our own. Terry had printed out the directions from googlemaps, and did up ones with pretty pictures too just in case – though it still didn’t stop us from missing the turn but I’ll get to that later.

We stopped at Starbucks for Sam to get his caffeine fix and to get some dosh out of the ATM so we can, you know, eat dinner, and by 4pm we were on the road again, like Shrek and Donkey off on another adventure. We didn’t hum On The Road Again but we did do some pretty hardcore singing to Sam’s 80s playlist on his Ipod. WHAT?! It’s good music!

Anyway, we passed a lot of farmland, a number of frozen lakes, the Mennonite Museum of Canada – not sure what that is but I suspect it’s another religious related place – and a number of small farming towns before we got to our destination.

Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

Since many of you reading this blog won’t know, I’ll tell you a little bit about this city. PA is the 3rd largest city in Saskatchewan, with approximately 34000 people in 2006 (according to the city’s website – I’m not just pulling these facts out of thin air!), and daily temperatures can range from 17C to -29C on average depending on the time of year. It was -10C tonight at the game, and apparently that was quite “balmy” for this time of year according to the locals!

Most importantly though, Prince Albert is the home of the Prince Albert Raiders. Why is this important? I’m glad you asked (even if you didn’t!). It’s important, because Mike Modano played in the WHL with the Prince Albert Raiders from 1986-1989. He was drafted 1st round, 1st overall by the Minnesota North Stars while he was a PA Raider. This was the final step in the Mike Modano Pilgimage (NO I’m not going to be stalking his home town in Michigan, that’s just … *shudders* CREEPY. I like to keep my stalking tendancies to a … professional level – or at least to wherever Mike played hockey).

Terry graciously organised with someone in the Saskatoon Blades office for there to be free tickets for us (and Terry and Bella too but since they didn’t come, the Raiders just gave us the 2 tickets) which was awfully kind of them, and completely above and beyond everything. We had dinner at Boston Pizza first before heading over to the Art Hauser Center, which is the home of the PA Raiders. When we got inside, there was a little hitch with getting our tickets – they hadn’t printed them! We tried Will Call first, and then Sam called Terry who said to ask at the Ticket Office which we did. The lovely ladies behind the counter went on a hunt, and after a phone call and another search they came back with two tickets. Meanwhile, we chatted to the lovely lady behind the counter who said we sounded like we came from Australia! Of course, we said we did, and that just went into another launch of how we know hockey and why we came all that way. Two words: Mike Modano.

After our tickets had been sorted, printed and received in our hands, we went through the doors, had them scanned by a lovely gentleman with a handheld scanner (it’s all so high-tech these days!) and then into the Merchandise Store we went! Every hockey game we’ve been to, we’ve purchased an official game puck, so we needed one of those. Sam, though, had been squirreling away some spare cash that we’ve had left over from previous days, in the name of the PA Fund so that I could get some merchandise if I wanted. In the end, I got a PA Raiders hat, a shot glass to add to our ever growing collection, a lanyon, the game puck and the WHL Official Statistics Book.

While we were deciding on what we wanted, we were talking to the lady behind the counter, and she also picked our accents, and asked why we were in PA. I told her that I was a huge Mike Modano fan and had wanted to come to PA to see the Raiders play for 17 years, and finally we were there to do just that! She was so nice, and since we had come all that way she gave us the Season Ticket Holder’s 10% discount on the merchandise. We thanked her profusely and then headed into the arena to try and find our seats. We ended up down a corridor that we weren’t sure we should walk down because the PA Raiders Locker Room door was on it, but it was shut so we kept walking. Then we came across the PA Raiders team photographs and their team records plaques. We took great delight in finding not only Mike Modano, but also Dave Tippett (former Dallas Stars coach) on the walls as well. Mike looked so young and innocent – it gave me such a chuckle to see him!

We continued down the hall and found ourselves at the entrance to the ice. Oops! Luckily there was also a stairway to the top of section 12, so we took that and then went in search of section 16. We found it, and then found our seats Row G, seats 10 & 11. Centre Ice. Perfect viewing. We were amazed and humbled. It was so lovely of the Blades front office to get us the best seats in the house. The PA Rink was different to any other arena we’d been in. Like Moose Jaw, it only had 1 tier of seats and then the “suites” (though there were more suites in MJ than in PA), and the rink seats around 3200 people. There were just over 1800 there tonight, so the turnout wasn’t that bad! The ceiling of the rink, however, was timber. Because the temperatures get to -40C in the winter, if they had metal instead of timber, they would shatter in the cold. Timber provides a flexibility to keep the structure standing when it’s buried under snow and well below freezing outside! Fascinating!

The PA Raiders wear black uniforms at home for the first half of the season and white at home for the second half. Their logo is the face of a pirate – who is called RILEY according to the back of the PA Mascot’s uniform. I’m assuming he’s Riley The Raider. Their black uniforms are highlighted with lime green bands on the sleeves and the bottom of the shirt, and white edging. It’s rather attractive actually, and like the Blades uniform, looks good in both the coloured and the white versions. I didn’t buy one though, as they were $129 each.

About halfway through the second period, a lady who had been doing the fan competitions during the time out breaks came and sat down next to Sam and asked, “Are you the Mike Modano fans from Australia?” which was when our stomachs sank and our cheeks reddened.

Sam busted me and said that I was the Mike Modano fan – but he was wearing his Stars jersey too so she knew we were both Stars fans, and she laughed with delight. “Who dobbed us in?” I asked her and she said the lady from the merchandise store did. OH WELL! Busted. She asked what we were doing there, etc, and then asked if we would mind playing a game for a prize – a $10 voucher to Subway. Since we eat there anyway, we thought what the heck and agreed. The Raiders were up at this point 4-1 over the Hurricanes, who must have been worn out from the shootout the Blades took them to the night before.

When it was time for our stint on the Jumbotron/Scoreboard, she mentioned that we were Mike Modano fans from Australia, was that correct, which Sam refused to answer but I just jumped in with a “YES!” and the crowd started clapping. Then we played this game where to win, we had to pick which of the three eggs had the cup of coffee inside at the end of the spinning. Sam looked at me when it stopped, I looked at him, and he said to me, “I think it’s 3.” I thought it was 2, and the crowd was calling out 2 as well, so he said to me to answer it. So I said, “2!” and it was right! We won the gift certificate! Then the host mentioned about the Grey Cup final tomorrow that the Saskatchewan Roughriders are playing in against the Montreal Aoulettes and asked us if we could do the Aussie football chant of AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE and the crowd would do the OI OI OI part. Which we said, “SURE!”

So we did! AND THEY DID! It was pretty awesome.

For the rest of the game, I ended up talking to the ladies sitting next to me, who were quite interested in us being there from Australia and our trip and everything. They were quite lovely, and both were season ticket holders who I think had been season ticket holders for like 20 years because they mentioned that they didn’t appreciate Mikey when he’d been on the Raiders team, but wow-ee had he done well.

The Raiders were a very exciting team to watch. They played a diamond system on the penalty kill, which is unusual as most teams will use the box system on the PK. They did the diamond system very, very well. They were also extremely good at passing tape to tape. Only in the third period when the boys were tired from the Hurricanes consistently hard-hitting checks and fights did they start to miss their passes. By that stage, though, they were so far ahead that it didn’t really matter anyway. I was impressed with #20 and #22 – both had been targeted by the Hurricanes all game and it took until at least towards the end of the second for either of them to crack and start a fight. #22 was also a brilliant skater too. Their goaltender was solid in net, which was also good to see. Unlike a lot of the teams we’ve watched play on this trip, the Raiders had set plays which they used consistently. And they worked tonight, with them winning the game in regulation 6-1.

It was an awesome night at the hockey and to add to the wonder of the night, the PA Raiders at the end of every game do what our Bluetongues do, and salute their crowd by tapping on the ice with their sticks and then raising them in ovation. It was quite heartwarming to see, and something I’ve missed about our own hockey league. On our way out we got photos of the team photos that had Mike in them, and the honour boards in the hallways before going out to the car.

Holy crap was it cold outside! It was about -12C in PA, because it was -8C when we got back to Saskatoon about an hour and a half later, and it’s usually about 4-5 degrees colder in PA than in Saskatoon. The ride home seemed to fly though, so it was okay. No snow, but plenty of black ice on the roads. We made it back in one piece.

Tomorrow is the Grey Cup final – a big day in Canada – the CFL Finals. And then? Who knows, but I suspect a lot of time tomorrow will be spent in front of the TV!

Today we didn’t go for our walk in the morning because it was just too cold to get out of bed. Instead, we slept in a little and went downstairs just as the kids were finishing breakfast. After their morning nap, the five of us (Bella, Bobby, Tommy, Sam and I) piled into the minivan and headed out to the CUC to meet up with Terry, who was at work. Terry had arranged with Spike, the equipment manager of the Saskatoon Blades, to give us a locker room tour!

It was pretty awesome! The Blades locker room has been recently rennovated because the CUC is hosting the IIHF World Junior Championships for Ice Hockey from December 26-January 5. Team Canada will have the Blades locker room for the tournament. Their locker room was already set up for the game tonight, with the boys’ jerseys hanging up, their protective gear already in place on their lockers and their skates ready to be sharpened. Their goaltender, Steven Stanford, had just gotten his new helmet back, with it’s paint job on it. It’s pretty awesome. On one side he has his tattoos that are on his shoulders and arms and the other side he has Will Farrell in costume from Blades Of Glory. He wore it in the game tonight and it looked awesome!

The Blades locker room has blue carpet that matches their uniforms, and their logo is on a large thick rug, so they can easily remove it when they have to. Just like all other hockey teams though, the boys do not walk on the logo. They walk around it. Bobby, who just loves hockey, climbed up into someone’s locker, so we got a photo of him just sitting there. He’ll be there in about 13-14 years time, no doubt!

From there, we saw where they store their equipment – a wall of sticks and just from floor to ceiling of shoulder pads, gloves, elbow pads, shin guards, you name it, it was there. We were also shown both the team’s jerseys. Unlike the NHL who wear colours at home and whites on the road (unless they’re in their third jersey), the WHL plays colours for half the season and whites for the other half. This year they’re wearing their blues until December and then Whites for the end of the season. Their jerseys are new for this season – a new colour scheme and logo (though the colours aren’t that different from previous seasons), and they’re actually a rather attractive jersey.

From there, it was their medic room – where the boys get massages, strappings for injuries, hot tub for aching muscles, and stitches for cuts on the ice, then their shower/bathroom area, their down room where they each have a locker with their photo on it, where they hang their street clothes and can sit down on the leather chairs and watch tv and chillax, and finally their exercise/weights room. It had 12 bikes, a leg press, weights, all sorts of expensive and impressive equipment. The boys train in there for a minimum of an hour and a half every day – seven days a week – unless they’re on the road, at which I assume they would use whatever gym is at their hotel/visiting city’s arena if they’re staying overnight.

Spike was rather interested in us being from Australia and being hockey fans. Of course the inevitable embarrassing question of “how did you get into hockey” got asked – god I hate that question – and we discussed the AIHL and the NHL and what games we’d seen in the WHL on our trip. We were lucky to be going to the game that night to watch the Blades take on the Lethbridge Hurricanes so we wished Spike his team good luck and headed back upstairs to put the kids in the car and head home because Bel wasn’t feeling well.

When we got home, Sam and I had Timmy’s for lunch (good ol’ Timmys!) and then after the kids went down for their afternoon nap, Bel and I both passed out as well. Only Sam stayed awake all afternoon. This damn cold just won’t go away!  I felt a little better after my nap though, which was great, and when Sam woke me up, it was time to get changed and head out to the rink for the Blades Vs Hurricanes game!

We were sitting in an empty suite, right next door to the TV cameras who put the action up on the scoreboard/jumbotron that hangs above the ice. With the boys, it’s easier to keep them contained to a room that they can crawl around in and things like that. Tommy spent most of the night with Terry, but Bobby – who just loves hockey – spent most of the game on either Bella’s, Sam’s or my lap, eyes glued to the action on the ice!

There were a couple of scraps on the ice, which was awesome to watch, and the Lethbridge defense was awesome. Their goaltender though – not impressed. If you’re playing semi-pro, you shouldn’t be flinching at the puck coming towards you when you’re a goaltender. You’re wearing kevlar, it won’t get through the helmet, mate! Might dent it, but it won’t get through it! The Blades were a little off, trailing 0-2 at one point before they stepped up their game and evened it up with 5 minutes left in the third. Terry said we were cursed because the game in Moose Jaw went to a shootout, and if this game went to a shootout, he wasn’t taking us to another game again! It did end up going to a shootout, but with 2 minutes left in the game, Bella’s phone started ringing.

It was Kirk, calling to organise with Sam and I to go out after the game! We told him that it would probably go to OT maybe a shootout so he was going to meet us at Bel and Terry’s in 30 minutes. Then it was time to watch the action on the ice again. I had Bobby on my lap, and he was just glued to the action on the ice, cheering when the Blades had the puck and putting his hands in his hair his jaw dropping when Lethbridge had it. It did go to OT, and no one scored, so it went to a Shootout. When the Blades’ skater scored, Bobby cheered along with the crowd – SO ADORABLE! The Blades ended up winning the shootout, so it ended 3-2.

Kirk picked us up from Bel and Terry’s and we headed over the river to The Fox And Hound for beer and wings (though I had scotch and coke – turns out you can get scotch & coke in Canada, so maybe it’s just a US thing?) and shooting the breeze. The wings were good. We had Buffalo, Hot & Honey and Lemon & Cracked Pepper. SO GOOD. It was just awesome to hang out with Kirk and catch up and talk hockey, and life and Canada, Australia, kids, just everything. Kirk is just an awesome, awesome guy. After F&H, we headed downtown to Broadway Street, and checked out the band playing at Roxy’s. They were pretty good actually, a group called Seven Straight. Apparently they’re on MySpace. Sam’s going to check them out. We ended up getting home around 2am.

Tomorrow we’re going out to PA (Prince Albert), which is a pilgrimage for me, since it’s where Mike Modano played in the WHL, the Prince Albert Raiders. I’m not sure if Bel and Terry and the kids are coming because Bel’s still sick but we’ll have to see tomorrow!

It seems our blog post yesterday caused quite a stir.  Today, in order to make things much easier, we offer you this  spoon… its curve will provide maximum movement and you will find the handle nicely shaped  for fast and efficient stirring.

Now, on to the events of today.

We decided to sleep in a little today so finally got out of bed at 8:45am, dressed and headed out for our morning walk up to the local Starbucks.  The walk was, as usual, uneventful.  We decided to repeat yesterdays longer walk so we could take a look at the houses along the tree lines streets.  I picked up a Venti non-fat latte, while Wendy had the tall peppermint mocha (a Christmas special drink that is absolutely amazing).

After walking home we checked the internet, and wow, what a shock we were in for.  It seems that within 5hrs of yesterdays blog going live we had comments from Hutterites pretty much verbally crucifying us about a segment of yesterdays blog update.  Oh well, life goes on.   I am curious as to how the blog was found so quickly after it was posted.  Hell, most people don’t even think the Hutterites have the Internet!  Anyway, you’ll notice that the blog post from yesterday has since been edited.  See, we are respectful

Right, back on track we go… after our experience with the angry Christians we decided to head out to Market Mall, which is a shopping mall here in Saskatoon.  Many of the locals call it the “Gerry Mall” due to its close proximity to the nursing homes, and the fact that the vast majority of the people who shop there are elderly.  To any elderly people reading this we mean no offense, please don’t stone us.

Lunch was a quick stop at A&W for a burger and fries.  Not our first option for lunch as we usually prefer to avoid the greasy food, but the rest of the places in the mall looked incredibly dodgy so A&W won out.  The burgers were actually pretty nice.  Wendy had the “mama burger” and I had the “Uncle sirloin burger”.  Clearly A&W like to keep it “in the family”

After lunch we went down to this great little sports memorabilia store.  It’s actually a fantasy gaming type store (Magic the Gathering) that has a load of hockey and other sports memorabilia.  We picked up 4 packs of random hockey cards, a mini Dallas Stars Zamboni and a replacement collectors puck/card holder for Wendy’s Modano card which broke a few years back.  The store is incredible and has some absolutely awesome stuff, including a full McFarlaine hockey rink which you can use to set your hockey figurines in a game-like manner.  The rink and players would cost a load though, so it stayed there.

A few stops through Zellers and Safeway, before we headed over to McNalleys books where we ended up drooling over all the hockey books… there are a LOT of them.  We’re going 2nd hand book shopping again before we leave and have a list of books we want to keep an eye out for.

When we opened the hockey cards at home we found a fantastic card for a guy who plays for the Saskatoon Blades; Jyri Niemi, an Islanders draft pick.  We’re hoping to get the card signed by Niemi before we leave here.

We ended up having a quiet afternoon and evening catching up on email.  Bella cooked a fantastic Shepherds Pie for supper that was simply scrumptious.  Right now we have NHL hockey on TV (Blue Jackets @ Senators), so it’s another good night for TV.

Tomorrow we have a treat that Terry arranged for us… but you’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s update to find out.

ETA: We were just watching the NHL and heard that Brayden Schenn has been signed by the LA Kings, and will be playing in his first ever NHL game tonight Vs the Canucks.

According to the official Kings website:

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Kings have signed center Brayden Schenn to a One-Day NHL Regular Season Amateur Tryout Agreement and he is expected to join the Kings today in Vancouver, Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi announced today.

This means that Wendy and I possibly had the pleasure of watching Brayden Schenn in his last ever WHL game last weekend down in Moose Jaw!   Wendy and I wish Brayden Schenn the best and hope he does incredibly well in the big leagues!

Sam and I slept in until 9am this morning. I know, but it was cold! Actually it was colder yesterday at -6 than it was this morning at -4. But still, there was ice on the river and steam coming out of our mouths with every breath. We took a different route this time though and walked up McPherson Street to 8th. We were in search of Victoria Ave, but it turns out that Vic Ave goes the same direction as Broadway which is really the street we were after. So we walked a little further today. But that’s okay. The girls behind the counter at Starbucks on Broadway remembered us from yesterday and thought we were insane for walking in these temps! And they’re LOCALS. Heh. Weak sauce.

Anyway the sun was up and shining on our way home so it felt a little warmer. The boys down for their morning nap by the time we got home, and Terry had left for work, so Sam and I had some breakfast and got on the net for a while before we had showers and headed out to the Credit Union Center after the boys had had lunch. Today they were relaying the ice for the WHL team that plays at the CUC – the Saskatoon Blades. Since Terry works for CUC, we get a little more access than the everyday person does, and were invited in to watch them get the rink ready for the ice.

The guys who were preparing the surface told us that first they paint the concrete floor white, then they mark out the lines (blue and red) on the rink with this stuff that looks like crepe paper. It gets stuck to the ground by water and the concrete being frozen. Then they lay out the sponsors’ logo ads and stick them down, mark out the hashes on the face off circles and paint the goalie creases blue. Once all of that has been done, and the paint has all dried, they then hose the surface and freeze it, then do that again a few times, and then zamboni flood the surface a few times. They also had to reinstall the pine benches for the teams and install all the glass panels. It was quite interesting to watch them lining things up and sticking them down and painting the surface. There were a team of 12 working on it – the Blades ice surface is covered in ad space. I’ve never seen so many sponsors ads on the ice before.

After we left the CUC, we headed to Costco, which is this store that sells most things in bulk – kind of like Campbell’s Cash and Carry but a little different. Anyone can be a member of Costco – you just pay the annual fee. There were so many people there at 3pm today it wasn’t funny. What was funny was what we thought was the Amish couple filling up the rented horse float and gigantic F650 with the community’s food for the month. Seriously, they had to have like 100 cases of Pepsi in that thing. We thought it was hilarious because we didn’t think the Amish used cars. Or drank Pepsi.

Turns out they don’t. According to Terry, they would have been Hutterites, who are similar to the Amish, but enjoy some modern conveniences, like electricity, cars and Pepsi. They really enjoy their Pepsi! He also told us some other things, but we’ll choose to keep that off the forum out of respect.

Anyway we had a quiet afternoon back at the house while the boys had their nap. And after dinner, we watched Glee on tv! Plus Bella DVRed Project Runway Canada for me because I’ve never seen it before and since I watch both the Australian and US shows I’m exceedingly curious! Right now, we’re watching Tampa Vs Toronto on tv, and Sam’s got the Stars Vs Blues streaming on his computer. Life is good in Canada, people!

We went for a walk… and survived.

After yesterdays semi-frozen adventure to Starbucks, today we decided to repeat the process with a few small changes to our attire.  I had thermal pants and jeans, a thermal shirt, hoodie, beanie and gloves.  Wendy had thermal pants, trackpants, thermal top, long-sleeve shirt, t-shirt, hoodie, beanie and gloves.  We bought these thermal clothes back in Brisbane at Kathmandu, and they’re designed to handle arctic temperatures.  We were incredibly warm for the walk, which was especially impressive considering it was -6 degrees Celsius when we left at 8:45am this morning!

Yesterday morning we took photos of the South Saskatchewan River which flows through Saskatoon.  Today that same river was covered in patches of ice!  That gives you an idea how cold it was overnight.  Needless to say, it was really amazing to see that.  We’d heard that the river freezes over during winter… heck, it gets down to -60 celsius in winter, so you’d expect it to, but seeing it actually with ice on it was just amazing.

We decided to be different at Starbucks today, and instead of going the non-fat latte route like usual  we got this drink they call the “espresso chocolate truffle”.  It’s essentially a signature hot chocolate with 2 shots of coffee added to it.  Super-strong, super-tasty… with one helluva kick!  One could argue that it’s a perfect winters day drink.

After getting back home, showering and having breakfast we headed out to Midtown Plaza, a shopping mall in downtown Saskatoon.  This mall has some fantastic stores, but the 2 main ones we were interested in were “the jersey shop” (i think that’s what it’s called) which sells sports (see: hockey) merchandise and jerseys and “Sportchek”, which is like the biggest sports store franchise across Canada.  Sportchek is where i bought my Team Canada Olympic jersey while we were in Vancouver.  Anyway, we ended up not buying anything (shocking eh) at those 2 stores, but did pick up the latest Tragically Hip CD from the music store there.

*hops on soap box*
I want to just say… holy crap are we ripped off for CDs in Australia!  Standard CD prices here are like $15!  DVDs are about the same price, and Blue Ray discs are only like $25!
*hops off soap box*

We then visited the “build A Bear” store, where Bella purchased, built and dressed 2 amazing bears in Ottawa Senators gear.  This store is absolutely incredible.. you literally choose every aspect of your teddy bear and build it from the stuffing out!  They even come with their own birth certificate and are registered to you, so if they get lost or stolen and handed in to a store they can track down the owner.  It’s just phenomenal!  The 2 bears Bella got were adorable.  One of them is this gorgeous black bear who she dressed in an Ottawa Senators hockey outfit including helmet and black skates.  the other is a fluffy tan bear who she dressed in blue jeans, a senators hoodie and converse sneakers.  Just amazing!

On the way home we stopped by Timmy Ho’s again to get some lunch.  You guessed it, Ham and Swiss sandwich combo… seriously, you have no idea how nice these things are!  Today however we branched out and instead of getting the regular Timmy Ho’s coffee I got the English Toffee and Wendy got the French Vanilla.  I guess in Australia they would be considered flavoured lattes.

The afternoon and evening was spent relaxing again, although both Tommy and Bobby were sick, which added a bit of drama to the evening.  They both seem a bit better now, so we’re all hoping it was just a little tummy bug.  It’s that time of year after all, and the bug is going around.  Our fingers are crossed that they’re both ok.

A quiet night for us, just been watching a bit of “As time goes by” on TV and caught the end of the Blue Jackets Vs Canadiens game on TSN, and now we’re going to settle down and read for a bit before bed.

Tomorrow itinerary is open, so we don’t yet know what we’re going to be doing.  We’re really enjoying he downtime after being on the go non-stop since arriving in Vancouver, so it’s been nice just relaxing and catching up with Bella, Terry and the kids.

Wendy and I had this fantastic idea about going for a walk this morning, as we’ve not been walking a lot since arriving in Saskatoon.  So at 8:30am today we get up and decide to walk up to the local Starbucks to buy a coffee and a bite to eat.

10 minutes into the walk, we start wishing we’d wrapped up in a few more clothes.  I had jeans, a long sleeve shirt, my hoodie and a cap on, Wendy, who’s normally dressed in 5 layers of clothing went in Thermal Pants, Trackpants, a long-sleeve shirt, a t-shirt, a thin v-neck synthetic jumper and a beanie… a LOT less than she would normally wear.  Neither of us were smart enough to wear gloves either.  Needless to say, it was an hours walk that consisted of step-shiver-step-shiver-step… rinse and repeat.  The Starbucks was hot and for a while warmed the hands, the heat did not last long as the cold turned our hot drinks into luke-warm lattes.  We found out upon getting back to the house that it was -3 degrees celcius outside!  Hell, no wonder it was slightly cold.  Anyway, we did survive, and breakfast and hot showers got us all back on track.   Well, almost… as Wendy picked up a nasty cough and potential chest infection. We’ll monitor that and see how it goes.

Terry came home from work early with the flu, so after Bella put the kids down we left the kids with Terry and we headed down town to “Olympia”, a sports/hockey store to see if we could pick up some memorabilia for ourselves and Dianne.  You would not believe who we found working in Olympia… Kirk!  Those who know us will also know Kirk (Raven), former Blue Tongue, employee at Skatebiz and all round great guy.  Well Kirk we found out works in Olympia here!  We knew he was in Saskatoon, and was actually planning to call him tonight anyway, but fate pointed us his way apparently.  Turns out, we think he heard us talking in the store and probably thought to himself “Wendy and Sam, Sam & Wendy”.  It was fantastic catching up with Kirk again, and we’re going to arrange to meet up for wings and beer one night, possibly after the Blades game this Friday.  He gave us a killer deal on a couple of awesome stretch caps.  Thanks Kirk, you’re a legend!

After shopping we headed back home after a stop at Timmy Ho’s for lunch, where we tried the Ham and Swiss sandwich combo.  I’m not sure if we’ve mentioned this before, but the Timmy Ho’s combos are pretty much legendary.  For less than $6.00 you get a Ham and Swiss roll (white or wheat with Ham, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo), extra-large coffee and a donut.   We’ve had more of these combos than we’d like to admit… but sheesh, they’re fantabulous!

The afternoon and evening was a quiet one.  We didn’t really do that much, and spent the night catching up on reading and chatting with Bella and Terry.

Tomorrow morning we’re going to go for another walk… wrapped up a LOT warmer!

Last night we got a look at snow, and it was awesome!  By the time we went to bed the snow had stopped falling though so we figured by the time morning came there would not be much left.  It turns out, it started to snow again through the night and when we awoke, outside was a winter wonderland.

We got a few great photos of the snow outside and spent an hour or 2 chatting with our guests before packing up the mini-van and heading back home to Saskatoon.  The snow started to thin out pretty fast and then disappeared altogether within about 30 minutes of leaving Regina.  Terry explained that it’s not uncommon for Regina and Saskatoon to have quite different weather patterns.

Regina was in full “crazy mode” today, as the Saskatchewan Roughriders faced the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League (CFL) Western Conference Final.  It was the first time in years that Regina has hosted a finals game with the Roughriders in it (i believe that’s the case).  Needless to say, the entire province was awash in green and crazed Riders fans!  All the way home we saw cars heading towards Regina with Riders flags blowing proudly in the wind.

By the time we got home, there was an hour or so before the game started, so we got ourselves comfy in front of the TV to witness what to many locals is a historic event.

CFL is a bit like NFL, but it probably a little closer to it’s rugby origins than the American variation.  The game flows faster than the NFL, and is played on a field that is slightly wider and longer.  The game itself was interesting to watch, and thankfully the Roughriders pulled off a victory, meaning they now take on Montreal in the Grey Cup final held in Calgary (next week i think).

Bella cooked “pulled pork” and pierogies for dinner, which was really nice.  Pulled Pork is like a spiced pork that is slow cooked.  It’s really hard to say, but trust me, it’s phenomenal!  The evening is now just relaxing a little before bed.

Tomorrow we’re going to visit the CUC and watch the crew put down the Ice for this weeks Saskatoon Blades games.  We’re really looking forward to seeing how they do that first-hand.  Apparently we might even be able to help, but we’ll see how that goes.

Today we (Sam, myself, Bella, Terry and the rugrats, Bobby and Tommy) packed up pretty early (out the door by around 11am) and headed to Regina (pronounced like vagina but with an R instead of a V). We’re staying overnight with their friends John, Lois and their two daughters Kyle and Erika. Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan and is 252kms away (2.5 hrs to drive). Moose Jaw, where we’re going to a WHL game tonight, is another 30 minutes away.

Regina is smaller than Saskatoon and is the political capital of the province. It’s also where Terry grew up, so we got a pretty awesome tour of the town, and over the river. We got to John and Lois’ house, only to be greeted with Erica running around naked. She’s only 9 months older than the twins, so she’s in the everywhere. It’s a big deal at the moment because in the CFL (Canadian Football League), the Saskatchewan Roughriders are in the Western Conference Finals, which are being held tomorrow in Regina. If you’re not wearing “Roughrider Green” then you have no Rider Pride.

Clearly, we had no Roughrider Pride.

Anyway Lois and John are just lovely, lovely people and we had such a great time talking to them and their kids, and their huge collie x dog Kira and their cat (OH MAN!! ANOTHER CAT!) Warrick. Around 4pm we headed to Moose Jaw to have a look around town and get some dinner before the game.

Moose Jaw is just such an amazing town. It was instrumental during the prohibition era, as Al Capone used Moose Jaw to ship alcohol into Chicago via the train lines. The town is now only about 45-50,000 large but it sustains itself on tourism. It even has a public transport system. The buildings that are historically important have murals painted on them. It’s just beautiful. I wish it had been earlier than dusk because we weren’t able to get any photos of around town – or at least not many. We did get photos of Mack the Moose, who greets you as you drive into town. He’s a gigantic statue of a moose. Which is really amusing because moose aren’t native to the area!

Anyway the game we went to was the Moose Jaw Warriors vs the Brandon Wheat Kings. Normally I go for the home team if I don’t have an affiliation with who’s playing, but tonight both Sam and I were going for the Wheat Kings. On the Brandon Wheat Kings team is the Stars first round pick from the NHL Draft for 2009, Scott Glennie. And their captain is Brayden Schenn, the younger brother of defenseman Luke Schenn of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The tickets we had were for row 16, which was “the Gods” or “the Nosebleeds”, and with the really weird building shape (the roof is concaved, which is why the building is called “The Crushed Can”). The rink only seats 1800 people, and it would have been about half full. At the end of the first period, the twins were a little squirmy, so we took them down to the front row on the other side of the rink, right on the glass. They were a little easier to manage after that because they could see the action up close.

The boys on the ice though were great! The Wheat Kings scored first (Glennie, from Schenn and someone else – I can’t remember), then Moose Jaw evened it up. Once again, the skill wasn’t quite NHL quality but the passion and drive they have more than makes up for it. With only 4 minutes left in the game, the teams were tied 3-3. A Moose Jaw player broke his stick and then THREW his broken shaft at the Wheat Kings players, head high, causing enough of a distraction with the Wheat Kings bench screaming for a penalty, the Wheat Kings players screaming for a penalty, and no penalty was called. Moose Jaw scored during all of this, to give them the lead 4-3 with only 2 minutes left in the game.

At this point, Sam and I are calling bullshit, and the six of us are moving around to the end of the rink to make an easy exit with the boys. With only a few seconds left in the game, the Wheat Kings pull their goalie, and with the extra man on the ice, manage to score, to even it up to 4-4 and take it to overtime! SO EXCITING. The overtime period starts with both teams in the penalty box, so it’s 3-on-3 hockey for at least a minute and a half. No one scored, so it went to a shoot out. The Wheat Kings won, which was awesome. We were quite impressed with Glennie’s play.

On the way home, it started to rain, then sleet and then snow! And by the time we got to Lois and John’s it was snowing constantly. It was just amazing. Magical even.

It was also -10 outside so it was really cold. But still, I’ll take that kind of temperature for the payoff of snow. AWESOME.