In our last day in Dallas, we got up early to go to the Stars practice, so after dropping Stellina at doggie day-care, Jen, Sam and I headed out to Frisco once again! The boys were already out on the ice by the time we got there, but that was okay! We still had an awesome time standing around, watching them practice their drills, their set plays and shoot on Marty and Alex in net. Mike Modano looked really good out there on the ice, but poor Jere Lehtinen looked a little slow. Mike “Skeezy” Ribeiro makes my skin crawl. Seriously, I’ve never felt anything like it! But it was good to see “the old boys” again (Steve Ott, Brenden Morrow, Mike Modano, Jere Lehtinen, Stephane Robidas… even Trevor “Ghetto” Daley, who I’d still trade for a Starbucks coffee and a bag of chips!) out on the ice. And it was really interesting to see the new guys, the “young guns” out there too. Guys like James Neal and Jamie Benn, Matt Niskanen and Tom Wandell. And of course, our new “veterans” like Brad Richards and, of course, Skeezy. I say it with a very distant love, I swear!

After practice, the three of us waited in the autograph line to wait for 6 players: Jere Lehtinen, Mike Modano (unlikely spotting as he usually ducks out the back), Brenden Morrow, Steve Ott, Stephane Robidas and Marty Turco.

Skeezy came out of the locker room first, apparently he does that a lot, because then he usually runs back into the locker room “for something” and does the line twice, just in case someone missed him the first time. *Rolls eyes*

Brenden came out first (of our list) and was very happy to pose quickly for a photo. He was smiling, happily putting his arm around each of us and didn’t complain at all, even though the tunnel was bitterly cold with the wind coming through it. A lady who was standing near us got Brenden to sign a piece of paper, which we thought was weird, and then after a few of the other boys came out, she’d gotten Trevor Daley’s autograph. She then came to me and asked who he was! I replied, “Trevor Daley.” She didn’t understand my accent. I even had to phonetically spell it for her! It was rather unusual, and yet hilarious.

Next off our list was Stephane Robidas, who was gracious as always and like Brenden, happy to pose and smile. Jere Lehtinen was next and, well, Jere doesn’t smile, but he was happy to pose for the photo and was then on his way. Otter was next, and happily smiled and posed with us. He’s a real champ!

Marty Turco is notoriously the last member of the team out of the locker room. Whether it be onto the ice for practice or out of the locker room to go home from practice or a game (which is ironic because during a game he’s the first one onto the ice!). In 2006, we had gotten a frosty reception from Marty, which was a little disconcerting as we’d never spoken to the man before. I said to Sam that maybe he was having a bad day, or perhaps he was just in a rush and didn’t want to hang around. We were near the end of the line after all. So, in 2009 we wanted to give him another chance.

Shouldn’t have bothered, really. Marty, dressed in a suit, came out of the locker room last and we politely asked him if we could have a photo taken with him. We didn’t want anything signed, just a photo. He said, “Sure, no problem!” loudly, and then Sam and I turned around and posed. Marty kind of rubbed his hands together and then just stood there while Jen lined up the shot.

Marty muttered, “C’mon, c’mon, just take the damn photo!”

Whether he meant for Sam and I to hear it or not I don’t know, but it was rude and uncalled for. I don’t care how cold he might have been from the tunnel – we’d been standing out there in that cold cement tunnel for an hour waiting for them. The least he could do was be courteous and keep his thoughts to himself. Jen didn’t hear him, but she did say that Marty in the photo wasn’t Marty. Usually he was all over the fans, and they’d had trouble getting him to shut up.

Maybe it was just Sam and I?

Whatever it was, I then said to Jen and Sam that I wanted to leave then and go to the store. I didn’t want to hang around and see if Mike snuck down the tunnel after everyone had left. I didn’t want to chance my heart being broken a second time by a player I adored above all others, after Marty Turco was just rude to us for the second time in 3 years.

We went into the Stars Stuff Store and got a few more things that we wanted (Sam got a jacket and a couple of t-shirts. I got a scarf, and a couple of other things). After we got our loot, we headed to Ulta, a cosmetics store near Jen’s that sells brand names often on sale. She was sure I’d be able to replace what I’d lost through Bella’s washing machine!

Jen was right, they sold EVERYTHING. >From perfume to cosmetics, hair care and even fluffy robes and slippers. A truely pampering place. I managed to get L’Oreal foundation, powder, 3 different eyeshadows, eyeliner, and consealer, and 3 Revlon lipsticks all for $73USD, which at the moment is about $77AUD.  Can you believe that? The lipsticks alone were $3.99 each! Back home, those exact lipsticks are $20.95 each! BARGIN! With the money we had left over, Sam got some cologne from Bvlgari – OMG SO GORGEOUS. I love it!

Then it was time to head home to Jen’s and wait for Jesse and Rhonda, who were coming over after work so that all of us could go to Jen’s parent’s house for Chicken Fried Steak and watch The Hangover. Our friend Julie also came along (she lives in Fort Worth, like Jen’s parents, and she’s friends with everyone – we met Julie through Jen!) which was awesome because we had only seen her twice – at the basketball game and she also came to Stratvos with us and Rhonda’s family.

Jen’s Mum is a riot. She’s so like Jen! While we waited for Julie to get there from work, Rhonda, Jesse, Jen, Sam and I played some weird card game we’d never played before called Skipbo (a game that was created in Texas in 1967), but it was a lot of fun!  When Julie arrived, we’d moved onto Uno and Jen had disappeared from the table. Dinner was old fashioned southern chicken fried steak, veges and gravy, with sourdough biscuits on the side. It was DELICIOUS! After dinner, we watched The Hangover. While it was funny in parts, it wasn’t really Sam’s and my cup of tea. But it was entertaining none the less.

By the time the movie was over, it was midnight, and time to head back to Dallas and say our farewells. We said goodnight to Jen’s parents, and then goodbye to Julie in the carpark of the motel where Jen’s Mum is the live-in manager. The hour long drive back to Dallas seemed to take no time at all, and then it was time to say farewell to Jesse, who isn’t into long goodbyes. Leaving Jesse is hard for me, because he’s such an awesome guy and I love him to pieces. Anyway, we said “See you later!” because it’s not a goodbye, according to Jesse, and then he left and went home.

Rhonda stayed a little longer and she and I snuggled on Jen’s couch before it was time for her to leave too because she had school in the morning. Hugs and kisses and fond farewells later, and it was time for us to go to our room and pass out on the bed. Tomorrow it’s time to pack up and ship out… well… fly out. It’s the end of our journey, but boy have we got a ton of wonderful memories to take home to Australia!

We had a nice sleep-in today as had nothing really planned til the evening.  After breakfast and showers we sent Jen a text to see if she wanted to go out for lunch, which we did, so headed down the road to the local Super Target.  Super Target, for those back home is like a regular Target store, but on a MUCH larger scale.  Target here are slightly different though, as they sell food here also.  Wiggy eh?  We were a little disappointed that the Target stores don’t seem to sell NHL gear over here anymore   Sadly, they do sell Dallas Cowboys gear though.  Damn football strikes again!

After Target we figured we’d get a bite to eat, so Jen directed us down to the North Park Mall, just a little south on the I-75.  North Park is a really big mall with a brilliant variety of stores, including it would seem, Build-A-Bear, one of the stores that Wendy and I wanted to find anyway.  A quick lunch first, then we headed down the mall to Build-A-Bear, so Wendy could select, build and buy her very own customised bear.  She chose this cute little brown bear and dressed it in a Dallas Stars outfit, including helmet, jersey, pants, boots and his very own hockey stick and puck!  The bears official name on it’s birth certificate is “Mikey Mo”, aptly named after Mike Modano.

We then went for a long walk around the mall, starting with the lower level before heading upstairs to do the top.  We had the funniest moment when a small boy who was running ahead of his mother tried to run between Wendy and Jen and completely clotheslined himself on the Build-A-Bear bag that Wendy was carrying!  It was absolutely brilliant and had us all thinking WTF while laughing!

Jen found the Michael Kors store and fell in love with a great bag she wants to buy herself eventually.  Pretty cute snakeskin bag.  After the Michael Kors experience we headed into Macy’s to see what they had… and guess what, they had Michael Kors, and a GREAT special, so Jen ended up getting jeans and a top for a fraction of the price she would normally pay.  Made her year i think!! She was sqee’ing all the way home, and then some!

Before we’d come over here I had promised Jen that I would cook for her.  Naturally, it became expected that i’d cook something authentically Australian.  Those who’ve been to Australia would know that there really is no such thing as “Authentic Australian” these days.  Well, maybe damper etc would be, but you know.. nothing really truly Aussie.  So, we figured we’d cook a classic Aussie type meal; Meat Pie, mashed potatoes and veges.  I’d never cooked meat pie before, so after finding a recipe Wendy and I drove down to the local supermarket, “Tom Thumb” to get the groceries we needed.

It turns out Pie is pretty easy to make… it’s just a case of cooking all the filling, adding it to the pastry and then cooking it.  Voila, pie = good   I was incredibly surprised at just how well it came out to be honest, so by 9pm I was serving up pie, spuds and veges for Wendy, Jen and myself, and made sure i kept enough veges aside for Rhonda, who we were expecting to come over a little later.  It turns out, Rhonda had a long night at work and forgot to charge her phones, so she never actually arrived.  No harm done, as the food did not go to waste.

The Stars played the Anaheim Ducks on the road tonight, so we had that playing live on the TV while we ate.  The Stars looked ok and took a great 3 goal lead with goals by Mike Modano and 2 by Brad Richards.  The Ducks pulled 1 back going into the 2nd intermission with the Stars taking a 3-1 lead going into the 3rd and final period.  The Ducks did not sit back however and came out much stronger, forcing the Stars to play a defensive game to stop the Duck onslaught.  Dan Sexton of the Ducks got his first NHL goal in the 3rd period and after the Ducks pulled their goalie in the final minute of the game, Dan Sexton struck again, tying the game 3-3 and forcing overtime.  It was at this time that we all looked at each other, looked at Turco in the net and thought “oh crap”.  It took just over 4 minutes but the Ducks, and Marty Turco did what we expected… scored.  Ducks win 4-3 in OT.  A let-down, but heck, dinner was hella great!

After the game we were all tired so headed back to our room for a relatively early night; just passed midnight.

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!

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!