Feeling the Pull of the Great White WEST!!

Well Edmonton was fan-phuking-tastic! I have never had such a great time! We left Loserpeg at like 5:30AM and I took the first leg of the trip. I thought well we'll switch off about half way through. Hmm not so much. The fiance didn't take over until we were like 2.5 hours out of Edmonton. But it was a really pretty drive I have to say! I haven't driven on the Yellowhead in like 10 years and I forgot how pretty it was. Even Saskatchewan had a personality to it. We made fun of the cows and I think I saw a buffalo but I'm not sure I was driving pretty fast. 110km/h as soon as you hit the divided highway in Sask.!!! It was beautiful! We made it all the way to Yorkton on our first tank of gas. And we still had about a quarter tank when we got there. Then stopped in Saskatoon for gas and then Lloydminster. Each fill up was between 20-30 bucks each. And we stopped pretty much the same way on the way home. So all in all I think we spent $150-$175 in gas for the trip. Not bad! Way cheaper then a flight! So we arrive in "The City of Champions" at about 6:30pm or so, and find the hotel with minimal effort. We checked in and the fiancé thought it would be a good time to hit the mall, the West Edmonton Mall that is! We got there about 7:45 and the trip was about 15 mins long to get there from the other side of the city. FREEWAYS BABY!!!! Love 'em! Anyways we decide to walk around a bit and then we went to a place called Jungle Jim's on Bourbon Street in the Mall to eat for dinner. It was ok I guess, nothing too special about it. But we went a walkin' a bit after dinner and this Mall is phuckin' huge. And according to George I didn't even see hardly all of it. Whatever, there's always next year! I think it will be an annual event for us. So that night we go for a few drives in different areas, and the fiancé shows me the house he used to live in when he was a kid. It was nice. Nice area of the city too. We just drove and drove. We tried to find an all night Drugmart place but we were unsuccessful. Someone (not me) forgot to pack the condoms! Well we were shit outta luck that night but we still had fun just driving around until about 1 AM. Then the next day we got up and dressed at about 11:30. We head out to our car and notice that someone has written “OILER’S SUCK” on the back of our car. He was convinced that someone in Winnipeg did it there, but that’s impossible considering the rain we drove through on the way up. I think someone just saw a “toban license plate and had a little fun at our expense. That also makes it clear why some people gave us dirty looks on the freeway. So we head to the Mall because the fiancé wanted to be there at about lunch hour so he could eat at Harvey’s. It’s his absolute fav Fast food ever! So we had lunch there and walked around until about 3ish or so. It was fun they have some really cool stores and stuff. We bought Oiler’s shirts at a store so we had some to wear when we to the game that night. At this point when we left the Mall we thought we might drive around a bit and sight see. So we did fro a bit until the fiancé’s tummy needed some quality washroom time. So back to the hotel we went, which was actually nice to rest before the game. As it turns out it was very smart of us considering the game that followed. Ok I watched some soaps there and then I rested. I thought we would go to dinner at the hotel and then got to the game. Well no no no!!! We had to leave immediately for the game at 6pm sharp! No time to stop and eat! Let’s go let’s go, gotta beat the traffic! That was his mindset. Alright so the game doesn’t actually start until like 8pm. We were there a good 1.5 hours early. We get there and there is a bunch of shit goin’ on. Beer Gardens and face painting and stuff. I got two Oiler’s tattoos for my face. One on each cheek. As we were entering the Rexall Place, there was a group of people handing out pulled pork sandwiches. And they were awesome! So I didn’t even need to eat dinner. Or so I thought. We go inside at about 6:45 and go to our seats. Well we spent like $130 for the seats and we could have touched the rafters above us they were so high! The fiancé didn’t care though. He was in his old stompin’ grounds. We sat around and looked at some of the memorabilia in the place form the old Wayne Gretzky days. It was neat. Then he ate a hot dog. I wasn’t really hungry after that sandwich but I guess he was. I should have followed suit! Well people start pouring into their seats at about 7:30 or so. We’ve been in our seats forever by that point. Well it starts to get really full throughout the arena. You can see a few people stupid enough to wear Sharks’ Jerseys. Dumb asses! It’s starting to get electric in there and you can just feel the energy and the game hasn’t even started yet! They start by having the Oilers enter the ice by skating under a huge oil dyke. They lowered the dyke down the ice level and then lit the top on fire. As it landed and the players started coming out, we hit 114 decibels at the arena which broke a record. They hadn’t even started playing yet! They have a gentleman who has sung at the Coliseum for 30 years sing the national anthems of U.S. and Canada. They started with the American anthem first. It got a good reception which was nice. If they play it here it just gets booed. Then came our national anthem, sung 17000 strong. It was phenomenal. Grown men had tears in their eyes, as did I. Finally, the puck dropped and 17000 people roared in the stands. It was about 4-5 minutes into the first period and Oilers struck gold! They drew first blood! Very important when you are down in the series 2-0. I think we managed to hit 114 decibels again! It was loud, so loud you couldn’t even hear the goal horn! We were high fiving people we had never met. My first ever NHL game and it’s a playoff for a Canadian team. Pretty special. When people in the crowd found that out they were very excited for me. And the fact that we drove all the way from Manitoba to get there, they liked us even more. The first period was hot! I mean the Oilers may have been behind by the end of it, but they were playing like animals. All heart that team is! All through the first period you can hear the crowd across the pond and below us chanting “LET’S GO OILERS!” It was palpable! One guy in our section had one of those long horns and he would start us off by making 5 blasts “Bum,bum bu-dum,bum LET’S GO OILERS!” and it would go on for like 5 straight minutes. The poor guy ran out of breath a few times you could tell his blowing skills get a little weak after a while. During the commercial breaks they would make fun of the teams not in the playoffs. It would start out as a commercial for this day in NHL history May 10, 2006 and they would show Tie Domi of the Maple Leafs playing golf! And then they did another one and it was superior! This day in NHL history, May 10, 2006. You see a beautiful beach of white sand and blue, blue water and a hairy chested Chris Chelios sitting in an Adirondack chair enjoying the sun. I thought the crowd was gonna collectively piss their pants laughing. For the hockey illiterate, Chris Chellios is the biggest cry baby from the Detroit Red Wings, the team Edmonton beat to be in the next round and they were top seed in the West and Edmonton was bottom so they beat them as the underdogs. So the crowd slowed down a bit in the 2^nd period but the Oiler’s didn’t! And then the unimaginable happened, Smitty (# 94 Ryan Smyth my new screen saver) took a hard shot puck to the face! No mask to dull the hit either. He lost 3 chicklets and got 8 stitches. He went off to the rooms to be taken care of. They still hadn’t managed to catch the Sharks 2-1 lead but they were playing really tough. Partway through the 3^rd Smitty was back in the line up. He wasn’t even gone a full period! That’s a heart player if there ever was one! He is all for the good of the team! Then with 6 minutes left in the 3^rd period the Oiler’s tied up the game and the place erupted in cheers and hoorah’s. They managed to stave of the Sharks for the rest of the period and headed into overtime! So unless you were living under a rock a week ago you know that the Oiler’s played 2 OT periods and a few minutes of the 3rd OT. IT was one of the longest games in NHL playoff history. And then 2-3 minutes into the 3^rd OT Smitty passed it over to Horcoff and BOOM!!! Score!!! IT WAS HOT BABY!!!!!!! We finally headed out about 15 minutes after the game was officially over and they named their 3 stars of the game. We sat in a jammed parking lot for 45 minutes and honked at our compatriots. When we finally left and got on the go, we hit Whyte Ave. It’s is the Corydon equivalent. And it was packed with wall to wall cars and people. Again with the honking and hooting and hollering at the top of your lungs! We finally found a 24 hour Shopper’s Drugmart and headed for the hotel room after some much needed food, because I didn’t have the extra hot dog like he did! The game was the best night of my life! And I am not even a big NHL fan. Well I can’t talk anymore about what happened that night but rest assured it was awesome too! The rest of the trip was good too. We hit the Zoo the next day and hung out together and got along relatively well. I got pretty sick on Thursday though, because we didn’t eat anything that morning before we walked around a zoo for 3 hours. I am one of those people who can’t go well without fuel in the system of some sort, and even less go-able without a cup of coffee. SO by 2pm I was ready to die! And I am one of those people, that if I don’t eat then I get really bad headaches that won’t go away for like 8 hours. I was doomed. I got better but then I was nauseous after I ate. I got better again after that. WE went out for a ride and a finally look around before we left the next day. The ride home was uneventful, cow, cow, cow, cow oh look a cow, ohhhh a horse. That’s about it. We listened to the next game on the radio and then managed to get home to watch the last 5 minutes of the game and we won again!! We wiped the ice with them too! All in all it was worth every single penny we spent! I think I could live there without a problem. The people are so much nicer there then here. People smiled at you and said hello when they had no real reason to. Not like here you get a sneer and a jeer every chance you get. Mind you in Manitoba had the money that Alberta did I think Winnipeggers might manage to be a bit happier. Anyhow that was my trip Jenn! Hope you enjoy a nice long read!

J-BOMB OUT!