I went to Duluth for Thrashers practice on Sunday. I figured the guys would be in a great mood after that defeat of Philly. I was right. The guys were in a great mood, only most of them weren't practicing. It was a very small practice.
One piece of good news, Noah Welch was there. He had on the "do not touch" jersey, but he was skating with the team .
Why did I not know what a hottie Noah Welch was??
Boultsie was there. But then again the Ice Forum doors WERE open.
They did some drills and took some shots. Then they played a game where it looked to me like once you scored, you took off your gloves, put them in a pile and sat on the bench.
Looks like someone else wants to play! We had a baby Thrasher there. I usually won't take pictures, but she had a mask on. I do know whose child it is but will not say on here.
Someone scored and the guys are excited!
Baby Thrasher: Will you get on the net and let me shoot on you? Pavs: No, baby Thrasher, I'm very tired.
Baby Thrasher: I'll just shoot on you here then. Pavs: No.
Baby Thrasher: I'll tell my dad. Pavs: Jeez, okay.
Pavs looking all super goalie
He made a few saves on her, but let let her score a few.
Good form, kid!
Let her score, Pavs!
Refresher on how cute Noah Welch is.
I was hanging out with my friend Sonya and her sister Kalia. They were trying to get a few autographs. It was nuts inside since it was a weekend. They were going to go out and stand by the cars and wait for the players. I haven't done that in a while, plus it's always fun to see those e-bay nuts hustle the merchandise around to get it autographed.
The Antromobile.
I love Kubina's big yellow Hummer. Yellow is my favorite color!
Colby looking perplexed.
Poor Hainsey actually had to walk out into the mob. He likes blue cars. Instead of the blue Hummer he usually has, he had a hot-ass blue Porshe.
Reasoner squinting.
Kovy had some kind of cool looking safari vehicle. I looked it up when I got home...$70K. I'll take two.
Pavs.
I always wondered how that big ass Finn folded up in that little bitty car. No wonder his back hurts.
And today's Green Award goes to Jim Slater and AnssiSalmela for carpooling. (Boults and Thor did too).
On Saturday night when the Flyers came to town, the Thrashers had not beaten them in FOUR YEARS, that's 14 games. We thought maybe it was a Niittymaki thing. Well apparently that theory is dead on because Niitty beat us again and we finally beat the Philadelphia Flyers!
Warm Ups!
I'd been excited bout seeing the Flyers for a while because I have never taken pictures of Ray Emery and I was excited to see Pronger. My friend Candace is also a huge Ian Laperriere fan. She even sent me a "It's All About Lappy" shirt to wear for when he came to town. It's All About Lappy is a Laperrier appreciation site and they sell these shirts and give the money to the Ronald McDonald House, one of Ian's favorite charities. The founder of the site has become buddies with Lappy. You can check it out here: http://www.itsallaboutlappy.com/
It was looking like I was not going to get to wear my shirt because Ian took a shot to the face from Buffalo's Jason Pomminville in his previous game. I thought for sure that losing 7 teeth and getting close to 100 stitches would keep any normal human out of the game for a while.
He ain't normal. **WARNING: EXTREME BADASS**
Atlantans got to see first hand what a bad ass Lappy is last season when he not only survived a shot from Kovalchuk, but returned to the game. Word is that Kovy sent his apologies and Lappy just wanted some signed pucks for his kids. FIERCE!
So Lappy and the rest of his buddies were there.
I've also heard that he refused pain meds. Wow!
I like this picture because you can see a hint of Razor's ink on his neck.
Now THAT is cool. You picked a good game my friend!
A shot of "Rocky" on the back of Razor's mask.
The Prongenator. I got no good pics of Pronger.
Shot of the side of Boucher's mask.
I didn't get a single picture of Hartnell's face. It's all that crazy mane of hair.
Chris Pronger zipping around.
Lappy chilling.
A close up of the injuries. His poor face was so swollen.
So I was wearing my shirt. I had been trying to get his attention by banging on the glass. Finally he was standing over to the side and looked over. When he saw me I got excited and like a moron started waving. He smiled (as big as a man can smile with 100 stitches and missing 7 teeth) and nodded. Michelle got this picture of him looking at me about to realize it was a "It's all about Lappy" shirt.
Razor examining his stick *snort*
Parent: So you used to play here, huh?
Coburn: Yeah.
Parent: How was it?
Coburn: Eh, it was cool. Good fans, not as many as Philly, but good ones.
Parent: Cool. How'd you end up in Philly?
Coburn: Trade.
Parent: Who did they trade you for?
Coburn: Zhitnik.
Parent: Bwahahahahahahahaha
Boucher waiting for some shots.
Pretty Boy, Jeff Carter.
Emery watching the guys warm up. He had the night off, no reason to work too hard.
Razor getting a chance to see some shots.
My favorite Flyer, Jared Ross. Why you ask? He is the first player in the NHL to be born and trained in Alabama. Sweet Home Alabama! Jared attended the University of Huntsville and played for the Chargers for 4 years.
Swarming Razor
More shots for Ray.
The guys were having fun shooting at Ray.
First Period!
A mere 2:09 seconds into the game, old friends Riley Cote and Eric Boulton decide to say hello.
Catching up on old times.
This is my buddy Randy. He had a great sign that was so good for the game. It said something like "14-0, it ends tonight" they never put it on the jumbo tron. I was waiting so I could get a picture of it. Nope. Turn around and respect the sign!
Action in front of Boucher, Kovy is about to get that puck.
More action.
Flyers bringing it back into our zone.
Ugh! So close. Boucher guides the puck to one of his teammates.
Action.
The first period ends and there is no score, mostly because of my Moose! The Thrashers have been outshot 12 to 3 in the first period.
Second Period!
Chaos in front of the Moose.
It's behind you, Moose!!!
HOLY CRAP! How did that not go in?? Oh yeah...MOOOOSE! Or maybe the shooter missed the net, I don't remember. I prefer to think it was Moose.
More chaos.
Moose has it!
Kari and Anssi in the suite. Looks like Kari is texting. He better be texting his agent!
Thrashers ramped up the SOG for the 2nd period and outshot the Flyers 12 to 9. Rich Peverley scored the game's only goal on a power play.
Third Period!
In the beginning of the third period, all hell broke loose. Young punk/rookie phenom VanRiemsdyk and Colby Armstrong started the opening face off together. You can see him and Colby exchanging stick slaps. Then VanRiemsdyk gives Army 3 good hard crosschecks. A few seconds later, Van Riemsdyk has the puck and Colby cleans his clock. (Keep your head up, dummy) Asham jumps Colby and pretty much destroyed him. You can see it in this video.
(Try not and vomit from the homerific announcers)
My vantage point of the scrum.
Michelle got this picture. You can see VanRiemsdyk down and see Asham moving in to pound the back of Colby's head. I also love 19 year old Bogosian pushing on Pronger and 18 year old Kane holding Carle back.
The boys watching the scrum.
Crappy face off picture of Lappy and Antro. I knew Candace would like it. Plus, if Antro is taking the face off, there is a good chance Lappy one that one.
Some action in front of Boucher.
Thrashers win!!!
Not only do we win, it's a shut out! 1-0. It's Moose's 2nd career shutout.
Of course he is the #1 Star of the game.
We win, so that means a guest at the post game show and it is our adorable little (hey, he was named as honorable mention by The Hockey News for "best small defenseman), Toby Enstrom.
Toby didn't smile much. Maybe it's a Swedish thing.
That's kind of a smile.
Toby said he thought it was the best game he'd ever seen Moose play. I have to agree.
It was a good night to be a Thrashers fan! Another really cool thing, attendance was 16,018. That's announced attendance, so there were probably 14-15K there. What is great about that is that we had this kind of attendance when there was a huge college football game (Georgia vs Georgia Tech) in town. Good job, Atlanta!
Sorry for the more-so-than-usual crappy pictures and thrown together post. The night before the game I almost had to go to the hospital from a horrendous bought with food poisoning. I'm still not 100% over it. So the pictures were not as good and this post probably isn't either.
I'm a 39 year old rabid hockey fan in Atlanta. I'm originally from Mobile. I've been devastated by the loss of my Thrashers, but I'm trying to keep this blog going. I love to take pictures at hockey games. If you like crappy pictures, puckbunny comments and dumb jokes...you'll love my blog.
