Atlanta Thrashers Blogger Event

There are a lot of Thrashers blogs. I think it's because starved hockey junkies like me are desperate to discuss their team. In Montreal or Edmonton I imagine you can just start up hockey talks at restaurants, stores, etc. Here in Atlanta we aren't that lucky, so we turn to the internet to discuss our passion. You don't need a billion Montreal blogs, you could talk to you neighbor about hockey(lucky !@*&%&)


For what ever reason there are a lot of them, the Thrashers organ-eye-zation recognizes the fact and sees how beneficial they can be. I mean it IS kind of free publicity and advertising. A few times a season they have a Bloggers Event and this time I was lucky enough to wrangle myself an invite.


Look out!





So we meet up an CNN center Saturday morning and we are given our credentials and met by our host. He goes over a few details and leads us to the Thrashers morning skate.




Moose stretching





Moose doing his frog hop stretch.





Moose taking some shots.





The guys skating around.





More Stretching. Boultsie looking at us suspiciously.





All together now!





Moose says no more pictures.





Getting some instruction from coach.

After the Thrashers morning skate we went back into the locker rooms. We had to walk through the Pens area and there on the floor in front of me is a stretching Tyler Kennedy. It was so freaking hard not to take a picture, but I didn't want to get tossed out of my first blogging event. I said "Hi, TK." He said "Hello, how are ya?" I was thinking "better now" but responded with "Fine thank you."




We stood around for a long time waiting for Coach Anderson to come out and do his pregame interview. All the while TK is down the hall doing various warm ups and stretches. Then we start hearing music coming from the Pens direction. We listened hard, trying to figure it out. No. It couldn't be. "I Want To Know What Love Is?" Huh? Really? Then it was "Cold As Ice." Maybe it was the Moonenites. Was TK wearing the Foreigner Belt? (snaps if you got that)


So finally Coach comes out and does his interview. I couldn't believe how tiny the area is. What also surprised me is how soft spoken Anderson is. I could barely hear him and I was pretty close. Once Coach Anderson finished, we got a chance to interview and speak with Assistant Coach, Randy Cunneyworth.


Once our talk with Cunneyworth was done, we went out and watched the Pens' morning skate.




Crosby, who was not at practice the day before, was on the ice.





Flower!





I guess TK got all stretched out.





Flower with his lid flipped.





boooooooo. Matt Cooke.





I THINK this is Chris Bourque. Good photo bad photographer to not know.





I know who this is though! Staalsie.


About half way through the skate, we got taken back to the locker rooms again to interview Rich Peverley. He was also getting the first ever Atlanta Thrashers Fan Club "player of the month" award which he won by a landslide. I had a few questions but fortunately some of the other longer winded bloggers had more and I never really got around to mine. I could have jumped in, but I chickened out a bit. I'm still kind of new at this "legitimate" blogging thing. There was no calls for dumb jokes, so I played it quiet.


Rich is a super nice guy. He talked with us for quite a while. I'm sure some of my fellow bloggers have the interview on their blogs (seen on the side of this one). What most impressed me about Rich were:

1. His tie. A phenomenal bad ass tie that really looked nice.
2. His attitude. You can tell that he really appreciates the chance he was given in Atlanta. When asked what he thought the difference was in him playing here and him playing in Nashville, the simple answer was ice time. He was very thankful that a team believed in him enough to pluck him from waivers and put him on a line with Ilya Kovalchuk. Pevs was coming up on free agency and with the 2009 he's had, it's feasible that he could have looked around. He wanted to stay here because we gave him that chance.
3. My favorite question was the guy from Bird Watcher's Anonymous asked him if he knew he was kind of a "big deal" in the Atlanta Blogosphere. Rich said he had no idea. Damn, I was hoping he had seen some of my Blingees.
   

We are glad you are here, too Rich!


That concluded the afternoon session. On our way out we had to very quietly walk through the Pens' area where Bylsma was doing his pregame press conference. Maxime Talbot was out there signing an autograph for a kid. I was so close to him I could have...."just walk...just walk...no picture...no picture." SO HARD!

The next part of the day came at game time. We get to watch the game from the press box. Woo hoo!