When it's not enough to watch your team lose at home...ROAD TRIP!

Back in August plans began on the Atlanta Thrashers web board and the Nasty Nest web board for a road trip to Raleigh, North Carolina to watch our beloved Thrashers play the Carolina Hurricanes. Thank god we had to prepay the poor girl for tickets because chances are, if we had known how crappy the team would be doing, I'm guessing 1/2 of the people wouldn't have gone through with it.



We had over 150 fans make the 6 hour drive to Raleigh. We were on tv and even had a few write-ups in the AJC about us :

http://www.ajc.com/thrashers/content/printedition/2009/02/01/thrashers0201.html?cxntlid=inform_artr



http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/thrashers/entries/2009/01/31/the_worst_stret.html



Most of us stayed in the Ramada Inn about a mile away. We had a huge tail gate party before the game complete with beer, BBQ and fireworks, the North Carolina trifecta. We were all given these horrific noisemakers that sounded kind of like an air horn. AWESOME! GO THRASHERS! Let's go to the game. We made the 1 mile trek tooting our horns and chanting. We approached the site of the bloodbath that was to come, the RBC Center.

Boy they have security locked down there. You have to go through metal detectors. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get my cow bell or horn in! It was no problem though. They looked through my bag, read my signs and we were off to the ice. There were so many Thrashers fans there I couldn't get a space on the glass for my signs. One guy was nice enough to let me get up there. We were so loud and crazy, it was a ton of fun. The players looked so surprised. We were singing, chanting and tooting.




Bryan Little looks stunned.




Hainsey and Bogosian are getting a kick out of us.


Moose was his usual reserved self, but he was looking and reading our signs.

Bogo looks like he's trying to get in the zone. Guess he never found it.

The Caniacs at the RBC Center were quite taken aback by us. Reactions were usually positive, but many were stunned. I love the look on this guy's face.

Bobo and Bogo.

Bobo looks stunned. He was a healthy scratch for the night's game. Great idea.

Still stunned.

Moose warming up.

Boultsie

Leighton, you should just take a nap. Trust me, Cam will NOT need you tonight.

I had a blast on the trip and would do it again, but this is the one good thing that came out of it. Moose without his mask skating back to the locker room after warm up. He rarely goes mask-less. *swoon*

I didn't get a lot of game pictures. I was too busy blowing my horn, clapping, chanting and ringing my cowbell.

Face off.

We saw FAR too much of this shit. I don't think I've ever been so upset to see/hear Rick Flair's WOOOOOOOO

A lot of the Caniacs were PISSED at us. Some complained. Pretty much the entire game we had several security guards and a few cops standing by. They tossed out our guy who had a drum. Why did they let him in if it was a problem??? You are going to toss out a drum but this kid gets to wave a hockey stick in the air??? He almost hit 2 people in the head as they walked by.

We were a good crowd. We just wanted to cheer on our guys. When they announced that a soldier was there that had returned from a tour of duty, we stood and cheered loudly. When they had the little kids playing hockey during the intermission, we went nuts cheering for them. The little goalie was good btw. And when we left, I thanked the security guards and the cops.
We did blow our horns through the entire special piece on Cam Ward and drowned it out. That WAS a little bit asshole-ish I guess.

On to more ass-whipping.


Kari getting back in net so the Canes can resume pounding him with shots. I wonder if in the intermission he asks the guys "WHY DO YOU HATE ME???"



I don't care what team you are, I love a mascot!! Stormy the Icehog was taunting us waving at us. I think he was scared though, he didn't come too close. That kind of disappointed me. And of COURSE he didn't shoot any shirts our way.

More face off

Some play

Kari Lehtonen gets special praise. He made 38 saves and the two he let in were break aways. Besides the 150+ fans, he was the only person from Atlanta to show up last night. Thank you Karpa!

Even with Kari's effort, Thrashers get SHUT OUT, 2-0. We didn't even get to celebrate a goal! And of course after making such a loud ruckus, we had to take our medicine from the Canes fans on the way out. That was the longest , coldest mile walk back to the hotel with people blowing their horns at us and leaning out of the windows yelling. I finally just started telling people "we came for the BBQ. We got tired of watching them lose at home and took a road trip." Serge had a more colorful response that involved them doing sexual things to relatives or driving tractors.

I didn't get a single damn picture of us in the crowd. I was too busy clapping, chanting and tooting my noise maker. I also had the zoom lens on. I'm hoping to get some pictures of the crowd from other fans to add to the blog.

Miles traveled - 350

Hours in a car - 6

Miles walked in the cold - 2

Goals scored - 0