Everything Under the Sun
tUMD 3, BC 3/tUMD 5, BC 2
tUMD 6, MTU 0/tUMD 4, MTU 3
A lot has happened in a short period of time. I’m very overwhelmed by hockey starting. Four games in three days plus this talky event at AMSoil this evening.
Friday
Friday I went to the game with a baby.
It was his first Bulldog game, and he enjoyed it. He enjoyed meeting Champ and sitting in his own seat, and of course shoving pretzels into his face while his aunty RWD held him. And I didn’t throw him when we scored, either.
I arrived late on Friday, as per usual, although I was in the hallway to the arena when the game started. This means I was getting my ticket scanned when BC scored their first goal. Alas.
tDogs looked great, though, much improved over last year, and competitive the whole night. Ashleigh Brykaliuk scored a hat trick, countering each of BC’s goals with one of her own. Due to holding a baby (and chatting with the baby’s parents and his other friend), I am not able to provide any other detail on the game, but the fine folks at BC Interruption have a recap that is second to none. I really suck at blogging compared to them. They had lots of praise for our ladies, so read that.
Saturday
Saturday I had to prepare myself. Back to back hockey games is very taxing for players, so you can imagine that it’s even more taxing for spectators. Plus there was a jersey auction during the men’s game which was stressing me out. I cannot hand over my money fast enough when a jersey is involved.
I arrived at the women’s game early enough for a Bruce Ciskie sighting. Of course it is easy to have a Bruce Ciskie sighting when he sits with you for half the game. If you have a Bruce Ciskie sighting in the wild, be sure to document it with a photo and tweet it using the hashtag #WheresBruce. Note that it is not an exclusive hashtag.
I got to watch most of the game with the entire Ciskie family, which was a treat. And tUMD put on a show for us. The BCI fellows were beside themselves, but still pulled out some unreal analysis. Look at the breakdown they have for the 4th goal.
Meanwhile, me:
Photo courtesy of @umdhockeygifs
I really dislike being on the big screen. Also my hair looks terrible. ’80s throwback is on point.
tDogs were leading 5-0 at one point. 5-0! It was absurd! And glorious! And I can tell you the 2 Harvard alumnae (well, one is a Harvard coaching alumna) and 1 BU alumnus on our bench are pretty darn pumped about the win.
Demi Crossman starting things off (I never get goals right when they’re tipped, thought this was Sid’s):
(Tip: these GIFs won’t show if you have AdBlocker enabled. IDGAF if you do or not, because I don’t profit from this site, just passing on that tidbit.)
Schugel gets her first goal as a Bulldog, another goal I thought was Sid’s:
I’m visually impaired. But I saw this beauty gino thin mints from Lara Stalder:
And even Ray Charles saw this one from Bryks, and he’s both blind and dead:
And finally, the important scoring ended with Katie McGovern’s goal:
This post might be long. I sorry.
After a brief interlude at Green Mill with Biddy and some nerds watching college handegg, we returned to the arena for the first game, and saw six more goals. Are you ready for 6 more GIFs? I FREAKING HOPE SO.
I’m kidding. You can see GIFs of the goal on the @UMDHockeygifs account. I suggest following.
Anyway, tUMD beat the crap out of Tech, so much so that I felt badly, since my soul mate MeanEgirl is a Tech fan. It was a very relaxing game, which was nice because I bid on a jersey and was already anxious about it. Six different Bulldogs scored goals, including 2 on the PP (one on a major) and 2 that were the players’ first in a Bulldog jersey. Not that I would know since they had no nametapes on the jerseys so we were puzzled the whole game. I wonder if there’s like a website or some other type of resource with that information. After the 6th goal I said “Oh goody, this presents an opportunity to find out who #26 is.” It’s Jade Miller, and his glorious hair. Oh, sorry Jade, but you’re The Jade Monkey now.
Sunday
I am out of practice a bit, because I thought 1. the game was at 7 and 2. the jersey auction ended at the start of the 3rd period, not the 2nd. It’s a good thing I wasn’t left to my own devices.
tDogs kind of sucked for a lot of the game, and didn’t lead until 15 seconds remained in the game. I was very anxious about the game result for many reasons. I was very thankful that the jersey auction ended after the first intermission, because I didn’t have to worry for another period. I won Blake Young’s jersey! But then I was kind of cranky because I didn’t want to go have to get a jersey after a loss. I wanted a jubilant exchange of commercial goods. Thank you, IAFALTO.
All the jersey winners (as well as some wanna-bes, I guess) assembled in the Champions Lounge (or whatever it is called) to wait for our players to come up. This is always an awkward moment because the players don’t know who got their jersey (unless it’s their mom or something) and so everyone’s sort of hesitantly looking around like it’s a blind date situation. A tUMD staffer helped bring Young & me together so I could get my damp sweaty jersey. We had a very nice conversation about the Saskatchewan Roughriders and how terrible they are. We also discussed how great the jerseys were; he said everyone loved them. I told him that my women’s tickets were hand-delivered by the team, and he told me that he went along when they delivered the men’s tickets, and one recipient accepted the tickets from Kotyk, thanked him, and then closed the door. So I guess we know why I made the news: no one else made for good TV.
We attempted a photo.
We’re both laughing because he had just asked if he should crouch down so we could both get in the photo. This is probably the #1 greatest in-person interaction I have had with a men’s player, with #2 being when Mike Montgomery liked my Nirvana shirt and #3 occurring when I was at the Wild camp a few years ago and told Jack Connolly while in the autograph line that his mom was waiting for him.
Since this photo did not include the jersey, Brian Dozier helpfully offered to model it for me.
And you can see my jersey in action here:
And here (getting an assist on this Exellent goal):
I was very happy and satisfied with my acquisition until the next day when tUMD came out with the away jersey for the women and I wept for my bank account. More on that later.
Runnin' With the Dogs 