hockey night in so cal

this past weekend marked the start of the wings' first west-coast road trip of the year. gone are the schedules from the early part of the decade where we'd start the season out here, in order to make one less trip during the year. but, this was pretty close to the beginning -- the wings only played 5 games before flying from detroit to LA on saturday night.

sunday at staples saw the wings play a solid game in front of a red-hot chris osgood, en route to a 4-1 victory. kris draper had a great shortie, and zetterberg scored on an amazing around-the-net move in the 3rd to seal it.

i flew down early monday morning to catch the game in anaheim that night. brian and i hung out all day -- he picked me up from the airport around 9:30, i checked out his new place (and his inventive 80" television), and we rode the beach cruisers over to brunch at a new place in venice. he told me all about his brilliant thesis idea, which i am confident will rock the foundations of political economy for generations to come (as soon as it is done in 3 years).

pretty soon after brunch we did the drive down to OC to avoid the traffic...after a quick stop to check out a beer garden that turned out not to be open, we scoped out the new trek 08 OCLV frames at a bike shop in downtown HB. i know i'm due for a new bike soon, so here's hoping my first bonus is pretty decent...those new frames are awesome. no longer are the top and down tubes completely cylindrical -- they have a kind of "twist" as they approach the junctions with the other tubes -- this makes the total frame stronger, yet the new madone 5.2 is still the lightest carbon frame on the market.

after putzing around near the water for a while (it was actually a pretty dreary day, but stayed dry), we headed inland to anaheim and holed up at starbucks for a while to get some reading and work done. while we were there, the miller lite promo "actress" girls showed up for their pre-game meeting...i of course did not miss the chance to do the miller lite taste test at honda center when we got there later on.

but there was more excitement even before the game! that's right, brian drove us east on katella ave and found a round table pizza...with an air hockey table inside. we only got one game in, which i used to take him down 7-3, and he didn't want the rematch. maybe next road trip. brian had a huge craving for little ceasars that we were not able to fulfill but the round table was pretty darn good. anyway, no one in LA ever notices the irony of walking into a little ceasars with red wings jerseys on...but i guess they didn't recognize it back in michigan either.

we drove over to the arena, at the pizza in the parking lot, and went in. kind of weird to actually have season tickets...i even had the little plastic ticket sleeve you put around your neck. after we did the miller lite challenge and watched the wings warm up, we were about to head to our seats when...all of a sudden...there was teemu selanne, shooting the shit with some fans in the aisle. i really wanted to meet him but felt like it would be lame to ask for a pic...so when he walked away from the other guys and toward me, i just said his name, and thanked him for everything he did for hockey in SoCal. he warmed up right away (despite my red and white jersey) and said it was his pleasure. i told him that steve yzerman was my favorite player, and he said steve yzerman was one of his favorite players (i mentioned this because i remember on yzerman's jersey retirement night in detroit, the wings played the ducks. the ducks' coaches asked the players to stay in the locker room until the ceremony was over, but teemu insisted on going out to watch it, and did). then i asked if we could get a picture, which he obliged, and i felt cool. he's really built for being a "small european player." i realized why i'd not been an NHLer.

so, the game was awesome for 2 periods, as it always is every time we play anaheim. then in the 3rd period, reeling under the weight of having killed penalties all night, we finally broke, and ended up losing 6-3 after one final empty-netter. dom didn't play all that well, but the bottom line is that the ducks are very talented in every aspect of the game. physical, positional, offensive, defensive, goaltending, special teams, whatever. small wonder they did as well as they did last year...of course, the wings let that slip away, but that's another story.

so we did the drive back to venice and crashed since i had a 7am flight back home the next morning. i'd thought my trip was over when i landed in SF, but while waiting for the BART, a guy noticed my wings fleece and asked me if i'd been to the games in LA. we got to talking and got on the same train, and it turned out that he was also a super-fan. pretty cool to know an affiliation with the wings is like a tattoo...it gives you something to talk about.

the game on thursday in san jose was much better. we played our best 3rd period of the year, and it was more of the same old story for the sharks. wings win 4-2. oh well...at least, for them, they have a really cool new HD scoreboard.

already looking forward to the january west coast swing!