9:28 PM
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After a whirlwind 3 days leading up to the NHL All-Star game and very little sleep (makes me wonder how the players felt), facing day 4 of 4 was bittersweet. We planned to get to the Fan Fair at the convention center in downtown Raleigh right when it opened, so I grabbed a breakfast slice of carrot cake for energy and picked up the rest of our Caniac Girl Trio bright and early. It definitely paid off heading straight to the Stanley Cup line to get our pictures while it was short. There were tons of areas set up where you could do various skills type things (accuracy, slapshots, etc), a green screen to make your own free player card, trophies all on display, tons of memorabilia (All-Star and otherwise), and lots more. There were an impressive number of player & NHL personnel appearances and interviews throughout the weekend, too.
As we wandered through the different areas about as excited as 10 year old boys would be about all the hockey stuff there was to do, we stopped in our tracks at a sign that said Brandon Sutter & Chad LaRose would be interviewed by Tripp Tracy at 2p. (Each of us in the Caniac Girl Quartet has a favorite player – mine is Tuomo Rutuu, but Chad LaRose, Brandon Sutter & Jamie McBain are equally as loved by their respective CGs) As soon as they let us, we took our post at the front of the line and waited patiently over an hour for an experience well worth the wait for the 4th time this weekend. The boys were hilarious through the whole interview, though we would expect nothing less from our team joker, Chad LaRose. Sitting in the front row, then getting signatures and pictures with their favorites made the other 2/3 of my party completely non-functional for the rest of the afternoon. Thank God Ruutu wasn’t there, too, or we all would have melted into hockey crush puddles and been done for the day!
The actual events themselves were fun to watch, even if you didn’t have tickets (like us). We watched the Super Skills Saturday night at a sports bar across from the RBC Center and had a blast watching Team Staal dominate! The shenanigans that went on were just another way to see the personalities of these guys first hand, like P.K. Subban wearing Skinner’s jersey for his first event and the goalie race between Cam Ward and Tim Thomas. A record-setting hardest shot for Chara (who thoughtfully credited the fans afterward) and hysterical series of issues for Ovechkin made it pretty entertaining.
Team Staal wouldn’t go on to sweep the weekend’s events, unfortunately, losing the All-Star Game to Team Lidstrom 11-10. Our Canes had impressive performances though, with Cam keeping it to 4 goals during his period in net (under 5 was his hope), and Staal had 2 goals, one of which came right at the end of the game giving his team a chance to tie it up and go to OT. Skinner had some great moves and was clearly set up by his teammates, a great display of respect by the more veteran players that was awesome to see. Having players mic’d up is always fun, too. It seemed odd to watch a game with no hits (probably because I’m often focused on Ruu) and no refs interfering. Overall, all the events of the weekend were great to watch or be a part of!
Post-game analysis:
After all the fun was over, our CGQ had a conference call to analyze the experience. We were most impressed with how smoothly everything ran all weekend—we couldn’t come up with a single thing that was terribly disappointing or flawed. The love from the media and out-of-town players for Raleigh and us Caniacs following their experience this weekend was amazing and is greatly appreciated. Definitely feels good to have others recognize how amazing our organization is and how great a respect and special relationship we have between Caniacs and our team. As a relatively young hockey fan (the Canes got me hooked at the beginning of the ’08-’09 season shortly after I moved to Raleigh), I enjoyed the opportunity to get to see the personalities of players from other teams I was less familiar with as well. It’s opened my eyes to the idea that I may have been a Canes fan previously and now am a full-fledged hockey fan as I realized a deeper love and respect for the sport itself and those who play it after this weekend. Along with the majority of Caniacs, I’m sure, I felt like I was in another world this weekend where only hockey really mattered, and I loved every minute of it. I’m definitely glad that I had the day off today to take time to recover from the lack of sleep and remember that as much as I now respect Zdeno Chara, I should be cheering against him tomorrow night when the Trio reconvenes in regular-season mode for the Bruins @ Canes game in our home sweet second home, the RBC Center.
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