Hockey Season has begun!

Back in September, Jennie and I got to go to the 1st preseason Canucks game. Now, hockey is more Jennie's thing, so I was going to let her blog about it first, but since she's a little "off" on the blogging thing, I guess I'll have to do it (yeah, that's right, Jennie. I just dissed you in blogland! Whatcha gonna do about it?) :P Just a little friendly nudging to get blogging again ... please!

Anyways, we had a great time. We both had the day off, so we decided to beat traffic and head in a little early ... ok, a lot early. Then we wanted to get a good parking spot without paying a million dollars, so we parked near Tinseltown. For those of you who know the Tinseltown area, that mall leaves a little to be desired, so we sat in Starbucks for awhile and had some good friendly banter.

Doesn't Jennie look cute sipping her London Fog? At least I think that's what it was. When it was finally time to head over to GM Place, we waited at Gate 3, my favorite number, so of course I had to take a picture of it. When all the waiting was over and we got inside, the excitement was in the air. Did you know that if you get there half an hour before the game starts, you are allowed to go right down to the ice and watch their preskate? Yes, yes you are ... so that's precisely what we did.

We picked this game against the Ducks because Jennie's favorite ex-Canuck is on this team ... none other than Todd Bertuzzi. Most everyone was over on the side where the Canucks would come out of the dressing room, but not us! We were over on the Ducks side and close enough to touch them if ever there was a chance. Well, out they came and we watched and waited and waited and watched ... and ... there ... was ... no ... Todd. I told Jennie to lean through the glass and ask the water boy if Todd was coming. He looked at her like she was crazy, shook his head and said, "No." With her hopes crushed and her dreams shattered, we got a few pics of the Ducks (that's Brad May #24) and went over to the Canucks side.

Isn't this the cutest picture? My friend Mark and his son Dillon were there watching the preskate as well, and I snapped this picture of him that I just love.

After the preskate, Jennie and I sat down in the seats where we had been waiting and decided to see how long we could sit there before we would get kicked out. First we started off in the 3rd row, then the owners of those seats came so we moved to the 5th row. When the owners of those seats came, Jennie was watching them pretty closely and said to me, "I think we have to move." I said, "Just don't look at them. Pretend we belong here until we get the boot," which we eventually did and then we moved to the 4th row and then when the owners of THOSE seats came we moved down the row and ended up staying there until almost the end of the 1st period.

I had fun with it, but when I suggested to Jennie that we move again into some empty seats, she said, "Can we just go to our own seats now? My heart can't take it anymore." She's so cute. But before we left, we took about a bizillion pictures to capture how close we were. Sometimes I wish we could capture smell because we could honestly smell their sweat. Ok, yes, I know that might be gross to some of you, but 1) it just made us feel like we were really part of the action and 2) it's been a long time since I've had a boyfriend, so it brought me back to those days where I'd got watch him play hockey and we'd have to carry his stinky gear back to the truck afterwards. Aaaah, good times. :)

Another disappointing factor of this game was that Naslund, Linden, Morrison and Luongo didn't show. I thought maybe they would at least come and sit in the box dressed in a nice suit and tie or something to make an appearance for their fans, but NO! So I had to settle for Bieksa, Mitchell and the Sedin twins.

These were my favorite pics.

And here are a few more of our bizillion pics. Now when I watch a game on TV, I feel just that much closer to these guys. :)

After our photo op and at the end of the 1st period, we headed up ... WAAAAAAYYY up, to our actual seats.

And looked down upon where we had been. Despite the few disappointments of the evening, I still had a very fun evening. I thought Jennie did, too, but then she would have already blogged about it, so maybe it wasn't as good of an evening as I thought. Wink, wink, Jennie. I'm totally buggin' ya. I love you and I'm so glad we got to go and have this night out together.

Remember everyone ...