Austin Powers on skates?

This was a cute performance

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more battle of the blades

Interview with Jamie & Craig

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Battle of the Blades winner

Boo Hoo...Battle of the blades is done. The good thing is that Craig Simpson and Jamie Sale won! He played for the Oilers and she won pairs gold in Salt Lake with her husband David. Jamie & David live not too far from us (well, they did, not sure if they are still in that house or not).

Battle of the Blades - week 2

Darn - one of my favorites got knocked out already... the charity he was skating for was is in Edmonton, so its too bad he didn't get further along in the competition.




I hope everyone had a chance to watch the show.

Battle of the Blades

This is my new favorite show. It just started and it had professional ex-NHL hockey players paired up with professional women figure skaters (mainly pairs skaters) to compete in a figure skating competition.




Sunday was the 1st show and it was hilarious seeing these big hulking hockey players trying to perform gracefully...ha ha.

Here they are getting lessons on how to lift the girls without being on the ice:


If you can access CBC - you have to watch this on Sunday nights....here's the 1st eliminated couple:

And so it begins....

Our 1st preseason Oiler game is tonight.

We have season tickets & there are 45 games each year from mid September to early April. GJA & I go to 15 of the games together and we also have one other seat for 15 games and the final 15 games are attended by my parents. It's always nice to go to the games, but can be very frustrating when these over paid babies don't even try to play...why are we paying $90/seat/game to watch them do nothing while they are paid millions a year?! Well...maybe this year will be better (ha ha).

Today we have the return of Mike Comrie to the team - he was here from 2000 to 2003 and was born/raised in Edmonton by the family that started/own the Brick furniture store. For some reason, he wanted to be traded...and it pi$$ed everyone off...like he was too good to be in Edmonton. Some people thought that he was having an affair with the goalie's wife and needed to leave...but who really knows. Whenever his team would come to Edmonton, it would be "Boo Comrie Night" - so he's got balls to be coming back to play in the viper's den.

I even have my own locker space with them this year...see....my name on the locker!





What a hoot! I didn't even see the name on there when we got the tickets...because I'm not observant AND my bifocals just make reading annoying....Here are what the ticket books look like to my crappy eyesight.

GO OILERS GO!

Toronto - Day 2

Our 1st stop this day was the Hockey Hall of Fame (HHOF). (http://www.hhof.com/ )I had never been there, but Graeme had. It was about 2 blocks away (again, this hotel was in a great location!) Its in this beautiful old building. It was built in 1885 and was the home of the Bank of Montreal for several years. The HHOF took over in June 1993 and spent several millions to renovate it.

Here is what it looks like from outside. The funny thing is that you don't go in these front doors - that's where the Stanley Cup and all the other trophies are kept, along with a plaque for every person that is honored in the Hall of Fame. Outside of the building, there's a statue of kids leaning over the bench area of a hockey arena - we had fun taking our photos there - along with other crazy hockey fans.

This is the first thing you see when you finish paying to get in...ha ha. There are actually 2 statues, this one was the easiest to photograph.

Then I took alot of Oiler-player photos (of course).

We decided to get up to the trophy room quickly, in case it got busy and we wanted to get photos of the Stanley Cup without alot of waiting. The 1st thing you see as you walk up the stairs is the stained glass dome, which rises to a 45-foot-high. It is the largest stained glass dome in Toronto. The other parts of the ceiling were very ornate too.

All the NHL trophies are in here - fun to look at. This 1st photo with GJA in it is the remains of the 1st Stanley Cup.

There's a very long glass wall that has a glass tile for every person that was inducted into the hall of fame.

I 'had' to take a photo close up of the Stanley cup - this is the Oiler's 1984-85 winning of the cup.

These next 2 photos are in a Canadian's locker room (which is always on display). You could put it all on, if you wanted...there was also full goalie gear too. Its the 100th anniversary of the Montreal Canadians being in existence...so there was alot of Montreal stuff there then just this locker room.

We were there quite awhile. There are interactive game where you try to be a goalie and pucks are shot at you (we didn't try, but the kids were having fun). There was also a movie on the history of the Stanley cup, which was very interesting. Here's our parting gift....

While we were there, there was a huge rain storm....so we decided to walk back to our hotel through the PATH tunnels. The Royal York hotel (http://www.fairmont.com/royalyork/ ) is just before our hotel, so we stopped to take some photos. Its very similar to the Hotel Macdonald, Banff Springs Hotel, Empress Hotel, etc.

It was opened in June 1929 and was the tallest building in the British Commonwealth at that time. Although the years have brought changes, many features are still intact - hand-painted ceilings, travertine pillars, ornate furnishings, crystal chandeliers and wall hangings. It's been used in alot of movies.

We had a few hours to waste before our night with The Sound of Music, so we walked through the tunnels to Eaton's Centre (http://www.torontoeatoncentre.com/EN/centreinfo/Pages/default.aspx) again. Here are some photos from inside the mall.

We had dinner...then off to the play! It was amazing! It was all I could do to not sing along. Its slightly different from the movie, but I guess the play came first, so the film was different from the play. The sets were beautiful and changed so easily you could barely tell it was happening. They had a 'hill' on hydraulics so it looked like she was running up and down hills when she was singing the Sound of Music song. They also used that at the end when they were fleeing the Nazi. There was one scene when all these swastikas came down and men with machine guns game out...GJA & I both commented that it was unnerving to see them.

Here are some photos of the photos outside the theatre of the play (and me standing outside the theatre). (http://www.mirvish.com/OurTheatres/Princess.html)

My feet were killing me by the end of the day (well...after 2 days of standing/walking on concrete). We did about 4100 steps that day - for a total of about 5 and 1/2 miles.

WAAA - I didn't see the goal

This is what I heard when I came down from leaving the 2 boys alone for 5 minutes.

Last night was the 7th and final game of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals. GJA came home early and turned on the tv in the bonus room to watch the game...because PJ wants to watch his DVDs during dinner....fine. I'm getting dinner ready, fighting with PJ and just about when everything is ready, GJA magically arrives. I ask him who's winning...he said, no score. Then finally said...it hasn't started yet.

WHAT? I give him grief...why aren't you down here keeping PJ out of my hair - the game isn't even on yet. So, PJ starts having hissy fits because he doesn't want to eat, GJA is gettting grumpy because he thinks the game has started...so I get PJ calm and GJA takes his dinner up to watch the game.

We are season ticket holders to the Oilers and I have watched several years of playoff hockey on tv - regardless of who is in the finals (well, except if its Calgary). I would have loved to watch the game too...but that's just how it goes.

GJA came downstairs, so I presumed the intermission came. I left him in charge of PJ and the DVD machine and I go upstairs to make a phone call - because an intermission is 20 minutes long. While I'm doing that, I hear that the game has started and there's lots of whining and crying on the main floor. I come downstairs to see two angry faces looking at me....sorry for leaving for 5 mintues.

One is angry because he doesn't want to see hockey and wants to see his dvd's and the other one is angry because..."WAAA - I didn't see the goal" even though he had the game on (PJ kept turning on the DVD and messing up the hockey).

BOO HOO - I haven't see ANY of the game....maybe if you had come down as soon as the intermission started ... this wouldn't have happened.

SO...off he goes to watch the game. He did manage to pull himself away during the 2nd intermission (mind you, not until Don Cherry was done yapping - which I also would have liked to see) so we could put PJ to bed. By the time I got done with him, and the dishes in the disherwasher...I got to see 6.36 minutes of the game.

I got to see one goal....Detroit's...but they didn't win...which was a good thing in the end.

MALES