Last week, I was somehow tricked by Blogger who only gave me the option of upgrading my blog to login. They've added both options back now, but at the time I was trying to blog, I was forced into a corner I didn't want to be in. So, I'm officially on the new Blogger. I don't notice any big differences, aside from the fact that it's gotten very difficult to properly search my own blog, so I apologize if I repeat a song of the day that's been up before.

I talked before about the Portland Winterhawks and Major Junior Hockey. When I was in town, a friend and I went to a game. When we went to buy tickets she said that she wanted to buy us 100 level tickets for my birthday. I was like, “Not necessary!” thinking they were $130 tickets like they are here. We ended up with tickets front and center, maybe 5 rows off the glass behind the players bench – all for $21 each.

I hadn’t seen a Junior game in quite some time, and the first thing I noticed is there’s a hell of a lot more checking than in the NHL. The hits aren’t as hard, but they come way more often. There’s something very cool about getting to watch kids play low level professional hockey when they’re not getting paid for it and they’re playing for the pure passion of the sport. Also, you’ll never see something like Mascot Night at an NHL game. And yes, that is a Duracell battery in goal at the far end.

Another cool thing about watching the game is that you can actually just walk down to the locker room area under the arena and watch the players as they come back out onto the ice. Imagine getting to do that at a Kings game (not that there’d be many interesting players to see right now). Here are some more photos from the game:

The song for the day is “Who’s Behind The Door” by Zebra off their 1983 self-titled album. Again, not a band I was ever into, but this song and "Tell Me What You Want" (which are nearly the same song as it is) always remind me of those early years of MTV when they would put pretty much anyone who had a video on the air.