whaaa happened?

on what seemed to be right on the heels of the annual Las Vegas tournament, the Burninators headed to Vacaville for a tournament hosted by the La.dy No.rth Star(s).

we had a total of 4 guaranteed games - one against each of the other teams who participated. i drove up after work on friday night and met Bluepoof at the Fremont rink. we then headed up to Vacaville, checked into our hotel room, and satiated grumbly tummies with soup from Outback. we met up with some members of Blacklist in the hotel lobby, chatted for a bit, then headed to our room.

of course, i forgot to take a picture of the pillows. but, there were three very square shaped pillows on each bed. i had no idea how i was supposed to sleep on these tall pillows, but fortunately Carolyn discovered that they unfolded. one of her pillows pooped some pillow bits in the process but other than that it was an uneventful night.

our first game on Saturday was against Blacklist. we saw many of them in the hotel lobby and had breakfast together. the game was fun - i was up against Marci for many of my shifts and we exchanged the usual hellos and oof! (at least on my part). the Sharon-Murty-Poof line was en fuego and we won 4-2. we went to Mary's pizza shack for lunch which would have been much more enjoyable had it not taken a billion years for the chicken i ordered to devolve and evolve again.

game 2 was against the host team. it was easy for me to tell right away that they actually practice together - and for the most part, the players were all fun. i exchanged smiles with many of them at faceoffs and their reactions often bias how i feel towards the team as a whole. BUT, during the first period, i was moving by their bench down into their zone. their D or center sort of dropped down or fell, i couldn't tell which. i went flying over her and landed kinda awkwardly. as i was getting up i heard their ass coach yell at the player "well if you're going to hit her, hit her harder!" it took all of my good sense and willpower to not get up and go ask him to say that to my face. fortunately, our wise and pragmatic captain mentioned something to the ref and he called the coach out. that really scarred the game for me, and we lost 2-0. but i thought we played well and Cara really kept us in the game.

panic moment of the weekend came after game 2, when i almost lost my left contact. it bounced into a compartment of my bag and Heather kindly, knowingly helped me look for it. fortunately, a drive down to santa cruz that evening to get old lenses was not needed.

dinner after game 2 was at a sushi restaurant so i had my standby teriyaki beef. there were Burninators and Dolphins at dinner and it was really fun. the fun continued at the most bizarre combination of A&W / Long John Silver's / Valero. i wanted a hot fudge sundae but the soft serve was out - so i ended up with ice cream with hot fudge fixings on top. this lack of soft serve caused a lot of confusion for the cashier and the guy who "made" the desserts but we kept ourselves quite amused. i think it started with Andrea and Liz telling us that we needed to check out the bathroom. i did, and it was just. wow. WOW. not what i expected. the, i think it was Jenny B and Jennifer S who picked up Long John Silver's pirate hats. after that it was all over. we all donned pirate hats except for Val, who looked on very disapprovingly. the cashier (still confused) took a picture of our group but only after managing to drop the booster seats and trays she was carrying.

bonus of the happened as i was on my way to get ice. i heard Val saying "hiiiii Cheddahhhhhhh!" from the 2nd floor and looked up to see her waving at me. awesomeness!

Sunday morning brought us game 3 against the Seal.s II. we knew going in that it would be be a tough game but our motto for the weekend was "have fun!" and that we did. Cara kept it from being a double digit shutout loss and the final score was 9-0. Chris joked that the scoreboard simply didn't show the "1" in front of our "0". :-) but truthfully, i thought we played well and was proud that we never gave up. we skated hard until the final buzzer (eeeehhhnnnnt!) and yes, we had fun.

our final game was a great way to end - against the Dolphins. i felt like we played really well as a team. we ended up tied at 3, and our game against the Dolphins was fun, relatively evenly matched, and i was proud of our team for hanging in there against so many blue level players.

while i wanted to hang around for dinner afterwards, i mostly wanted to just get home. so Poof and i drove home in the rain (it didn't let up, ever!) and i made it home in time to have some soup and crash.

thanks, Blacklist, Dolphins, and Burninators for a really enjoyable weekend. playing teams like those not listed in this paragraph make me more and more grateful for the friends i have, the coaches in our league who volunteer their time and have great attitudes, and happy that i'm able to play with and against friends every week.

Labels: burninators