Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Meet the Team Party & Rookie Game

Thousands of season ticket holders piled into the Sommet Center for some pre-season hockey action. When coming through the doors you were given two slips of paper. One was for a free meal and the other for a pass to see a certain group of players. They eventually opened up all the lines and the pass was pointless.

While they had these booths set up outside to meet the players, there was a game going on in the arena. It was the rookies from the Preds and the Thrashers. Unfortunately, I was only able to watch about a period and a half of that game. From what I saw, most of the players were soaking up the moment and forgot that hockey is a team sport. Amidst the hogging were some pretty bone rattling hits. In the end, the Preds lost in a shootout on the fourth shot.

I was able to meet Jed Ortmeyer who happens to be my favorite player on the team. I got his autograph. It’s a shame he’s injured again. I also went through a few other lines and got some other players’ autographs.

Although they only gave out one free meal per person, I found a way to exploit this. Not going to go into detail on here. Last year we had a friend named John working on the inside giving us more than we were supposed to get. Unfortunately, after that night he was put on Pro Shop duty for all the missing meal slips.

Although it was an eventful night, things will never be the same as they were years before that. This summer one of my best friends moved to Arizona. He was like my right hand man as I was his. There will be no one to hang with this year out in the halls between periods.

Another fallen comrade was already mentioned, John. Apparently he walked all the way from his house to go to the Pro Shop to get things set up and he was told he had to sign up to work there. He thought he was already employed. So he basically said some stuff and hasn’t been back since. R.I.P.

Jackson Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

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