Read Part I here. Read Part II here. Read Part III here. Read Part IV here. ON BOARD We climbed the stairs to Red Bird, and it was clear that the players and management just wanted to put this weekend behind them. There weren’t many smiles to be had, but we were assured that the […]

Read Part I here. Read Part II here. Read Part III here. BRIDGESTONE ARENA We packed up our hotel room and headed down toward the elevators. We were instructed to load our luggage onto the bus so that we could hightail it out of there as soon as the game ended. The elevator doors open […]

Read Part I here. Read Part II here. BREAKFAST WITH MR. HOLLAND I was lucky enough to spend nearly two hours with Mr. Holland. We talked about quite a bit: that he nearly became a vacuum salesman, how his son is doing (I went to high school with him), and — obviously — hockey. Any […]

Read Part I here. ALL ABOARD We climbed the stairs of Red Bird I, knowing we had beaten almost all of the team (hold for Rafalski and Bertuzzi), but when we were being shown to our seats, I noticed that most of the personnel — coaches, management, trainers — were already on board. The first […]

PREFACE Let me start this five-part post extravaganza by saying that I’m not entirely sure I possess the skills necessary to properly describe the awesomesauce of a weekend like this. The kinds of things I was privy to were amazing — and I’ve had a heck of a time wrapping my head around it all. […]