Off to Vancouver

So continuing on with my busy summer, I came home from Croatia, went back to work for a couple of weeks, and then headed off to Vancouver for a friend's wedding. It was for Shankari Venugopal's wedding, good friend from high school. Actually there was four of us that hung around quite a bit during those years and still manage to stay in touch some how. Shankari is now living out in Vancouver finishing up her master's in Architecture. The other two girls, Erin and Ashley, also flew to Vancouver. Ashley flew from Regina with me, whereas Erin met us there from Saskatoon.

It was just a blast! We were able to rent a car and stayed with a close family friend of Shankari's right in Vancouver. Luckily for us we were there about 5 days and had enough time to take in quite a bit of the sites, spending time on Grandville Island, shopping on Robson street and walking around (almost) Stanley Park. I hadn't been to Vancouver in quite a few years and forgot how beautiful it was!

The wedding and the events leading up to it were just amazing! We were invited to all the family functions in the days prior to the wedding where we were able to meet both sides of the family as well as eat some really good Indian food, although a tad spicy! Shankar's wedding was spectacular to say the least. It was outside at a country club out in the mountains near Port Coquitlam. I have never seen such a fancy club house as you'll see from the picture below. The reception was held on the second floor at the country club overlooking the golf course with the mountains in the distance. Shankari of course looked beautiful in her Indian dress! Did I mention that throughout all her events I think she had 6 or so new sari's that she wore!

It was such a great time being back again with the girls from high school and just hanging out. Kind of felt like old times as really none of have changed minus a couple of weddings, kids, degrees and so on. It's pretty awesome to have friends like that and really amazing that we've still kept in touch all these years...and miles apart.


Ashley and I at Granville Island


Part of the wedding ceremony (Shankari is the one sitting down in the middle of the picture)


The country club where the wedding and reception took place


Erin, Ashley and I at the wedding


The newlywed couple the day after the wedding

Training Camp in Croatia

From June 5-17, Chelsa, Jeni and I were able to take part in our team's training camp in Croatia. That's right I said training camp in Croatia...my owner flew Chelsa, Jeni and I over just for the week long training camp in Croatia. Pretty crazy if you ask me. It was awesome to have Jeni along as it was her first time spending time with the team. We had quite a few hours on the plane to try and get her ready for the culture shock or the city and more so the way our team operates as it's much different than back in North America. Upon leaving June 5, we arrived there June 6th in the afternoon. We were able to make it to our apartment, which we still have, then took a phone call from a teammate saying that we were leaving that night to drive to Croatia. Um...excuse me...driving through the night? For some reason they enjoy driving through the night to get to places...I'm not so much a fan. After a 14 hour bus ride, which could have been done in 10 hours (they stop wayyyy too much!), we made it to Croatia. Not such a great start to a week long training camp with one night spent on a plane and the other night spent on a bus.

We were put in groups of four and shown to our apartment like rooms. We have a new Slovak girl playing with us called Martina who stayed with us and speaks great English, so that was awesome to have her around! We stayed in these older 2-star apartment style complexes. The area where we were was really quite large with a couple of hotels, camping area, and these apartments. We were right close to the beach, where it also had a ton of tennis courts, and not too far from where we were there were outdoor soccer fields, which is where we did most of our training. The style of everything was older...probably built in the 70's or early 80's. It reminded me of Dirty Dancing where Baby went with her family to that family camp for the whole summer. For food we would go to one of the hotels for breakfast and supper with some all inclusive deal, and then had lunch as a nearby restaurant.


The apartment complex


View from the hotel where we ate


Jeni, myself and Chelsa at dusk

The training part of the trip was definitely interesting to say the least. I guess our team was doing aerobics once a week with an instructor before the camp. So they decided to bring her along. I have no problems with doing aerobics but the stuff we were doing was not exactly hockey specific exercises or training. They would tell us that we would have a "stretching" session for an hour. Great, sounds good, I like to stretch...well this was not the stretching I was used to. The first full day we were there we had a marathon aerobics session lasting about 3 hours. My calves were shot from then on as I was not used to all this bouncing up and down and being on your toes most of the time. The sprinting part of the training was great and was hockey specific and I really enjoyed it, with the hardest day doing 15 hill sprints up some hill for about 20sec. It was good though and hockey specific. Our weight sessions were also very interesting with our weights being more of a circuit type training. We didn't have any free weights to use, just cut off re bar, and handles for raised push ups. These sessions were not all that intense minus the last day where I we did a push pyramid and I think I did close to a 100 push ups...I hate push ups too. It was interesting though as one day our coach came to us and asked us to come up with a training session for the team. That was really fun to do as we incorporated as much North American exercises as we could with the little equipment that we had. The girls really like it and it was a good chance of pace from the rest of the stuff.


Us Canadian girls at the back doing aerobics


A good example of why my calves were shot with all the jumping we did


The whole gang

Luckily for us our time spent in Croatia was not all training. One day our owner rented a boat for us to go over to the main town of Porec. We had a couple of hours to shop/look around the streets. Along the way our strength coach had us stop at the ice cream store and told Jeni to stand outside the door. From here the guy in the shop threw a ball of ice cream and tried to hit Jeni's mouth. He got it in on the second try! It was pretty amazing. Next he made a ice cream cone pyramid for both Jeni and Chelsa as you can see from the pictures below. It was pretty fantastic! Later we met up with the rest of the team and had supper on the roof of this medieval tower. The view was great and the food was all seafood making it probably the best meal of my life! There were three courses with the waiters bringing out everything on huge platters for everyone. It's funny as you don't exactly know what your what you're eating or really how you're supposed to eat it. For example they had dried meat like prosciutto over top of cantaloupe. I thought that that meant you ate them together, which of course I tried and it tasted not that bad. Afterwards they told me it was just for decoration and you didn't have to eat it like that. Oops.


Waiting for our boat to take us to Porec


Hanging out on the boat


Porec from a distance


Streets of Porec


A very pretty building


Ice cream creations Jeni and Chelsa got


View from where we ate


Not a bad set up at the restaurant

Along with going to Porec we were able to have a couple of fun days just stretching on the beach and one afternoon we were allowed to take out some jet skis. That was a complete blast. It was really windy that days so there were some huge waves on the water and I think we were completely airborne a couple of times. The last few days there were not very nice with it raining quite a bit, so that kind of sucked, as we then headed home that Friday night...and drove through the night again of course. It was nice to have a couple of days in Prague, just hanging out and showing Jeni some sights. We were there during the European Cup, so that was exciting watching the Czech's play while being there...it was pretty crazy but unfortunately they didn't make it past the round robin. Then that Tuesday it was back to Canada for us, and back to work for me that Thursday. By that time I was definitely missing Croatia aerobics and all!


Coastline by our apartment




The three of us after jet skiing

Back to Madtown!

Back at the end of May...I know this is long overdue...I was able to fly down to Madison for my old assistant coaches wedding. Old as in previous coach of my University it team. I had not been back there since June 2006 when I graduated so it had been awhile! But of course, if you know me, then you know that a simple trip and flight down is really not that simple.

I had been in the process of obtaining a Visa for the Czech Republic for the upcoming season and had to have the Consulate in Toronto mail me back my passport as the Visa had not come through yet, but of course I needed it in order to fly down to Madison. Well it never came...was lost, or I think stolen in the mail. It was sent by Express Canada Post, so I definitely would think twice before I would use that service again. Okay so what do I do know...the only thing left was to drive. So I started that Tuesday night to drive down to Madison. Luckily for me I have a smart brother who came up with the idea of me flying out of Minot (in which case I do not need a passport, just and ID). Well that's a great idea and all, but how much am I going to have to pay for a new flight the next day? This is where my dad comes in and somehow talks to a representative from Northwest and is able to change my flight for only $50. Unbelievable I tell you!

So instead of driving all the way to Madison, I only had to go to Minot and was able to make my flight, then catch up with my friend Carla in the airport in Minneapolis airport and continue our way down to Madison.

I had a fantastic time being back. Obviously a ton had changed. There was always construction going on with the campus when I was there, and even more so now that I was back. New dorms were up and a whole bunch of other buildings where torn down. Not to get sentimental on you or anything but of course a ton of memories came flooding back especially seeing old house on Orchard St. with the slanted floors. You kind of forget how amazing college was and the life that we lived as a student-athlete, and I have to say that those five years were truly an unbelievable time in my life.

Carla and I were fortunate enough to stay a Phoebe and Tyler's house for the weekend were able to catch up with them along with Molly and Bobbi Jo who came down for it as well. I had a blast hanging out with everyone, going to all my favourite old places, which was basically consisted of all the restaurants that I have missed over these past 2 years.

Tracey's and Darren wedding was amazing as well. She looked like a million bucks of course and had a great reception with an awesome dance to follow!

It was great to be back in Madison and hopefully I'll be able to visit it again soon! On Wisconsin!


Bobbi Jo, myself, Carla and Phoebe at our golf outing.


The happily married couple outside the church


Carla, Molly, Bobbi Jo and I outside the church


Carla and I with the bride