Category — hockey

Tonight is the first official night of NHL hockey (seems like it just ended). Anyway, I wanted to post our current HD setup for everyone to see.

As you can see we have the cable running from the back of the TV, attached to some vice-grips which are leaning up against a mailbox. We got the mail box from our parents back at Christmas time and had the TV around the same time and found that it was a large metal object… Boom, HD TV!

Some would think that this ISN’T HD quality but let me assure you that we know what NON-HD looks like on the TV and this is most definitely an HD signal. Don’t ask me how it works I’m not an Electrical Engineer who got a Master in Science in an antenna related field…. oh wait.

Anyway, I just finished watching the opening montage of the game and am wondering. Is there anything better than a good hockey Montage? I don’t think other sports can do it as well as hockey…

Oh and we’ve signed up to do the hockeypool again at CBC for a chance to win a Kia something or other. You can join us here too I created the pool Sillyness with password: thesills.net If you join, join us in our pool.

Enjoy the season everyone!

Last night we were lucky enough to attend the eastern conference final between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Pittsburgh Penguins.   How did you get ticktets you ask?  Ticketmaster….  Two Saturdays ago just randomly wondering if tickets were available.

Anyway, the game last night was SUPER fun. We showed up about an hour early and found that everyone was tail-gaiting and there was tons of events happening…  We got right in the mood and had to do a self-shot to show.

The game itself was really cool too…  The fans are crazy and really do put the Flames fans to shame.  No I’m not joking or trying to insult the flames fans.  The place was as loud (or lounder) than any arena I’ve ever heard.  When the puck was dropped everyone stood standing and yelling for a good 2-3 minutes into the game.   Even when the Hurricanes were down by 2 when most arena’s go silent they just started yelling again. Oh and the interesting thing is that when the scoreboard said, “yell” or “make some noise” or whatever people just started going nuts.

Anyway, was a fun night and definitely a fun and cool experience. Oh, and I took a video of when “rock you like a Hurricane” came on and people went nuts…. I’ll post it when we get home.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged … so what is going on?

Not that much besides trying to plan our summer…. which is surprisingly busy considering it’s not even the middle of April and we have almost every weekend booked.  We still haven’t figured out our Ulti plans for the summer but that’s not really surprising.  We do however plan to do lots of biking, disc golfing, playing soccer (lindsay) and refing soccer.   Note:  I was roped in by the neighbours when we were small chatting…. Neighbour:  oh YOU could ref soccer! Wanna make $20 bucks per game?    Jeff:  um…  I guess so.  (thinking:  I get a case a beer per game I ref).

Anyway, should be a fun summer.

In other news the NHL hockey playoffs start this Wed.  How exciting!  As you may remember we usually attend the Powell Pool, however, this year we aren’t going to make it because I’m at home sick.  boo!   SO instead we are entering the CBC pool. You should all enter too… it’s free, you can win a Kia car and you can join our “group” which is called “The Silly Sills” … password: willow

OK. Go enter the CBC Hockey Night In Canada Playoff Pool now!

Don’t know anything about hockey?  Don’t worry we say most Calgarians don’t know much either as they cheer for the Flames…  I kid, I kid.  But seriously, luck usually has a bigger factor than skill.

Lots of fun had at Sun Peaks this week for Larry’s retirement party. Stayed in a chalet on the hill that was literally ski-in ski-out. Just had to ski down to the Morrisey chair and then took a run back that took us to the doorstep of our place. I had been watching the weather in Kamloops for the last few months and it has been terrible for skiing. But, we totally lucked out and woke up to 16.8cm of fresh powder the first day. So awesome. Some of the best boarding ever. Met a guy from New Zealand who described it as skiing in custard. I’d say more like flour, but either way it was amazing. Wasn’t sure if I wanted to board again the next day since I was so sore (takes a bit of effort to pull yourself out of waste-deep powder all day), but it was too fun to not go. Day 2 was really chilly, but at least we traveled WestJet and received all of our luggage so we were dressed warm enough that it wasn’t so bad. The hot tub at the end of the day sure felt nice.

Thanks to Larry and Brenda’s great meal planning and Jeff’s good BBQing we ate like kings. Lots of fun had with Kevin, Tamara and the two little ones. I think I watched Finding Nemo with Sage 3 times, but luckily she was into that right instead of Barney (which she watched the entire way from Princeton apparently ). Here are a few pics from the week: http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.sill/SunPeaks#

I’d like to take this special opportunity to thank Air Canada for this wonderful Friday evening during Carnaval in Quebec City in my hotel room. There are many festivities going on but instead I get to write a blog and watch TV. This is because they seem to have misplaced our luggage. What a moron I was to assume that my bags would arrive when I did with my bathing suit, mittens, snow pants, socks, long underwear or even underwear for that matter…Good thing it’s not -20 degrees with the windchill…oh wait, it is.

So we decided to go for a nice dinner and stay in. Making the most of it. As misery loves company, we are happy to say that we were one of 25 on the flight that arrived without their luggage. Looks like they managed to lose an entire trolley of bags. When the carousel stopped, I yelled at Jeff to sprint to the baggage claim line as I was unable to myself due to a recent foot injury (and have been limping around the city). Luckily by doing this we were among the first in line…which was important as it was 1:30am.

(Brief reprieve from the sarcasm for a sec). Today we had breakfast with Mary Ann and Robert, which was a great start to the day. We spent the afternoon shopping for a few essentials (ok, so I totally used the lost luggage as an excuse to go shopping!). We also took in some snow sculptures and had lunch in a cute little boulangerie (bakery).

I just spoke to Air Canada on the phone and it sounds like our baggage is on the way. Received at the airport (hopefully the Quebec airport) and the delivery process has been initiated. This process has been initiated for 10 hours according to the website, but hopefully it arrives soon. In the meantime, luckily they provided us with a nice overnight kit with all the essentials: an extra large men’s shirt, men’s speed stick, and half a tooth brush (Jeff’s toothbrush is actually missing half of the bristles…).

It is really neat interacting in French again; all those years of french immersion for Jeff and I are paying off. It’s amazing how much we actually still remember, and even more amazing how much we have forgotten. There were 2 people today who actually went along with the conversation in french and didn’t immediately switch to english after I spoke. Perhaps it was because I was making sense, or perhaps it was because they didn’t speak any english (I like to think it was the former

Well, gotta run. Time to put my extra large t-shirt on and watch the second period of the jeu d’hockey (Habs against Avs).

Salut!

Congrads to Emillie and Brad! They are the proud new parents of Nikolai Maxwell Zarikoff born on June 26th.

Congrads also to Cory and Jamie who added a baby boy, Jacob, to their wonderful family yesterday!!!

Jacob share’s his birthday with my grandma (happy belated birthday Baba!)

Both moms are doing well and recovering quickly.

And sadly, Markus Nasland was just traded to the Rangers…poor Canucks. Naslund is so dreamy. Oh well. Go Rangers (and Canucks, of course)!

Happy Stampede everyone!

Since Mike was making fun of me for posting about kittens, I will follow it up with a more manly post (just for him)….

Congrads to Bruce on winning this year’s hockey pool. As you can see by this photo, he must be texting in his picks, as he won the pool all the way from Dubai! To add to the story, Dr. Rob picked Bruce’s team in his absence. Not only did Rob pick the winning team, he also picked a losing team…Dr. Rob sadly put all his effort into Bruce’s picks and ended up finishing last himself. What a nice guy!

I finished 3rd after Philly crapped out, and Jeff finished 7th (which is a pretty good finish for Jeff in a hockey pool!)

Pretty good day in sports yesterday….2 out of 3 of the teams I was cheering for came out victorious. Philly pulled off a very exciting win so now I am shaping up pretty well in the hockey pool heading to the next round.

The Sharks were able to dominate the lames…oops….Flames in an uneventful game 7. Many thanks to the Monteiths for allowing me to watch the game at their house while cheering for the opposition. As badly as they Flames played, at least they made it to the playoffs, unlike some teams *cough* Canucks!

And disappointing loss by the Raptors!!! Com’on Raptors. You can do this. You battled back from about 16 points down and lost by 1!!! Great try by Bosh in the final seconds.

As we draw closer to the end of RUTRTW for the season, I’ve decided to add a new widget on our website since the Tim Horton’s one is boring, since we haven’t won a Matrix yet and Timmy’s is bound to run out of cups anyday.

And, hockey is so exciting  these days and hockey pools make it all that more exciting.

Now you can follow along as we battle for top place (winner take all) in our pool!  Jeff might not feel the same right now since he isn’t on top, but it’s still early and anything can happen once players (and half the teams) get eliminated in the first round. Stay tuned!

We got a huge dump of snow today here in Calgary. Apparently we got 23cm and broke a 96-year record. It made for a beautiful day. Snow all morning, sunny in the afternoon followed by snow again in the afternoon. It reminded me of BC… huge flakes; it’s like the sky opened up and puked out snow.

The strange thing is that nobody even saw it coming. Is it wrong to assume that weather people (I think they also call them meteorologists) only have one job? If you don’t predict a storm like this (or even call for snow today) shouldn’t you be canned?

This weather totally messed with my plans for tomorrow. Tomorrow is “bike to work day” and I just happen to own a new bike. How disappointing. Maybe it will melt over night. Or maybe I’ll bike someday next week and make my own “bike to work day”. It seems to have snowed every day since I bought my new bike. Sorry everyone!

Great night for staying in and watching the Sharks devour the Flames.