Little Miss-Conceptions, Ice Angels Calendar Shoot, & Some Hockey

- Stopped by the Allen Event Center again yesterday and you can tell it is time for hockey. The corridors are filled with cold air as the ice surface has been put down, the team store was bustling with activity (including new products) trying to prepare for the season ticket holder pickup/open house event on Saturday (October 5) from 10:00 - 4:00. The community rink was also bustling with activity as the number of skaters at the informal skate was up to eleven. Joining the local contingent were Kale Kerbashian and Alex Lavoie fresh from the Oklahoma Barons (AHL) training camp as well as Mike Berube, Jarret Lukin, and Trever Hendrikx. Adam Pineault even joined the boys for a skate as he is in town on his way to training camp with his new team, the Utah Grizzlies.

- Camp hasn't started yet and we already have a player on the roster with a potential AHL deal. Details should be out this afternoon.

- If you want to see a well produced hockey video take a look at the opening night video from the USHL Lincoln Stars. It is the teams way to introduce the fans to newly selected members of the Stars Hall Of Fame and the upcoming season. John Snowden was one of those selected this year. If you want to read more about this and take a look at the video go to the Lincoln Stars web site at: lincolnstars.com.

- Tomorrow night (Thursday October 3)  from 6:00 - 7:00 Erik Adams and a couple of Americans players will be at Heritage Ranch Golf and Country Club to talk hockey. They will cover some of the basic hockey terms and rules, changes to the rules for this season, how the team is shaping up and whatever else is of interest to the attendees. The Presidents' Cup will make an appearance and there will be a drawing for prizes and tickets. Heritage Ranch is four miles east of the Allen Event Center on Stacy Road. You are all invited to join us so hope to see there.

- The Ice Angels are busy today with their calendar photo shoot. Can't wait for these pictures! Here is one they tweeted out as a teaser.

Ice Angels Are Ready For Their Calendar Photo Shoot

- Mentioned yesterday players that had left to play overseas are at the point in the season they may be looking to come back to North America.  Goalie Tim Boron who has played in Rapid City for the last three years and went to play in France this year has left his French team. Maybe headed back to the Rush. Stay tuned.

- Competition for the goalie position with the Utah Grizzlies, where Aaron Dell has signed to play, got tougher this week as the Anaheim Ducks assigned 6' 6" goalie Igor Bobkov to the Grizzlies, their ECHL affiliate. The 22 year old Bobkov, a native of Russia, was the Ducks 3rd round pick in the 2009 NHL draft.

- I wanted to end today with the most recent blog post from Shanna Wray, wife of Rapid City Rush captain Scott Wray. I have been an admirer of her writing for a couple of years now. With training camp about to start and the players, wives and girlfriends arriving from near and far Shanna always has an interesting perspective as a hockey wife and provides fans with insight that is unique. Hope you enjoy Shanna's, "Little Miss-Conceptions" and if you are on twitter give her a follow @shannaleighwray

Little Miss-Conceptions

Training Camp starts in T-minus 5 days, give or take a few hours in there somewhere, and that means that this new season is hurling itself towards us like a slap-shot from the point (didjya like that? See what I did there?)
As another season opens, we’ll have oodles and oodles of team functions, parties, get-to-know-yous-turned-beer-drinking-olympics and all around shenanigans.  I feel myself becoming more and more of a hermit leading into the season, never wanting to stray too far from home, wanting to organize my house/my calendar/my life in hopes of making the transition back to “Mrs, Sometimes” a little easier.  Of course, that hardly ever works because I can find reason after reason NOT to do anything productive if it means I can sit on the couch with my fav Captain and just BE, because I also know that “Just BE-ing” during the season gets wedged in-between practices, team meals, pre-game skates, hockey games, road trips and promotions.  In any event, I’m hermiting and overthinking and in my over-thinking hermit state, I started to mull up a little post about the misconceptions I have encountered over the last -too many to count now- seasons.  OF course, I’m not talking about the several thousands that I hear every year about the players though (although I could write about that ALL. DAY. LONG.) but some that hit a little closer to home for those of us who are preparing for a season of our own.
(Pardon me while I toot-toot my own horn here a little)
Us hockey wives/fiancées/girlfriends are a GINORMOUS part of why the boys are able to do what they do, every weekend.  We are the (crazy) glue that holds this entire thing together you know.  Minus the single guys who eat plain pasta and jarred sauce for pre-game, we cook their pre-game meals (which, in Mr. Sometime’s case is almost always the same thing until he needs to change it up), we make sure their lucky socks, suit, tie, whathaveyou, is clean, pressed (who am I kidding? I don’t iron) and ready to wear.  We build schedules and play dates and holiday meals around pre-game naps and skates.  And we do all this, like it’s second nature.  So, I figure, It’s high time I gave us girls props.
And de-bunked a few off-kilter conceptions about us at the same time.

#1. I’m no PuckBunny, yo.

~Seriously.  I never was.  At the risk of making you all die of heart failure, I did not start out my relationship with the Captain knowing anything about hockey at all.  I had never been to a game before.  We were not a hockey (or any sport other than baseball) family.  I knew a ton about skateboarding and I had watched more D&D roll-playing games than I wish to comment on, but I knew NOTHING about pucks, blades, off-sides, creases, edges, penalties or hat tricks.  N-A-D-A. I didn’t fall all over myself, vying for the attention of one of the LOUDEST, most OBNOXIOUS groups anyone could encounter.  In fact, I had to seriously consider the repercussions of dating this guy who always traveled in a herd of noise and stench.  It was a less-than-appealing thought because, and I was right, when you dated one, you kind of dated them all. This is true for most of the girls I’ve met along the way.  Some may have been more into hockey than others, but NOT the jock-sniffers (as my husband so lovingly refers to them) you might think we all started as.  ”Those girls”, well, we just weren’t.

#2. Dormats and Pushovers, United.

~ There is so much about our lives that is decided by anyone BUT us.  Where we live, where he plays, how long we stay there, what house we live in, how long we live there.  All decided by the powers that be.  Whether it’s the owners, the coach or Mr. SOmetimes, these decisions very rarely involve me.  I mean, who am I to tell him where he wants to play?  It’s gotten better, the longer we’ve been in this league.  Mr. Sometimes has a little bit more say, more pull, more leverage.  But just because I sit back and let it all happen does not mean I am a pushover, a doormat or any such thing.  I am strong in my convictions.  I am a quiet, mild-mannered cheerleader who sits in the stands and doesn’t hoot and holler much, I don’t let too much visibly upset me.  Until it does.  Most of us are this way, the quiet ones,  the ones that know when to say what to whom, not because we’re afraid to speak our minds but that we respect our boys’ positions both on the ice and in the community.  This means that we stay quiet often.  Too much quiet, though, usually means we’re positively boiling on the inside.  For me, my release is this blog (case-in-point; this post to fans, that threw some people into quite a tizzy) but even when I’m being candid and just letting the words come with each key stroke, I’m conscious of how, what I write, might affect him, his teammates, our hockey family.

#3. We’re all just one BIG, HAPPY Family.

~Or not.  Okay, this is the one that I hear most often and it always surprises me to see people’s faces when they finally hear the truth; WE DO NOT ALL LIKE EACH OTHER.  There. I said it.  It’s not like we hate each other, but seriously, what would make someone assume that we’re just one big, happy family? When you were in high school, did everyone get along all the time, just because you’re all in the same class?  Unlikely.  It’s really no different in our (albeit, very unique situation).  Most of us get along, and get along really, really well.  But sometimes there are girls that A) have some kind of history, after all, the hockey world really is just teeny-tiny, B) get off to a really poor start and, for no apparent reason, just don’t like each other, C) something happens, either between the girls or the guys, that one of them just can’t get over, and D) there is always that one girl who thinks they are better than everyone else. I have experienced every single scenario in the last 15yrs.  I have been on the receiving end of some pretty terrible treatment at the hands of a players significant other for reasons I both can and can’t explain.  I have been the one dolling out the cold shoulder treatment, again for reasons I can and can’t explain – (something I’m working on, trust me, I’m not proud of it). I have never thought I was better than anyone else, although I have played the “Captain’s Wife” card a few times, unashamed-ly too.  Never without good reason, and only EVER because I have been personally attacked our offended, like, say, when someone implies that they are better than me. Vicious Circle.  All of this is pretty usual girl drama and is most definitely applicable to anyone’s life.  The difference is, we really are ALL a family of sorts.  So, even though you don’t always like your family, family is family and we all get along and do family things because that’s what families do.

#4. And Impenetrable wall of Ice.

~Like The Wall in Game of Thrones, SO MANY PEOPLE think of us as this flock of Ice Queens that make it impossible to enter into “the group”, icing out anyone a little different.  I am readily taking on the position to say, “This just AIN’T SO!”.  Am I quiet? Yes.  Probably giving the impression that I’m a huge B**CH.  Am I shy to a fault, that too.  But, and at the risk of sounding full of myself, I’m just plain, ol’ tired.  I have lived a lifetime of hockey season after hockey season.  I have 3 dogs, two children and a man-child at home.  When you see me at the rink, It’s usually on a Friday.  And, like I said, I’m T-I-R-E-D. I have put in a weeks worth early mornings and late nights, homework and lunches and brush your teeths.  I have made a trillion (okay, it just feels like that) meals and somehow, SOMEHOW, they’re all still alive.  By nothing short of a miracle.  So yes, I’m tired when you see me so forgive me for NOT being bubbly and running up to you and making promises of BFF-hood and hair-braiding.  Even though, if you got to know me and, I, you, we’d so totally do that on road trips.  There’s usually a good mix to the girls, though, in truth.  And I’m thankful for that, because, while I’m not the one to run up and introduce myself right away, there are girls who are really, really good at it.  I spent an entire year on the same team with someone and barely ever spoke to her.  Now? we’re great friends. The best of friends.  We bonded over ramen noodles and our love of cheap White Zinfandel  and cheese balls.  This one kind of goes back to #3; even though we’re not all “Kumbaya” and hair-braiding, we share that one commonality; Our boys.

There are so many more that I can think of, but like I started out saying, I have a life to get in order before Camp starts and my life fills up with all things hockey.
What are some other misconceptions that you think people might have?
Comment and let me know