Oops, I Am Headed To The Wrong Ontario! How I Was Unprepared For The Move To The ECHL

Sometimes life's pleasures come into conflict and that is what has happened to me. Both the Allen Americans and myself are up at 3:00 a.m. preparing for a trip to Ontario but the team is headed to Ontario, California and I am headed to the province of Ontario in Canada.

How does a person who has written about the Allen Americans every single morning for 203 straight days and is invested in the team as much as I am bail at this critical time in the playoffs?

As it turns out I wasn't prepared for the move to the ECHL just like some of the teams in the Central Division. Most of my adult life has included a two week fishing trip to Canada and Minnesota at this time of year and when the Americans were in the Central Hockey League the playoffs were long over by the time I headed to Canada. In the ECHL the playoffs can continue until the middle of June.

This fishing trip was planned a year ago and to make matters worse after the fishing trip there is a wedding to attend in Minnesota so the bottom line is I will miss the rest of the playoffs and today will be my last blog post of the season. I will certainly miss writing about the rest of the playoffs but will have a great time with some great guys in the Canadian wilderness where the agenda is very simple. Fish, eat, fish, drink, fish, sleep, fish and repeat.

Won't go into all of the thank yous and reflections as is normal in my last post of the season because there is still a lot of hockey to be played. Just want to thank the players, their families, the coaching staff and the front office for all of their cooperation as I could not write the blog without them.

The good news is two Allen Americans super fans have volunteered to be guest writers while I am away. Mary Betz and Ted Hosterman have kindly agreed to help out in my absence. Be generous and gentle with them as they learn the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the software and gather information to include in the blog. They won't be writing every day but for those of you that are regular readers, you won't have to go cold turkey as there will be periodic posts. Thank you Ted and Mary for volunteering.

One of the nice things about going this deep in the playoffs is there is a lot of interest in the team so you can find great stories/articles about the team everyday. A Google search should bring you plenty of stories. A one stop shop for all ECHL playoff updates is at thesinbin.net where I am am a member. They have bloggers from Ontario (Duck & Hound) at that site and have full coverage of the Toledo vs South Carolina series as well. Other sites to check out for information include:
- allenamericans.com
- prohockeynews.com
- insidehockey.com
- echl.com
- oursportscentral.com
- ontarioreign.com
- faceoffviolation.com/dallasdaley/


DID YOU KNOW: I have a media credential and spend plenty of time in the press box as it is a great source of learning, education, dialogue and information from writers, photographers, broadcasters and officials but when it is time to drop the puck I take my place in the seats I have had since the beginning and become a fan. Photographer Kimberly Sauer (scenebykimberly.com) took the picture below of the guys celebrating the Gary Steffes goal in the 8-2 win on Sunday. If you look in the background you can see Barry the Blogger and friend (Jerry Tucker) as fans. That is me with the yellow headset listening to the voice of the Allen Americans, Tommy Daniels, and joining the "celly" with the red light.

Barry the Blogger and friends join in the "Celly"