Thursday April 2nd
 
 I woke up early after a decent night's rest and Tony gave me a call around
 8:00 and he graciously offered to give me a ride downtown around 11:00 after
 his workout. I had plenty of time to get ready and Tony was right on time. I
 was surprised how far out the Wolf Road area was from downtown Albany, but the
 traffic was light and it didn't take too long. Tony's got a great car and it
 was wonderful to hear some music as the hotel had no radio and I was already
 feeling musically deprived! ;-) We did a quick tour of downtown, and drove by
 The Fountain Too where the dinner was to be later that day, then dropped me
 off at the Hilton to meet James.
 
 First we checked out all the NC$$ stuff for sale then left to wander around,
 find the Knick and a place to eat lunch. We sort of got lost, well almost! We
 even walked past The Fountain Too on our tour of downtown. There are quite a
 few old and very interesting buildings there. A very eclectic downtown area.
 We finally settled on the sports bar right at the Knick, called Panfilo's.
 This was evidently one of the places to be as it filled up very quickly. The
 first person who walked in that I recognized was Goofus, who was there to
 cheer on the MSU Spartans. He did a great job of warming up the crowd,
 although once he started singing and playing his stick-instrument it became
 too loud to carry on a serious conversation. There was also a very stoned
 young guy playing some serious air-guitar by the juke box. After a while he
 was asked to leave because he hadn't ordered anything.
 
 After lunch James and I went upstairs to the ticket area to wait for Garrett
 Lanzy and Mike Machnik, who were going to meet me there and get their tickets
 for the games. Garrett was the first to show up and I recognized him right
 away from the great description he had e-mailed me. Then the three of us began
 the wait for Mike...we started speculating, is that guy him?...are we in the
 right place?... While we were waiting, who should cruise by but Dave Espe, a
 former Gopher who recognized me in a hot second. After a big hug, pleasantries
 were exchanged. Dave is now playing with the Halifax Minor team and he was
 waiting for some friends who had his tickets. Finally in walks Mike who saw me
 right away! Introductions were made and then we all went to find our
 individual seats.
 
 My seat in the arena was "interesting". I was sitting behind the left goal
 (from the TV perspective) and in the very first row. The only time that I
 would choose to sit there would be if I was taking some photos of the game. In
 Mariucci, my seat is 18 rows form the ice and three seats left of the center
 line. So this was going to be an interesting perspective to see a game from. I
 was hoping for lots of goals at my end of the rink. The boards were really
 close to the seats and quite flexible, so I had to make sure I kept my feet
 and knees away from them. The players looked HUGE that close up! The MSU
 section was to my right and behind me. There was a guy, Dave from Maine who
 was sitting behind me and we commisserated on our being there without our
 favorite teams! Right next to me were Kevin and Michael, two friends of Mike
 Machnik. They both had played hockey, at Dartmouth and Northeastern
 respectively. We had some interesting conversations on how the games were
 going.
 (end of part two)
 
 Carol
 U of M
 GO Gophers!!!