[Sorry for the delay in continuing the travelouge, but I was out
of town from last Thursday to tuesday, and had some work to catch
up on.....]
FRIDAY
------
Friday I woke up at around noon, and we had breakfast at a diner down
the street.
I hung around the lobby of the hotel, talking hockey with someone from
the RPI booster club, who was manning the hospitality table, and Jim,
the man of a thousand rumors, a Wisconsin fan who goes to a lot of road
and home games. The RPI guy predicted that Pierre Balenger would be the
ref for the championship game. From what I had heard from hockey-l, I
wasn't sure if this would be good or bad... (last year, people really
blasted him, but this year, many said he had mellowed and was very
good).
Carol called, and eventually I got the message, about trying to go to
the minor league game that night, or doing dinner, but nothing came of
it...
POOL PARTY
----------
Friday night, we had a party by the pool (included in our tour), with a
"special surprise" -- the Wisconsin band (who of course was staying at
the hotel too). The band played, and we all ate dinner (cold cuts and
salads in a buffet) and drank beer. Continuing a tradition from Detroit
('90), the tubas marched into the pool while playing. The trombones,
trying to prove that they are as crazy as the tubas, did the same.
After the food was all gone, 10-20 of us (depending on when) sat around
and finished the beer.... which took us until about midnight.
RUMORS
------
Jim, the man of a thousand rumors, was one of those sitting around
drinking beer. Some of the topics that came up (please remember, these
are all totally unconfirmed rumors!):
REFS: I asked about Ron Foyt, the WCHA supervisor of officials,
who is widely rumored to be out of a job. Jim said he had
heard the same thing, and that they might fire ALL the
WCHA officials, and start from scratch. Ref Rumor #2 is
that the WCHA will return to a 2-ref, 1-linesman system.
COACHES: Jeff Sauer wants to be the next Olympic coach (no
surprise there). If he were to get the job.... would
he return to Wisconsin afterwards? Who would replace
him? A fun discussion, but I won't even list the names
we talked about, since they don't even have the
credibility of rumors...
Jim said that Assistant Coach Mike Kemp is tiring of
the road, and wants a 9-5 job, so he may resign in the
next couple of years (speculation was that he could be
the interim coach if Sauer does the Olympics, and he
wants it, but that he wouldn't want the full-time
job).
MILWAUKEE: I was asked by someone from hockey-l how big a
turnout there would be for next year's tournament in
Milwaukee if the Badgers aren't in it. I had
predicted that at least 4,000 Badger fans would go
no matter what. Jim said more, in fact, he predicts
that it will be sold out one week after the Badger
Showdown (Holiday tournament in Milwaukee).
Sometime that evening, Coach Sauer came by, and stopped to talk. he
thanked us for supporting the team, and told us to cheer loudly. I
asked if he had heard who the ref would be, and he said "someone named
Tim McConaghy from the ECAC".
THE TEAM KEPT BUSY
------------------
We of course left the team alone, they don't want to be bugged by a
couple of hundred fans the day before the championship game. A few of
them stopped by on the way to their room and talked to us (by now we
were only about 10 people hanging out by the pool and drinking the free
beer... everyone else had gone to the bar, or out).
In the morning, the team had breakfast together. The went bowling, and
had a team dinner outside the hotel (I don't know what they did for
lunch). That evening, they went to the minor league game that we had
talked about going to).
THE HOLIDAY INN
---------------
Sometime around midnight, we had almost finished the beer, and there
were some complaints that we were making noise, and the bar manager was
mad that we weren't buying drinks from her, and yelled at the bartender
for that (don't ask me why) so she was in a bad mood, and people
started leaving the bar... which made the manager mad... so we all went
to the Holiday Inn accros the street and discovered that someone had
played a joke on everyone.
The Holiday Inn is what a Sheraton is suppossed to be like, and the
Sheraton was like an old Holiday Inn that had new whitewash on it...
The bar at the Holiday Inn was really hopping! Tom Meese (sp?) from
ESPN and his entourage came by.... we bought them some drinks. Meese
was, to quote Ron, "20 sheets to the wind" by then. He had two guys
with him, whose job seemed to be to pick him up and steer him to the
next bar...
MICHIGAN RADIO GUYS
-------------------
I drank with two of the three guys from the Michigan radio station. The
play-by-play man went home, but the statistician and color commentator
stayed for the championship game. We had an interesting talk, and they
bought me some drinks. The statistician doesn't think much of TCHCR,
but all he knows about it is from The Hockey News (is that the right
publication?), which only lists the top 10 teams and doesn't explain it
at all. I got his address, which I wil forward to Keith so he can send
him the paper...
--david
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