Vegas Hockey Tournament

I thought I would add a 4th blog for today...

This past weekend, I traveled to Las Vegas for my first hockey tournament. I thought that no better place would be suited for me to lose my tournament virginity than Las Vegas! My only concern of the trip was that some people would have too much fun, and yes there is such a thing, and miss a game or two due to puking or just being MIA -- but what are the chances, right?

The first game was Friday morning at 9am, which is early in Vegas. Most of the guys showed up Thursday to get the party started early. On Friday morning we stumbled out of our rooms at Planet Hollywood down to the van. We were all there, minus one guy. Now, we just figured that Rob had too much to drink last night and just passed out; but our concerns increased since he wasn't answering his phone and his roommate said that he never returned last night. Regardless of the situation, we had to play in our first game. Unfortunately, we lost that game 4-3 in overtime. We returned to the hotel to eat lunch and to begin a search for Rob. Luckily, Rob strolled into his room around 12:30pm...

Rob got drunk the night before at Caesar's Palace and blacked out. Apparently, he was kidnapped, robbed, and dropped off in the desert 4 miles from our hotel. The cops woke him up at 9am and interrogated him like he was the criminal. The cops didn't even offer to give him a ride back so Rob, after getting roughed up, had to walk 4 miles back to the strip. Needless to say, Rob needed a nap before our next game!

The next game was at 4:45pm that same day and we rallied to win 3-2. That night we had a team meal at P.F. Chang's and then we all went our separate ways. Saturday we had a game at 4:30pm which was great since Andrew, Jim, and I (roommates) got up at 12:30pm. This game was important...we had to win to make it to the championship game the following day! We ended up winning that game 3-2. We were pumped. Some of us celebrated by having a fancy steak dinner that night. 

We woke up the next morning for our Championship Game -- we all made it to this game just fine. It was a battle, but we won 1-0. It was fun and a great experience. 

Here (above) is the room we rented specifically to store our equipment....Sorry, cleaning lady!

Here (below) is our sponsor, Barracuda Networks, van that carted us and our gear around Vegas.