Reasons To Get To Your Seats Early

Sure you want to avoid the rush at the parking lot, get in line first at the concession stands, take your jacket off, get settled in but this is the reason I always make sure to get to my seats early...You don't see much in the first 20 seconds but trust me, you'll want to hang around til about the 22 second mark...this is Semyon Varlamov of the Washington Caps settling in for another day at the office....

Don't always count on seeing that during warm ups (although it is always a nice way to start the game off if you do) but who doesn't love the variety of the "goalie warm up". No two masked men do the same thing but rumor has it, their routine, uniquely their own, is the same day in and day out.  A ritual if you will and we're all invited to watch! A close second to bearing witness to any man that can do the splits is watching them chalk the crease. For those who don't know, exhibit A...chalking the crease...brought to you by Caps Prospect and Hersey Bears netminder Braden Holtby

And when the goalie warm up ends with Brian Elliott my future husband doing this

You too may be finding you need a bit of H20 to cool yourself off rehydrate. And just in case you were going to get up to use the ladies room, grab a drink, or stretch yourself you may want to stick around for the start of the 2nd and 3rd periods or you may miss Neuvirth doing this

Or  Bryan Pitton doing this

What have we learned today? Sure there is a ton of action during three periods of hockey, but if it's the goalies that hold a special place in your inappropriate "I hope nobody can see what I am currently thinking" daydreams heart, the real action happens before the game /period even begins!

A Little of This A Little of That....

Hello everyone! I too am very excited to be here (writing at G5H that is) and hope that you'll enjoy my posts as much as I enjoy reading (ya right, reading!) the ones that have been posted here before me. I am relatively new to the world of hockey fandom (only a few years now) and wonder how as a Canadian I didn't fall in love with the game (or the goalies) earlier in life. I don't have a "favourite" team so to speak. In truth, I just love hockey so  I will watch any hockey I can find be it on tv or here in the city. I'm lucky enough to live in Ottawa where we have both an NHL team (Sens) and an OHL team (Ottawa 67s) so there is definitely no shortage of hockey here. So that's me, now I'd like to introduce you to the man who introduced me to the world of goalie love, meet Brian Elliott:

Look at those eyes. They did it for me. And not only is he incredibly adorable, I've met him and he is incredibly sweet. There were tears when he got traded here:

And a few more when he left there to go here:

Because we don't get too many visits from either of these teams in the course of a season. So, I am left to flip aimlessly through my NHL tv package desperately trying to find a St Louis game just to get a glimpse.

So that's a bit about me! I look forward to sharing more of my goalie love with all of you!

We're Back...and We Brought a Friend

As the kids go back to school and summer comes to an end it's time to get back into the swing of things. I was recently surfing through our Twitter feed when I discovered a gem of a lady. Her name is Rachel Lindstrand and she writes a charming blog entitled huggingthepost56.

Her posts explore her life, love and happiness in the crazy world of professional hockey. Her latest post inspired (full paragraph 22) me and so I pass that inspiration on to you.

Now most of the time I'm unaware of goalies significant people so we unashamedly ogle. This time I'm going for mostly classy and we mean no disrespect to either party.

We're simply about admiration, Rachel and Mike are both cute as a button.

Photo courtesy of 560XLS

See the story behind this game on Rachel's blog.