Dude, was that your mom at the game last night?

Why is there a locomotive smiling at me?...

Anyone with kids will know that when a cartoon character comes to town, consider yourself added to the list of parents that will be waiting in line to buy tickets. Thomas the Train is in town until tomorrow (Sun) at the Ottawa Central Railway and once you pay the $18 fee to get in, there's surprisingly a big bang for your buck. For starters, Thomas the Train leaves every hour on the hour for a 20 minute trip (at no additional cost), there's activity stations for the kids where they can draw or just play with a number of mini trains set up. Granted, there is a souvenir shop with Thomas' face on just about everything you can think of.

Best way to get there take Johnston (Southbank Dogde at the corner) from Bank street South, make a left on Albion South and follow the signs. There's Free parking and give yourself about an hour and a half for all the stuff.

24 hours later....

Now that the Senators new uni's have been out for 24 hours I can finally answer all the questions from fellow facebookers want to know what I think of the new look (Hey, 6 people asked...) While I miss the stripe along the bottom, the logo looks meaner and less "cartoonish" which everyone from Chris Neil to Joe fan has used to describe it. To be honest, I don't really care that it does more things to enhance the game for the players because I don't play in the NHL. The one cool feature as seen in person is the fact that you can pour water on it and it glides right off. The other big selling point is this patch on the shoulders, modelled by Brian McGrattan.


Here's where the Sens get an A+ (Note to former Renegades brass - this is why you should have put an "R" on the helmets, honoring the past history). This "O" pays tribute to the original Sens squad from the early days who dominated a young league winning 11 Stanley Cups.

This is what the new logo looks like on the floor of the Sens dressing room. Step on it and get a beating from #16, 25, 4, 12 etc...

Kudos to the Sens for continuing to recognize their alumni, bringing back Brad Marsh, Laurie Boschman, Rob Murphy and Ron Tugnutt at the logo unveiling. This franchise doesn't have the benefit of a long list of greats like the Habs, Leafs and Wings (just to name a few...) and is about to kickoff it's 15th season, with no doubt an Eastern Conference banner heading to the rafters on opening night.....against the Leafs.

Oh, win 50k just by listening to Team 1200. Details coming soon.

I've had this brewing for a while...

If you could go back in history and witness any sporting event, what would it be? Email your answers to mornings@team1200.com.

Some of my favorites are:

Being at the Richard Riot in 55

Watching Gretzky get 50 goals in 39 games

Seeing Michael Jordan's last shot in 98

El Presidente's perfect game

Any winning memory from Frank Clair Stadium...

AJ, #45 and another reason to slow down.....

So long to our good buddy AJ Jakubec. AJ filled in for me while I sat in detention last year when I was leaving the squirrel. He's a bright hockey guy and will be the voice of the Oilers one day, here's hoping he'll continue his lawnmower calls for future generations to come. Here's a 30 second tribute to our soccer loving madman:


Question for my new co-horts at TSN: How come the Als games from Montreal aren't in HD? Once you've watched any sporting event in HD it's tough to go back to regular cable. HD and PVR's (Tivo's) were obviously invented by bored husbands. That said, if the CFL carried itself like TSN, there would be 12 teams in this country.










No love for the big leaguer....I host my fair share of events in this city and always see Sens and 67's stuff on the silent auction table but never anything from Navan's Eric Bedard. I know baseball support is slipping in Bytown, but I would think a signed Jersey in a nice frame would fetch some good coin at a golf tourney?

One thing you gotta love about this time of year is all the construction around town. Saw this sign and it made me slow down....that and the fact there was a member of Ottawa's finest on the side of the road with a speed gun. Note to self "fines are doubled in a construction zone".

Trust me.

Have a great weekend.

I love you, world wide web...

Because you continue to showcase the slow and dim witted among us...

A week off...the GG's house and some guy mad at Rona.

At the beginning of my week off my wife says to me "So, how many events this week?"

Outside of hosting the 2nd annual Joe Bentivolo golf tournament for Rogers House and being asked to judge the Casino Lac Leamy fireworks, my week was free. This week's 30 plus temps was a perfect time for me to call old friends (with pools) and reconnect. After living in Ottawa for twelve years, I discovered a couple of hidden gems in this city if you have young kids.

1. The Children's museum at the museum of Civilization - Your kid can run around and play with everything and stay amused for a good ninety minutes. It's sort of like walking through Toys R Us in late December and at first you're thinking "There's no way I'm going to last more then five minutes here" but after I saw a parent of six kids I thought keeping up with just one couldn't be that bad.

2. The Governor Generals residence - While it would make a perfect nine hole course, it's like a mini Central Park and you can bike through it, pack a lunch and let your kid run around until they run out of steam which means a nap on the drive home....and it's free admission, and anyone who's listened to TGOR for more then 2 minutes knows, I'm all about the free.

So all in all a good week off...

Back to the sports world. Let's see what did I miss:

1. Barry Bonds belts out 755 and now we all wait for the next one. More importantly, I'm waiting more to see how Bud Selig answers the media after the milestone. Should make for some stellar audio from the commish.

2. Dustin Penner heads to Edmonton because Brian Burke couldn't justify giving a guy a raise of 10 times his salary.

3. A-Rod belts out 500 and wants to talk to the person who caught the ball. If I'm the guy who caught it, here's the email I send to the Yanks front office:

Dear Mr. Rodddddriguez

I have your ball and can give it to you for a small fee. Based on your current MLB salary of $27,708,525 how about $1 million and season tix for life sound?

Signed,
Guy who's got your ball.

Finally, got to get this off my chest.

Did you catch the story on the front page of the Citizen Saturday about the guy in Calgary who complained to Rona about their TV commercial that makes fun of lazy husbands? Johnny Sensitive didn't like Rona's answer how "the commercial was meant to be humorous" and called the Canadian advertising watchdog to complain even further. Now to be fair, I don't know this guy nor have I seen the commercial but if it's from a home improvement store insinuating that I'm a lazy husband, then congrats Rona you hit the nail on the head (pardon the pun) because instead of blogging right now I could be working on the deck that I started and can't seem to find the time to finish. If this guy from Calgary doesn't like the ad, then he should stay off his computer and definitely not watch this just in case he gets offended: