Friday night's Senators game ended in regulation and while it looked like they were going to make an interesting comeback in the 3rd, the game ends at 9:32pm with a 4-3 loss to the Ducks. Across town, Brian Kilrea and his Ottawa 67’s are set to leave the Civic Center at 10:30 following their 3-0 win over the Sarnia Sting. The short roadtrip sees them play Barrie on Saturday and Mississauga Sunday. About 2 weeks before the announcement that this was Killers final season behind the bench I asked him at a golf tournament if I could tag along on a roadtrip because I’ve heard plenty of stories of life on the road with the 67’s. This is a tame trip by junior standards and Killer suggested this weekend versus a long one through Northern Ontario in the dead of winter. So here I am, wireless blogging on my laptop, on the bus and it’s a happy bus, because they hit the road with a win.
There’s enough pizza on this rolling locker room to feed each player about 20 times and my roomate for the weekend is fellow Team 1200 staffer and play by play man, Jon Abbott. A meat lovers pie greets us (yes, a pizza walked over and said hello..., you know what I mean) and the light hearted jabs from the veterans begin towards the rookies. There’s an old story, what happens on the road, stays on the road so I’ll take the lyrics of the songs I heard tonight and leave them off this blog.
We arrived in Belleville just after 1 am and it’s closer to 2:30 before I finally call it a night.
It's a rainy Saturday morning and we catch breakfast at a local mom and pop place and I grab a seat at the coaches table. Team trainer Brian Patafie is the brunt of the many jokes and manages to eat his weight in toast. He's got a bet with Logan Couture that he can get down to a certain weight before the end of the season and after what I've witnessed this morning, there's a better chance of Brian Kilrea jumping off the bench and playing a shift.
A few hours later we chow down on the pre-game meal, and now it's time to catch the bus for Barrie.
To be continued...
