Thrashers Face-Off Event

Before I start, its been a little while since I've written anything. Its taken some time to get over the choke-job my Mets put me through. I had alot of fun up in New Jersey last weekend. My cousin Scott got bar-mitzvahed...he's the last kid in our family to get bar-mitzvahed (not including any future, not-yet-born kids of course). Of course the best part of the trip is our traditional late-night trip to White Castle. They don't have White Castle's in the south for whatever reason, (Krystals is nowhere near as good!) so its a big deal. I flew back to Atlanta first thing Monday morning. Somehow, all of my dad, my mom and me all came down with colds. (That will be relevant in my Thrashers story that you're anxiously awaiting)

So, Tuesday night was the Atlanta Thrashers "Face-Off" Event. Its a free event exclusively for season ticket holders. Technically, I am a season ticket holder now! (I bought a 7 game ticket plan) What it is, is basically a chance for the fans to meet the players. They had free food (Moe's) and locker room tours and autographs sessions. There were 22 players there broken out into 5 spots. They split up all the best players to try and keep the line for each section about even. The first line had Pascal Dupuis, Brad Larsen, Steve McCarthy and superstar Ilya Kovalchuk. I was the 99th person in line, so it kinda took a while, but finally I got up there and got me some autographs. Didn't really have anything clever to say to any of that group.

The next line I met up with my friend Divya already waiting in line. While we were waiting, one of the guys in this group gets interviewed and is welcomed to Atlanta and asked how he likes it so far. Then he gets asked how he likes Atlanta traffic. HA! Its terrible! There's my in. In this group is Eric Boulton, Chris Thorburn (traffic hater), Eric Perrin and another superstar - Marian Hossa. Divya came up with the idea to ask Thorburn if he wanted to carpool to the games, but she was too embarrassed to ask...so I did. I asked him if the traffic was too bad for him, he should carpool with us to the games. I should've asked for some free tickets too! He laughed. And asked if its always this bad. It is, but I can't really imagine a hockey player having to deal with rush hour traffic!?!?! Then we got to Marian Hossa (who's little brother just resigned with the New York Rangers) so I told him its too bad he couldn't recruit his brother to play in atlanta! He agreed, he said he tried, it would be fun, then he said, maybe next year? That's ok with me!

We were running out of time, but decided to go to one last section to get some more autographs. We get in line when an usher comes over to us and says I'm really sorry, but we've gotta end this line right here (before us). I begged and pleaded and he let us go through the line. This line included Johan Hedburg (backup goalie), Ken Klee, Slava Kozlov (one of my favorites on the team), and Todd White (who I had read missed a couple of preseason games because of the flu). Went through this line - everyone was signing my Thrashers 3' X 5' flag...when Kozlov signed...the wrong side of the flag!!!! I knew they had pretty strict rules about just getting one autograph per person, but I realized what happened, put on a sad face and asked him to sign the other side...he did. It was the end of the night and you can tell that he was ready to go, but he was nice and signed the right side. Then, last but not least was Todd White. Fellow nose-sufferer. I was excited to let him know that I thought I caught the flu from him (I really did feel like I had the flu). He thought it was pretty funny, and amazingly he seemed very interested. I was close to asking him for a secret remedy or something but I was being hauled away.

I noticed one last line, where the coach (Bob Hartley) was standing. I got in line and had him sign and got a picture with him to cap off a very fun night.