PowerPlay Magazine

A recent Friday marked another PPM meeting in Canada. This time, mainly due to short-notice, there were 6 participants. This is the story of another fun night among fellow PPM peers.

The night began around 4:30pm when I got to The Works in Guelph and Bobby Jay had already reserved our table. It was a good thing we got there early too because the restaurant was packed shortly thereafter due to the hockey game that evening just around the corner. We got in a good conversation before his work colleagues and PPM competition showed up in the form of djgurygury and kanukisbrave. The conversation heated up as I did my best to explain the forthcoming changes. The general consensus was that all were excited and curious. In case you missed the big news, you can read all about changes to sponsor offers and the draft here.

While we have had people travel from afar before (past record was 220km by Aowyr and Jasche), this meeting marked a new record of over 1,600km by BigDaddyB. The long-haul truck driver had to wait until 5pm before he could park his 22+m truck in downtown Guelph, but he described the overall experience in his PPM status:

He told us how he had the company he worked for schedule a stop in London, ON around the time of the meeting so he could attend the event. I estimate his round-trip drive at 3,400+km and 34hrs on the road.

Last to the table was JoruneZephyr. I suspect he was late since he wanted to avoid ridicule for his 5-1 thumping at my hands that very same day. However, I give him credit, he was certainly dressed for the occasion. We had all ordered our food, I'll get to that in a second, but Ben was already prepped for the evening, sporting this shirt:

I'm pretty sure we all had bacon in our meal, and that is putting it mildly (except for djgurygury who was manstrating and had a veggie burger). Ben dined from the "Believe in Baconism" menu via the Bacon me Crazy burger featuring deep-fried bacon on said burger. Both BigDaddyB and I went for the Born to Brie Wild burger chosen from the list of many (MENU).

Before we could head to the rink, we had very important business to attend to. There were sneaky suspicions that djgurygury was in fact Vlady attempting to spy on us. At the end of the night we still didn't know if there was a Slovakian spy among us.

We wandered over to the Sleeman Center, home of the Guelph Storm, Canada's 2^nd-ranked junior hockey club. During warm-up we took the time to assess the facility.

Our verdict was:

Sleeman Center:
8x Single-Floor Multi-Purpose, Total Capacity ~5,000
8x Skyboxes
1x Restaurant
4x Snack-shop
1x Souvenir Shop
4x Press Center
Car Park: Level 1
Ice Quality: Level 4
Scoreboard: Level 3
Lighting and Sound: Level 2

The game itself was entertaining, as was the intermission. Note to any mascots out there, a big butt does not help your cause when playing musical chairs on ice.

It became immediately obvious why some players were potential first-round picks compared to other players. kanukisbrave and I both agree that Senators fans should be very concerned about their prospect Ben Harpur. My best description is "big"... and that's about all he's got going for him!

The game was close until the second period when Owen Sound Attack (66pts) took a commanding lead over the Guelph Storm (101 pts). Canada's 2^nd-ranked team didn't live up to their hype on this night. The Attack chased Guelph's starting goalie on their way to a 6-2 win despite the shots being 38-27 in Guelph's favour.

We discussed potential events for our next meeting (NHL game in Buffalo, MLS game in Toronto) before heading our separate ways. There were lots of jokes tossed around, lots of laughs and lots of making fun of the average age of Bobby Jay's hockey team (which is actually only 24.3, granted, he does have 17 players 28 and older with one week to go in S16).

Thanks for reading, hope to have more of you out to our next meeting. Just think mikpj, you can no longer complain Montreal is too far away to come when BigDaddyB came from twice as far! Besides, I'm sure with a name like "Montreal Strippers" you'd like the scenery Guelph has to offer as much as BigDaddyB did ;).