Schedule's Out

Before I dive into the plethora of hockey news that I'm about to get into (because when I have more than 2 hockey-related things to talk about in July, it's considered a "plethora" of hockey news), I first want to mention that my cat of several years passed away yesterday. It's never easy to lose a pet, and Hershey was my beloved kitty since I was a little kid. He had been sick for a little while and yesterday he took a turn for the worst. He was a very sweet cat who just loved to cuddle with us. I'll miss him.



His eyes look pretty scary in that picture and the picture is out of focus, but it's the most recent picture I have of him. He's standing next to one of my three dogs, Toby.


- Anyways...as all of you already know, the schedule for the 2009-2012 NHL season was released yesterday! As excited as I was about the schedule being released, just when I hear the word "schedule" makes me remember that I still need to figure out my schedule for next semester and...eeesh. But anyways...I'm glad to see that Chicago is coming to town. I'm definitely going to go to that one. I was thinking about also taking a road trip and going to an away game. I've never been to a Sabres game on the road before. I was thinking about maybe going to the Detroit game in March. We'll see. I'm also looking forward to the Calgary game. I like going to games where the Sabres are playing opponents that you don't usually see very often. I would also like to go to a Sharks, Caps, and Rangers game too. I fucking hate the Rangers so I go in hopes that we beat their ass. But then there's a chance that we lose and it pisses me off even more because I hate the team so much...but hey it's a gamble! That's what sports is about. I wonder when mini-pack forms will be mailed out. Hmm...

- Patrick Kaleta accepted his qualifying offer from the Sabres yesterday. I don't think many people had any doubts whether or not he'd return to the team next season, given he's a hometown boy and all, but it's still good to see that we have one of our RFAs signed. Now we have to see if management can strike a deal with MacArthur before he heads to arbitration. Then of course there's Stafford and Sekera. We'll see...

- Lastly, someone on the Sabres forums posted some cool videos of Thomas Vanek training with the hockey strength and conditioning coach from the University of Minnesota. They're pretty interesting videos to watch and it gives us a little peek into some of the training that the hockey players do in the offseason. Here's a link to a clip of Vanek doing 180 reverse bench jumps...intense stuff. If you look to the lower left of the screen under "Related Clips" there are a bunch of other clips of Vanek doing different exercises and some interviews.

PS: This is my 100th post...crazy! Now I'm off to my cousin's cottage in Ontario to have some drinks and spend some time on the beach. I think I deserve it after putting in so many hours of blogging, amirite?!