Despite a couple of wins thrown into the mix, my hockey team continues to lose most games.  Since a win three weeks ago, we’ve gone on to lose 9-1 and 9-5 in the last two weeks.  Even with our 5-11 record, we are only a couple of points from moving out of last place.  Fortunately our last two games are against the second and third worst teams in the league.  We actually have a chance to improve in the standings before heading into the playoffs.  We all realize that the playoffs are what really matters, but if we can move out of last and get a better seed for the tournament we might actually stick around for awhile.  It wouldn’t be the first time my team has miraculously improved heading into and through the playoffs.

I’m happy to report that the conditions at Keystone have greatly improved since the beginning of the season.  I’m still not sure that they are operating at 100% open, but it’s close.  I headed up on Saturday morning with my friend Rob.  We arrived plenty early, and were one of the first few out on the slopes.  We immediately headed out to the Outback and eventually found ourselves hiking out to the North and South bowls.  On our second run out there we hit some nice powder that was nearly knee-deep.  By the time we made it out there again, others had found the stash as well, so it wasn’t as good.  Rob is a good skier and we were quickly able to move through the runs and beat many of the crowds.  Once the Outback became too crowded, we headed back toward the other mountains.  We hiked out to The Windows area, which I had never been on before.  We were able to find lots of snow, but the run we picked was too filled with trees to truly enjoy all the snow.  After that exhausting run, we were ready to head out and beat the traffic back home to Denver, besides we had already got in about ten solid runs.

Team USA men’s hockey team just had a huge win and is now in the gold medal game on Sunday.  They will face-off with either Canada or Slovakia, who play in three and half hours from now.  I’ll try to watch the game tonight, but will definitely be tuned into the final game on Sunday.  I watched the end of the women’s game last night, where the Canadian women beat team USA 2-0 to take the gold medals.  Today everyone is all upset about the celebration the players had after most of the crowd had left the arena.  Fourteen players returned to the ice with beer, champagne, and cigars.

I really don’t think it’s that big of deal, though smoking cigars on the ice seems pretty strange.  There is a poll on nbcolymics.com and currently the vote is split right down the middle whether the celebration went to far or not.  The only thing I thought was really strange was that some of the players appears to be drinking Coors Light.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that finely made Colorado product, but shouldn’t they all be having Molson’s or Labatt’s?  What do you all think, did they take it too far or should we just let them have their fourteen minutes of fame?

In addition to my curling addiction, I’ve tried to keep up with as much of the Olympic hockey action as I possibly can. Fortunately, nbcolympics.com has a very nice Silverlight player that is available for streaming lots of live events, especially hockey and curling. I was able to follow along with the USA hockey game this afternoon, even if I only listened to the audio most of the time. The really cool thing is that the video player seems to automatically adjust the quality based on your connection. So rather than dropping out and buffering the video, it can simply display a lower bit-rate and then automatically switch to a higher one when the connection improves. I’m not really too familiar with Silverlight, but this feature seems really desirable compared to current flash video players.

Finally!  I had my first real powder day of this snowboarding season.  Actually, I had two.  Kim and I spent the weekend at Copper Mountain with her sister and her boyfriend.  I had never been to Copper before, though I’ve wanted to for a while, so we finally found a good excuse to go.  We picked up our visitors on Friday after work and headed straight up into the mountains.  We reserved a last-minute condo immediately next to a couple of lifts at the center village of Copper.  After a rather long and snowy drive, we finally arrived at the condo and rested up for the next morning.

Saturday morning, we had an early start on the slopes.  Though the first couple of runs were mostly groomed with a little powder on top, we quickly found some other runs with tons of powder.  Over the past week they had received nearly two feet of snow, so the conditions were the best we’ve seen all season.  After taking a run down a steep and mogul filled slope, we didn’t quite make it a full day.  We had a couple of après-ski ski drinks before dinner and Olympics viewing at Endo’s.  I must admit that Copper isn’t the most happening town I’ve ever stayed in, but there was enough to keep us busy for a couple of days.

Kim and I got another early start on Sunday, while our visitors went out for breakfast and enjoyed their vacation.  With the snow continuing to fall, we headed immediately for some of the bowls hoping for lots of powder.  And we were rewarded handsomely!  This was definitely the best day we have had all season.  We spent most of our time around the Union Peak area.  After a draining ten runs, we headed back toward the front-side of the mountains to meet up with the others.  We somehow managed to stay out all the way until the lifts closed at four.  What a weekend!

My hockey team faced-off with the third place team in the league on Wednesday night.  We had previously lost to this team 2-6 in the fifth week of the season.  Fortunately things have started to turn around for my team recently.  We were able to hang in this game, and we actually had more shots on goal than our opponents.  Unfortunately, with the score tied at two late in the game, one of the referees called in a goal.  Not only did the puck not cross the line, our goalie made an amazing save, he wasn’t even in position to make the call.  Instead of letting the game go to overtime, we were handed a 2-3 loss.  I assisted on one of our goals, though I wasn’t given credit.  My team can still make it to .500 as long as we win the last five games of the season.  Time to lower our goals.

My Olympic addiction is back in full effect.  It’s been four years since I last filled up the DVR will so much sports recordings.  I’ve never really watched that much of the summer games, but I love the winter games.  I guess my years of playing hockey and my recent snowboard addiction help to fuel this.  So far I watched most of the opening ceremonies on our flight to KC on Friday.  We were tuned into speed skating, ski jumping, luge, and freestyle skiing during our KC pub crawl on Saturday.  Sunday was spent glued to the TV watching biathlon, nordic combined, and women’s hockey, along with more luge and freestyle skiing.

I stayed up to date on the events yesterday on nbcolympics.com and watched snowboard cross, men’s downhill, and figure skating pairs last night after work.  Today I’m working remote which allowed me to watch the USA curling match over lunch.  I also have the USA men’s hockey game on in the other room so I can listen to it for the rest of the day.  So far I have really enjoyed watching these games, and have been surprised by the curling action along with the freestyle skiing.  Not to mention the snowboard cross, which is something I’d love to try.  I can’t wait for more of the snowboard action to start up either.

It seems that my hockey team either loses a close game, or we complete dominate our opponents for the win, which doesn’t happen often enough.  Fortunately last night was one of those rare occurrences.  With a few key players at the Avalanche game, we were able to grab a couple of extra skaters who really helped us out.  Our opponents are one of the teams with the highest goals for all season, but our excellent defense and outstanding play from our goalie held them to only one goal.  We ended up with eight goals, one of which I had an assist on.  We still remain in last place, but don’t face any of the top teams for the rest of the season.  Hopefully we can get a few more big wins to pull out of last place as we look toward the playoffs in just over a month and a half.

On Saturday night, we did another thing that we’ve wanted to do, attend a roller derby bout.  The bout took place at the Fillmore Auditorium, which is normally a large concert hall.  Though a majority of the floor was occupied by the track, somehow the event sold-out.  Normally, the capacity of the Fillmore is 3,700 people, and though I’m sure there weren’t nearly that many attendees, it was still a pretty big crowd.  Much larger than I was anticipating.

The match-up for the night featured two Denver based teams, both part of the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls, The Sugar Kill Gang and The Dooms Daisies.  It all started around 7pm with Elvis singing the national anthem.  They provided a couple of rules over the loudspeakers, and also a very short general description inside of the program.  We had to figure out most of it as the bout proceeded.  One thing that was quickly apparent was that The Sugar Kill Gang was the far superior team.  After a close start between the two teams, they managed to build a double-digit lead rather quickly.

Overall, I was pretty entertained by the event, though I don’t think it was quite worth the $20 ticket price.  I would consider going again for a lower amount, but I’d much rather watch a concert for that price.  I can buy tickets for a professional lacrosse team for much less than the price for this amateur event.  though I have to admit that they must be doing something right if they can bring in a sellout crowd at the Fillmore.

After Monday night’s game, my hockey team is back to our losing ways.  We have now lost three in a row, and are back in last place.  Had we actually won the game on Monday, we would have sent our opponents into last place instead of them sending us to last.  We did have a substitute goalie, who let in a few soft goals, but we still lost 9-3.  Hopefully we can turn things around next week when we face off against another one of the weaker teams in the league.  We only have seven games left before the playoffs, so something needs to happen.  I just found out that the championship game will be played at the Pepsi Center.  That would be awesome!