Past Meet Present - A Prisoner Exchange

After leaving off with the somewhat shocking events of last week I was ready to see what turn things would take next.  I knew that last night's game would likely be little to no combat and all roleplay opportunity as the party dealt with the events of the previous week and in trying to get Temeris back, and indeed there turned out to be no combat at all.  Here is how things played out last night...

Go With It, The Hangover II

This past weekend I got to spend some great quality time with my wife.  We were able to take in a couple of concerts at Nebraska Land Days, seeing a few country artists including Brad Paisley, then seeing My Darkest Days and Hinder the next night.  Both were great shows and worth seeing.  Before we came home we went to see Hangover II in the theater, and then watched Just Go With It when we got home.

The Next NHL Stars...

The NHL Draft is now complete and in the books.  There were some trades and some surprise picks, but teams can now send their scouts out to start looking at the potential picks for the 2012 draft while the front office prepares for free agency.  Here's a look at some of the things from this past weekend...

Past Meet Present - Wait ... What?!?

Another session has come and gone in the campaign I am running and last night held the first moment that really took me aback and shocked me.  The title of the blog isn't story related as the rest have been but rather a direct result of how things turned out last night.  Without further ado, here is the recap which will explain the title...

A Draft Prediction

I'm probably going to be way off on this but predicting things, especially things as wide open as this, can be fun.  Last year's draft was fairly wide open with a couple players falling well below where they were projected to go such as Cam Fowler dropping from the top 3-4 to 12 and a couple of players jumping up such as McIlrath at 10 and the Avs own Hishon who was project in the second round but went to them at 17th overall.

This year's draft has a top end guy but isn't a consensus #1, then there is a top 5 or 6 with a couple of players just outside that making the first 9 picks in some order fairly agreed upon in mocks and by experts, though that can certainly end up having a wrench thrown in it (see Fowler last year again).  After those top 9 or so players though it is really wide open.  In fact, if you go to random experts and mocks drafts you can find perhaps 30-40 different players in the next 20 spots in all sorts of orders, just depending on which mock or which expert you're looking at.  That makes things this year much more open than in some years.  I'll do my best to predict the first round however (not taking into account potential trades)...

With the Second Pick in the 2011 NHL Draft...

With the NHL season now wrapped up with the Bruins hoisting the Stanley Cup it is now time to start looking at next season.  That starts first with the draft which just happens to be this weekend.  The draft represents a chance for the clubs to grab pieces of their futures and this year Colorado will have a couple of high draft picks to add to their future with the 2nd and 11th overall picks, even though the draft doesn't appear as strong as in some past years.

With this post I'm going to first take a look at the organizational needs of the Avalanche, then take a look at some of the players that may be available with those picks and discuss what I think about the Avalanche could do, and finally bring up some potential trade scenarios that have been talked about as well.  Before I get going though I want to mention that http://bruins2011draftwatch.blogspot.com/ has become a favorite blog of mine with great information and their blogs along with many other sites on the internet (and draft guides I have bought) have been a great source of my information.

Where Am I Going?

I have been able to see a few places in my lifetime, Vegas recently, the Black Hills, Nassau in the Bahamas, but there are a number of other places that I would like to see as well.  Many places I'll likely never get to not being a rich man, not to mention that I still have to help my wife get over her fear of flying to see most of the more remote places on my list, but I do have a great number of things and places I want to see in my lifetime.  Here is a look at that list...

Final Final Thoughts

Congrats Boston!  Now to go with your championships in football, baseball, and basketball in recent years you now will be bringing home the greatest trophy in all sports ... the Stanley Cup!  Great fight, great play, great season!

Congrats as well to those damn Nucks as well for an incredible season that left them just short.  While I don't like the team and some of the players I do respect what they managed to do as a team and respect a number of their players as well.

Some thoughts on the series...

Past Meet Present - The Foundingstone!

In a session that ran past our normal time last night by quite a bit thanks to combat taking longer than I ever expected (sorry to everyone for that by the way), the heroes found themselves the leader if the chitine and quite the fight ensued afterwards.  Here is a recap of the evening...

Free Agent Frenzy!

Each year as the NHL season draws to a close, much as it is now with only 1 or two games left in the season this year depending on the outcome of tonight's game, there are two major dates in the following weeks that keep the attention of hockey fans a bit longer.  The first is the NHL Draft which I will have a couple posts on in the coming weeks and then following up with thoughts about it afterwards.  The second date is July 1st, and it is that date every year that I can remember.  That date is the date that teams can once again begin signing free agents for the coming seasons.

This year is much like all others, with a great number of players that would fill lower lines available and looking for teams, and it is also similar in that there are a number of bigger name players that could make a huge impact with a new team this coming year also available.  While I strongly, strongly believe that the Avalanche will be very quiet in free agency again this year, instead choosing to develop talent from within and sign their own players that have expiring contracts, I do think they may bring in one or two players, and definitely a goaltender during this time.  There will be plenty of names moving to new teams though, and this post is to just touch on a number of them and give my thoughts about where they might end up.

Anyone But Them!

Last night the Dallas Mavericks beat out the Miami Heat for the NBA Championship.  I could really care less for the most part, but a part of me truly was glad to see it turn out that way.  Why you may ask.  Well, even though I have no rooting interest what-so-ever in the NBA, don't watch games at all, and could care less if the league folded today to never re-open, I really didn't want to see Lebron James win a championship.  His 1-hour, all about me, spectacle on ESPN where he basically held a few teams and their fan bases hostage while he made an ass out of himself, the league, and EPSN with his "all about me" crap just made him one of those guys that put himself above everything else and made him someone I never want to see succeed.

That outcome certainly brought a bit of a smile this morning, though brief and other than this post I am again past caring about the egos and the rather boring game of the NBA, but it did also spark the idea behind this post.  In nearly every league there are teams that I just can't stand for one reason or another, teams that I don't want to see succeed even if I don't follow those leagues.  Previously I mentioned how I hated the Canucks and the Red Wings in a purely hockey related post.  Here I will touch on teams from other leagues that I can't stand.

Where Could the NHL Go?

With Atlanta currently losing their team to Winnipeg and with Phoenix being rumored for a couple years now as a team that could also potentially move if ownership issues aren't solved I began thinking about where I would consider putting NHL teams.  At first I thought about just taking all 30 teams off the board and replacing all 30, something I still might do down the road in another post, but for now I'm just going to take a look at a map and throw out 10 or so cities that I think should be (or could have been) considered for NHL teams.  Keep in mind while reading this that I fully believe hockey in Atlanta would have succeeded had ownership ever put a good team on the ice that would have had some success and even as it was the fan base wasn't as bad as some claim anyway with decent attendance given the product on ice every year.

No NFL? No Problem...

There's not many people in the US that haven't at least heard about the possibility of the NFL not playing next season, and certainly fans of the game are watching the CBA talks drawn through the mud and courts very closely right now.  It has even been recently reported that the NFL is prepared to go with an 8 game season if it comes to that but the new CBA would have to be signed by early November for even that to happen.  For those not sure what is going on, in short the players and the league have a "Collective Bargaining Agreement" or a set of rules that both sides abide by in determining contracts and many other things, and this past year that agreement expired and the two sides were miles apart on agreeing upon another one.  Without that agreement in place the league basically shuts down.

Now for many this is a horrible thing, and I certainly hated every second of the lost season the NHL suffered when they were in a similar situation several years back and hockey fans lost an entire year of NHL hockey, but for me personally I really don't mind.  In fact other than missing out on Yahoo's fantasy football league if the season isn't played I am kind of rooting for a season long lockout for pro football.

Past Meet Present - A Fortunate Meeting

With the group unable to play for a couple weeks, and with a new player joining us, things got off to a slow start last night.  Once the rust was shaken off however things moved along fairly quick in a night that saw plenty of action with little time passing or events occurring.  As such the recap will be somewhat short, however welcome to the new guy ... and I invite all the players to comment in with their thoughts on the night and also to bring up some of their favorite moments of the game to this point in the comments...

Number 4 Bear Fockers

Another weekend has passed and we again watched a movie a day.  This weekend it was "Yogi Bear" followed up with "Little Fockers" the next night and then "I Am Number Four" on Sunday.  None of them were mind-blowingly good, however all were at least decent as well.

Atlanta to Winnipeg

When I originally thought about writing this it was believed that Atlanta would be losing the Thrashers to Winnipeg but nothing was set in stone at that time.  However now that I'm actually getting around to writing it much more is known and finalized.  The Thrashers are indeed finished and will be playing in Winnipeg starting this upcoming season.  The following season divisions will likely be re-arranged to make more sense given that Winnipeg being in the Southeast doesn't quite work.  Even though the deal is done to move the team there are still some uncertainties that exist, and I've got a couple of thoughts as well to add about the entire situation.

A Vegas Vacation

This past week I spent 5 days and 5 nights in lovely Las Vegas, and while I went there to get married the time that we were there also allowed for it to be a pretty good vacation as well.  Normally 5 days and nights would allow for time to see most sights and provide a little rest as well, however with Vegas that barely scratches the surface.  We did quite a bit while there in addition to getting hitched, however there are so many shows and sites that a month long vacation would have perhaps come close to providing enough time to see most things.  Needless to say I don't have the time or the resources, especially in Vegas, to take a month off work and lounge about.  What we did have time for however and what I thought about Vegas I'll put forth here though, in a bit of a "good, bad, and ugly" format...

A Vegas Wedding

In the first of a few posts that will touch on my recent Vegas trip, I'll begin with thoughts on my entire reason for going in the first place ... my wedding.  On the 28th of May of this year I married my love, Lisa, at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas.