Looking Forward

so, most of you know that the ice pilots are no more, which is very sad. boo. so what the hell are chad and i going to do to get out of the house this fall? and how are we going to get our hockey fix? well, our original plan was to visit atlanta when the flyers are in town. we will still do this for the game sunday feb 8. but the first flyers game @ atlanta is october 28. which is VERY close to what is going to be our Big Hockey Trip. this trip was, at first, designed to allow me to attend my friend kelly's wedding in durham, nc.

see, chad's parents go to tennessee every year and stay in a cabin at some park in pigeon forge. and they always want us to go with them. but we are so not mountain people. chad told them the only way we'd go is if they stop over in nashville first so we can see an nhl game there. but this year, i wanted to go so that we could make the drive over to durham so i can go to kelly's wedding. chad only wants to go to the wedding if we can catch a game in raleigh, which as it turns out, we can. ottawa is playing at carolina the night before the wedding. convenient, right?

so now we just had to see if nashville had a home game earlier in the week so that we could plan our trip. well, nashville has one home game exactly one week before the wedding (they're playing florida, whom we've already seen but it will be a new nhl arena for us), which makes for quite an epic road trip (9 days) with the in-laws and what will then be a 9 month old baby. that game is our only opportunity to catch a predators game during the trip, since they head out west after that for two weeks. but i think we're going to go to the game anyway.

thus, our Big Hockey Trip. we'll stay a couple of nights in nashville, catch a game and do some sight seeing, head over to the cabin in pigeon forge for 4 or 5 days, stay in durham for two nights, catch a game in raleigh one of those nights and go to the wedding the other, then head home. it should be quite a trip. and bonus - i don't have to leave max for a long period of time, but i also don't have to worry about taking him to the games because he can stay with chad's parents while chad and i get our nhl fix and check out some new arenas. woo!