Rockets Wednesday

So, I've got about an hour starting from now (11 p.m.) to write my blog entry and finish everything up - mother's orders (plus Andy's orders, so there's no way I can not do it).

I'm super relaxed. Even though we have two tests tomorrow and I am less than well prepared.

I woke up this morning, almost fell back asleep, pulled on my American Eagle Sweater, pulled my Canada Olympics sweater over it, was still freezing, trudged upstairs, had a bowl of cereal, sleep-walked back downstairs, somehow managed to brush my teeth and even left the house at a decent hour. I thought I was late (8:28 a.m. at the bus stop), but I was still the first one!
As always, I read on the way to school, and once there, I grabbed my Spanish books out of my locker, checked whether Mr Wishlow was there (he wasn't, so I left him a note telling him it had been suggested we take the picture of him and Chartier at the rink) and hurried to my Spanish class - the teacher doesn't like us being late, like, not at all.

Didn't matter though, I was there half a minute or so before the bell rang.
We were assigned 6 pages or so of exercises in our work book, and I powered through them because I had Math to do, which I then did. I got pretty far, I dare say!

I took my Math stuff to Entrepreneurship, too, and while the boys in our group said they would come up with a different slogan for our project (they screwed around on fb and the web instead), I was doing Math (and designed a new logo whilst doing that).

Lunch was of course ESL - it's been changed to Wednesdays now, but Ms Snuggs wasn't there, so we had a sub - Mr Kletke's sub, and he still remembered me!

I dashed out of there though as soon as I could, dropped my stuff off in Mr Derksen's room, and went to see Mr Wishlow - I had told him I would drop by near the end of lunch - but he wasn't there again. On my way out, the other teacher in his class room stopped me and said "I have a message for you from Mr Wishlow", which basically just said he would drive me to the rink and he had his camera (it's a really nice camera).

I was so excited to go and see practice I almost squeaked, but I managed to contain myself ... that wouldn't have been dignified...

So I went back to Mr Derksen's room and wrote a bit in my journal - and I'm definitely doing the feelings-analyzation compilation...
In Creative Writing we did a thing on embellishment and adjectives, although I think I didn't use enough...

In the end we listened to a Brit explaining how to start writing your novel.

Math ... I know the stuff, but I keep making stupid mistakes - in the quadratic formula (Mitternachtsformel) I write under the the square root instead of 4ac 2ac and then I wonder why it doesn't work out the way it should, or I keep messing up plus and minus in the same formula...
I so hope I can concentrate tomorrow!

After Math ended, I packed up my school bag and went to Mr Wishlow's room, and he finished up what he was doing - he has a real snake skin hanging in his classroom: "I used to bring him to school while he was alive, and when he died the lady who owned him let me have him and we dissected him in class" - Him being a nine foot Python!

We took his truck to the rink - it was snowing slightly again - and then we walked around the building once until we found an unlocked door ("I usually would take the player's entrance, but they're changing right now...") in the office door. We went through the offices (it's beautiful, let me tell you! Milk-coffee coloured walls and pictures of past Rockets Teams and the Rockets when they won the playoffs...) to the ice and watched some of the guys skate for a moment, Mr Wishlow pointing out the goalie coach (second goalie coach for the LA Kings, when they won the Stanley Cup, he was flown down to coach their goalies and then also got a day with the Cup here in Kelowna!) and the assistant coach Dan Lambert, who played 10 years in Germany, before he talked to somebody, I don't know who, and we went to the shop.

I talked for a moment with the woman there while he got somebody to unlock the press box door - and the media have the most amazing view of the rink. Like, seriously, you can see everything and it's really awesome!

We ventured back downstairs after that, and watched the players take the ice - those that had been on the ice when we'd come in had gone back to the locker room where the guys who still go to school were changing, and they went over what they would do during this practice session.

Mr Wishlow stopped Chartier and another student whose name I didn't catch before they could take the ice and made me stand between them before taking a picture - and let me tell you I felt small - and talked to a couple of guys about school related things, before we watched practice for a moment.

When the last guys had taken the ice, he took me on a tour through the locker room ... it's pretty smelly to be honest, but what do you expect? There aren't any windows, and I still remember the change rooms at the Ritmo Dancing Studio.
The locker room was almost empty. In the middle, there were a couple of boxes - they have to get on the bus early tomorrow because they play in Victoria that afternoon, so most of their stuff was already packed up.

One guy was in the physio-therapist's room, because he's out with an injury, and I was introduced to him and the physio-therapist, but I was introduced to so many people that I not sure who he was - not the player, the player was Mitchell Wheaton, I think. (Everytime I was introduced, Mr Wishlow didn't so much as mention my name, I had to do that myself, but he always remarked that I am an exchange student and that I got into hockey here, but that my knowledge was pretty good :) )

He showed me the equipment room, and then took me up to the gym (pretty impressive, with a dozen or so stationary bikes, agility stuff and weights) and when we left, we encountered Mitch again.
My worries were totally unfounded. They were all super professional, and all the people I met off the ice were super nice. They all asked me things like "Where are you from?", "Where in Germany are you from?", "How do you like Canada?" and it was super great. And the Rockets were way more mature and professional than I had dared to hope - nothing at all like the boys their age back in Germany!

Before we left the locker room,Mr Wishlow got me a couple of things:

Unfortunately not signed, but it's anyway more than I could ask for! (They sell these game pucks with the logo for $5 at the store and I got mine for free - and it's one that's been played, by somebody who has good chances of becoming an NHL star!)

We went back out and watched practice for a bit, Mr Wishlow telling me about his coaching, about the Rockets' coaching, a bit of Trivia about the WHL and the organization and the Rockets and so on, and then on the other side of the ice a white haired guy was waving at us, but Mr Wishlow didn't notice.
The man made his way around to us, and I was introduced - to one of the most influential and knowledgeable people here in Western Canada: To Rockets Owner and WHL chair man Mr Bruce Hamilton - and he was also super nice, and nice and smooth as you would expect from such an influential man.

Unfortunately, Mr Wishlow had to leave then, but I watched a bit more of the practice before Andy picked me up.

So it was a really great afternoon, just Math and Spanish, the two tests we have tomorrow, came a bit too short...
Well, I'll manage. And I'm anyway way more relaxed than I used to be, so I'll draw the last graph tomorrow during Spanish or Entrepreneurship or lunch or so - I'm off to bed now!

Good night! :)