What do you Mean ‘Why?’

Last night in Glendale, Justin Bieber took to the stage. A few wonderful ladies I know were going to the show. I wouldn’t have remembered because, instead of seeing Biebs, I was at pool league watching Matt and the guys (sadly) lose last night.

But I was reminded of Justin’s stop in the Valley last night when I woke up to this picture in my newsfeed today**:

My first reaction?

“Yeya! Go Biebs!”

Then I started reading the comments and all I could do was sigh. Well, not all I could do. Because here I am, ranting away about Justin Bieber. You’re welcome.

WAIT! Before you click away because of the subject matter will it also help you to know I’m going to DJ my own blog and mashup all that Justin talk with stuff about hockey too?

Oh, no, that doesn’t help? Sorry, not sorry.

In a no-shock surprise, I’m a huge fan of pop music. I mean, I love to dance. Plus, sometimes it’s perfectly fine to loosen up with something light and fluffy – tons of sugar without one bit of nutritional value. After all, they don’t sell cotton candy at the fair for nothing.

Also, another shock-free admission, I pretty much love anyone who can make themselves into exactly what they want to be, no apologies, no holding back. A person with the talent, drive and determination to stick it out in their chosen field until they are doing what they love and supporting themselves while doing it.

That shit is rare, trust me. Most of the time we get one or the other. Either a paycheck from a job we don’t feel fulfilled doing, or a job we love minus the means.

Bieber is pop and proud. And, from all I’ve heard, living on what he makes as an artist.

I fully respect that. As a gal who has been on both sides of the job / money situation I’ll admit that doing what I love is the more important of the two. But nobody can live without at least some money. So, some money for all the hard work is always nice.

But Bieber and the brand he sells are worth probably somewhere into the billions. More? I can’t fathom that kind of paycheck. In any of my wildest ‘book writing for a living wage’ fantasies, I can’t for a second imagine that kind of cash flow.

Then to see a kid start down the path of that at only age 10, or thereabouts, makes me shake my head.

Say what you will but the kid is a fucking genius at marketing. Or, at least, the people around him are.

They’ve been selling this kid (who by the way is talented which certainly helps, you try singing on key while dancing high-impact aerobics-style moves on cue for two full hours almost every night of your life and let me know how long it takes before you pass out and die) for over ten years now.

And it doesn’t look like the kid will be slowing down anytime soon now that he’s got his young and dumb phase behind him.

So to see Bieber rocking a Max Domi Arizona Coyotes jersey at his show in their arena last night kind of made me proud to be a fan of both. But, then like I said, I foolishly went and read the comments. All these people asking why that happened, why Biebs was wearing a sweater of our team.

Okay, I’m just going to point out some facts.

• Ice hockey, as birthed on March 3, 1875, was invented in Canada.
• The Arizona Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team.
• Justin Bieber, as birthed on March 1, 1994, was invented in Ontario, Canada.
• I feel like I don’t even have to say it, but here it is, Justin Bieber is a hockey fan.

Oh, not only that, but the kid plays hockey. Again, not sure I have to say it but, he’s Canadian. Of course he plays hockey. The kid was probably on skates before he could crawl. Don’t believe me? The ECHL Condors actually offered him a contract to play for them just a couple years ago.

Yeah. Because it’s like that sometimes.

So, all the commenters complaining to the Arizona Coyotes organization that they made a mistake letting Bieber put on that jersey, or that Max Domi is going to get a good ribbing from the guys in the room before tonight’s game, are idiots.

Because here are a few more facts:

• Our little hockey team out here in the desert isn’t exactly filling up the arena every night.
• The Arizona Coyotes need all the publicity and fan support they can get.
• An entire arena full of people (17K strong) just saw their musical idol sporting a ‘Yotes sweater.
• I can assure you that most of those people didn’t know about hockey before seeing him rocking the howling ‘Yote last night.
• Osmosis.

If Bieber wants to meet the team, rock a ‘Yotes sweater and encourage a whole crop of people to maybe buy Coyotes gear (advertising), go to a game (sales), or even write a blog post about how awesome it is to see a Canadian born pop star don a star player’s sweater during his concert last night (marketing), then I’m all for the mashup.

There’s no such thing as bad press, sometimes it takes some controversial growing pains in order to come out the other side more mature, wiser, and ready to get things back on track.

After all, if there’s one thing Justin and sports can teach us it’s this: Never say never.

**Image courtesy of the Arizona Coyotes Facebook page

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

Laaaanguage Police

I don’t claim to be a perfect writer. Nowhere in my bio does it say “writes with perfect grammar so suck it.”

Because, if I did write like a scholar, that last sentence wouldn’t have ended in a pronoun tied to nothing. See? The “it” I wish for people to suck is undefined, therefore, once people accept my statement about my writing, they’ll probably run off willy-nilly sucking on who knows what.

Ah crap, I ended in another pronoun…

Despite all the rules of English grammar, I do take a considerable number of liberties in the style of writing, the voice, I use in this blog. Because words flow from my brain straight onto the page. I write what would come out of my mouth if I were having a casual conversation with a friend.

My goal over here is that you read and actually hear my voice in your head. No filter.

That means tons of dangling participles, ending sentences on prepositions, run-on sentences, liberally applied adverbs, and a host of other broken rules. Why? It’s not because I’m a rebel, it’s because of what I already said. Voice.

And when’s the last time you sat around chatting with somebody like this:

“I wish for those who read my perfectly parsed, grammatically correct blog posts, to suck on the object of their choice now that they understand the level of my greatness.”

Or something like that, like I said, I break so many grammar rules on a daily basis that sentence up there is probably a jacked up mess too. But hopefully you get my point.

Colloquialisms and a person’s overall lexicon are what let you know you’re reading an authentic piece written by the person you want to read.

Now, with my ‘general lack of caring for perfection in written words’ defined, there is one thing that happened last night. Something that almost put me over the edge with its blatant disregard for the forming of words.

Because, let me be very clear, ending in a preposition is something I don’t care about. (<-- See?) However, if you screw with the rhythm of words or their pronunciation I’m going to go insane.

Some examples of this include:

Opossum. The animal is not a ‘possum’. It didn’t come over on the boat from Ireland, lined up behind O’Flannery, and heard from the folks at Ellis Island ‘sorry but we’re dropping the O’. In fact, when you look up ‘possum’ in the dictionary the first definition is opossum. See for yourself.

Next, I must define the term first. There are two ways to say this: either, another whole, or a whole other. Nother is not a word. So much not a word that Word red squiggles it as misspelled. Hello?

Sharks. No, this isn’t a joke. Think of all the ways you could butcher the word ‘sharks’. I’ll wait. Anything? Well, if you’re a fan of the San Jose, California hockey team you’re on my language watch list.

Last night all I could think of was this scene from Love Actually:

Because every Sharks fan in the building (including the extremely vocal, cheering fans behind me who I swear were trying to pop the vein in my forehead) seems to think there’s an extra syllable in there.

“Let’s go Sha-arks!”

No. A thousand times no.

Sharks. Say it with me one more time. Sharks. One freaking syllable.

And hey, I get it. Sometimes it can be difficult to cheer for your favorite team when all the clap-clap-clap-clap-clap cheers are built on a second syllable.

As a Bruins fan, life is easy. Two syllables. Let’s go chants don’t take thought or creativity. Let’s go Bru-ins! Two syllables, split at the vowels as it should be.

As a Coyotes fan I can understand the issue though. Coy-o-tes. A three syllable word. Uh oh. Do we take Billy Mack’s advice and cram an extra syllable into our enthusiastic cheer? No. We got creative and used the nickname of our team to slide right into the clap-clap-clap-clap-clap.

Let’s go Coy-otes. (Phonetically: Kai – oats)

The spelling remains the same we just took the emphasis off the second syllable, bunched that syllable into the third and turned the whole thing into two syllables instead of three.

Yeah, I know. Even typing it out loud makes me kind of mad at myself for supporting the transition.

But I won’t apologize because we didn’t add syllables where they don’t belong.

Sha-arks is not a word. Nobody has ever said “I was swimming in the ocean and saw a sha-ark!” People have said “I was walking in the desert and got tracked by a coy-ote.”

Of course, maybe I was just bitter that said double syllable team had just beat the Bruins a couple days prior but I don’t think so. Because, after the Yotes took last night’s game, handily with only a couple minutes left in the third, I left the building happy for the win but happier I didn’t have to yell out “Sharks is one syllable!” to the entire arena anymore.

Language police, off duty.

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

This List Should be Shrinking not Growing, Right?

I’ve been pitching for a bunch of different writing gigs lately and this morning THE ideal job posting came across the wires – a travel blog writer. For money. Holy crap! I don’t really have experience writing articles so much but I’m an expert reviewer. Not to mention an expert traveler by car as couples.

So that’s what I based my pitch on. Along with some creative and flowery adjectives describing my own backyard. Hey, travel starts in your own neighborhood right? Especially when you’re an “expat” like me – a Townie in a new land.

But anyway, while I was going back through my blog posts to see what articles I could share as samples of my style, I came across a post from April 16, 2011 titled Something to Do Before I Die. I re-read it and had to laugh. My bucket list that I wrote back then included a bunch of good stuff but the list itself has definitely grown since I wrote that post. But a few things got knocked off and they sure were fun!

Let’s break it down and see where I’m at as of September 2013…

The Bucket List – as originally published on 4/16/2011

• Be on the New York Times best sellers list, “The” list not one of those offshoots

Um, not quite there just yet. Don’t know how soon this one might get crossed off but I’ll keep giving that old college try!

• Travel to Spain, specifically Barcelona

We have some friends with a condo in Rocky Point, Mexico. Their place is right on the beach and only about a 3 or so hour drive from Phoenix. And they go almost every weekend in the summer and keep inviting us to go with them. Why am I telling you this on a point related to Spain? Well, we haven’t even gotten our passports updated to go 3 hours away by car with friends. So looks like Spain is on the back burner for a while, huh?

• Travel back to Amsterdam (with Matt this time)

See above…

• Travel back to Ireland

Someday…

• Travel to Hawaii

We actually have the opportunity to stay with my sister’s BFF and her husband who just recently moved to one of the Hawaiian islands to live permanently. No passport required? Free place to stay? Challenge accepted!

• Travel to Portugal

You know the answer by now.

• Live and make a living in San Diego

Not yet but this is definitely on both mine and Matt’s radar right now. We got home from our anniversary trip and actually seriously started talking about how we could make it happen to get a condo out there that we rent out until we’re ready to “retire” (I use quotes because I’ll be writing until my fingers fall off, the retiring part can be left to Matt).

• See the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway in a game 4 for the sweep and kick their sorry asses right back to the Bronx where they belong (if this season is any indication I’ve got a couple years before this occurs)

As predicted, not so much the past couple seasons. Although this one is looking pretty promising. But I can 100% guarantee I wouldn’t be able to catch the game even if it happened as I laid out here. Too much other travel this fall for weddings. We won’t be able to get back to Boston until next summer unfortunately.

• Settle for seeing the Sox beat the Yanks in any regular season game at Fenway

And because we can’t get back east until 2014 I’d settle for seeing it happen on TV.

• Sit beside my Aunt at the finals when the Bruins win the Cup for the first time in 38+ years (yes, I mean this year damn it!)

I did not get to sit next to Sue when they won the Cup but…

• Settle for seeing them win the cup at all (either in the stands or on my sofa next to my Aunt) and getting to go to the parade

GOAL ACHIEVED!!! (Pun intended). That was THE BEST WAY EVER to wrap up our Boston lives before moving to Arizona! The parade was insanely cool and something I’ll remember the rest of my life. And I’m so glad I got to share that day with Sue, Matt and my Uncle!

• Becoming a millionaire, not through inheritance or anything like that, my own blood, sweat & tears

Still working on this one…

• Graduate college

No longer caring to work on this one…

• Be in a big budget movie (I’ll even take a small part like “Friend’s neighbor” or something but it has to be a speaking role [one line will do] and I must be credited

Not yet but I’ll keep it in the back of my mind. I am so not attractive on camera and I really dislike my recorded voice, but maybe with the right lighting and direction, plus the fact I wouldn’t have to be the “star” would help me be better at those parts?

• Make my living as a published author (book tours, readings/signings, etc included)

I think I should’ve said published Writer, not Author, because that’s more in line with my real life goals. And I’m actually making major headway toward that now doing freelance and publishing books. I love my job!

• Get to see all 50 states & spend time in each of them seeing sights (20 down -- MA, NH, VT, ME, CT, RI, NY, NJ, PA, OH, MD, DE, NC, FL, TX, AZ, CA, DC, LA, GA -- of course the only time I really spent in Delaware was at rest stops but what else is there to see, really? I imagine we’ll knock at least 7 more off the list just driving out to our new home and probably another 5 within the first year we live out there. That only leaves 18 more!)

OK, I’m up to: MA, NH, VT, ME, CT, RI, NY, NJ, PA, OH, MD, DE, NC, SC, VA, FL, TX, AZ, CA, DC, LA, GA, TN, MS, OK, AR, NM

That’s 26 states and one Capital. Only 14 to go, mostly stuff in the middle and northwest.

• Drive a race car around a track at over 125 mph

Not yet!

• Go white water rafting again

Done it once so it isn’t as crucial I get back, just something I’d love to do with Matt.

• Get Matt to Disney World

This will happen for our 15 year anniversary. I’m making the declaration now.

Stuff that should’ve been included (some of which is already crossed off)

Catch a Green Bay Packers game at Lambeau

Get to a game at every NHL arena (2 down, only 28 to go!)

Become a season ticket holder of a professional US sport – Coyotes here we come!

Be in the studio audience at the Maury show when the DNA test results are revealed.

Meet Jason Mraz (preferably not as a fan-girl but maybe at a party or something)

Renovate a home (not in the ghetto) that we intend to live in – Currently in process!

Get a byline in a major market publication (I’ll take magazine or newspaper and online is ok)

Publish something that goes viral

Chase a tornado

Own a second home used only for vacations or rental income

Make enough as a Writer that Matt can quit working Corporate (if he wants to)

Learn to surf (even though I’m terrified of sharks I still can’t shake this one)

Get to Australia & New Zealand

I’m sure there’s more but I just can’t think of them off the top right now. Maybe I’ll have a lot to cross off and more to add in another 2-1/2 years. Until then, it looks like the top item on the list should be ‘Update passport’ huh?

What are your top 3 bucket list items?

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Content Marketing Strategist and Blogger for hire, Jenn has over 12 years of freelancing experience. Read her blog

Days Weeks Months, and the Years Go By

It’s difficult to know where to even start. I’ve been absent for days, weeks, (it feels like months) and so much has happened that it almost feels like too much time has transpired to report back on it. But I’m going to do my best because in the last few weeks life has thrown out a rollercoaster ride of emotions and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to go along for the ride.

There have been some good times, some bummer times and some amazing moments that could never be fully captured in words no matter how good a writer I am. Sometimes you really just ‘had to be there’.

And if you were here for any of them I need to say a HUGE thank you!

June marked an entirely new chapter in my life and sharing it with (you know who you are) you was AH-mazing!

Let’s start with the ugly & work our way to the awesome shall we?

Abrupt Ending

By now anyone who’s even a moderate sports fan (or friends with me) knows that the Bruins lost in their quest for the Cup against the Chicago Blackhawks. It was a tough fought series and I think the B’s really held their own despite losing four games to two. And they lost on home ice. Which of course stings a little bit.

But as exciting as it was to watch my hometown team play some of their best hockey all the way up to game 6 (and as nice as it would’ve been to watch them lift the Cup) I have to admit that I’m secretly glad hockey is over for this season.

The temperatures were getting a little warm and with the shortened season I think this is the latest into the summer I’ve ever seen the boys in black and gold play. I mean, the season starts again in about two months. Plus watching upwards of four games a week was getting a little tough to manage. But I love hockey and especially hard-hitting hockey like the playoffs. But being in Phoenix means 115+ temps and now I just want to be in my pool for a couple months.

Speaking of hockey, some of the off-season changes have me reeling a little bit:

• Andy Ference, my second favorite player on the Bruins and my number one favorite environmental activist is being let go in favor of cheaper defensemen because of the lowered cap. This sucks in so many ways I can’t even begin to say how much it sucks. A Bruin and Boston community activist for seven years, Andy’s commitment to his team and teammates will be sorely missed next season.
• Nathan Horton didn’t entertain any offers from the Bruins before electing to go with his Free Agency status. Which basically just sucks because if ever there was a line that had chemistry it was the Lucic-Krejci-Horton line. We’ll see what this Friday brings during the free agency deadline.
• Pretty much every single core player with the exception of only a few will need surgery for something or other this off season. Bergeron played the last game with multiple issues (hole in lung, broken rib) and others like Horton, Seidenberg, Chara, all have injuries that probably had them playing at less than their optimal selves. I commend them for a job well done under the circumstances!

In hockey years I’d be about 172

In human years I just turned the big 4-0. Yup, I’ve actually entered the period of life where it’s all uphill from here. Yeah I know most people say downhill but that always felt wrong to me. I mean downhill is easier, you can toss her in neutral and just coast. Uphill seems like much more of a battle.

But I digress…

I made a promise to one of my very dear friends, Keith, that I’d write all about the party. Regardless of the fact that I’ve sat down to do just that a few days in a row now, I can’t seem to find any words to do that day any justice. I really think you just had to be here.

Perhaps when I’m looking back in a few years and thinking of the top five parties of my entire life I’ll have the distance from it to write it all out, but not right now. For now I’m going to leave you all with a word cloud that pretty much sums up the overall celebration that started with a big secret Matt concocted months ago, culminates with my crazy party on Saturday June 22, and ends the following weekend when my vacation ended and I finally was able to recover from the enormity of it all.

I love you all!

It’s Official…

I’m finally a paid Writer! I started pursuing my freelance career a few months ago with full force and since then I’ve had five articles published on Yahoo! Voices, three of which I’ve made money from and just last week I was offered a writing position as a blogger for a company that reports on socially responsible companies. Not sure when that starts but I can’t wait!

In the meantime I’m going to finish up my classes and books on how-to write various forms of content and just keep applying for writing gigs as well as submitting articles. My goal is to be self-sustaining from my writing in the next year and I can clearly see that path starting to materialize now.

Cha-ching

At the end of June we refinanced our home into a fifteen year mortgage, something we’ve both been looking forward to doing since we first got the place last year. With the increase in values in Phoenix (it’s a great time to own property here, things are climbing again, steadily but not out of control) we were able to cash-out refi and roll our car payment in plus take a little cash to make some improvements to the efficiency and functionality (plus the beautification) of our home.

In the next couple months we’re planning to replace all of our single-pane aluminum windows with Low-E double (or triple) pane, replace all the exterior doors to prevent gaps where ac sneaks out, spray additional insulation into the attic, replace the pressure valve for our house water, open up the wall from living room to kitchen for an open concept plan and remove the fireplace that takes over the living room, rip out the very poorly installed tile/carpet and put hardwood bamboo throughout, and complete a few other minor things that no one would notice but will make a huge overall impact on efficiency/uniformity (vent covers, doorknobs, etc.).

For the first time in our adult lives we made a good choice when it came to a housing purchase. But it wouldn’t matter if values tanked again tomorrow. We’re not going anywhere and now that we can start personalizing our place I’m even more excited to stay.

Overall June was a pretty kick-ass month around here full of old and new friends and family I wouldn’t have expected to see in my house anytime soon. It really seems like the last three weeks have been a constant party and cause to smile, laugh, and have fun.

And I don’t see any signs of that stopping anytime soon.

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Published in multiple print and online sources, Author, Blogger and Freelance Writer Jenn Flynn-Shon has been writing for publication since 2001. Follow her antics on twitter @jennshon

Two U’s Two K’s Two Down Two to Go

Joel Quenneville, head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, said before Finals began between his team and the Boston Bruins that Tuukka Rask, our goaltender, isn’t all that good. And man, I bet he’s chewing on those words this morning. Our ‘not so great’ goalie and the Cup-caliber Boston Bruins team standing tall in front of him pulled off a win in regulation (the first in this series) and…

Wait for it…

A shutout.

That’s right Quenneville, Rask now has 3 shutouts under his playoff belt. How many does Corey Crawford have? Oh, just one? Aw, that’s cute. What’s that you say? Crawford has a 1.74 goals against average and a .936 save percentage?

Wow, that would be so impressive if Rask wasn’t sporting his 1.64 GAA and .946 SV%.

Okay, okay. To be fair it isn’t like Crawford’s numbers are awful or anything. And considering 2 out of the 3 games they’ve played have gone into overtime it is a pretty hard-fought series. With this matchup I would have expected no less than grinding games full of heart and spirit. Neither team has let me down.

The Bruins have lost one game so far in the Stanley Cup Finals. That night Rask played 112:05 minutes as opposed to the usual 60:00. Almost two full games in one night? Impressive all around.

But now with Marian Hossa, leading points man, on the questionable list for Chitown in game 4 and Kaspers Daugavins fitting in just fine on the B’s fourth line with Shawn Thornton and Rich Peverley, The Hawks will have their work cut out if they want to win. Especially with game 4 taking place in Boston.

Call your arena the Madhouse on Madison if you like. The Bruins have the Gahden. Simple and unfussy. Gritty and tough just like the fans, ready to cheer their heads off for their team when they retake the ice on Wednesday night.

And if playing hockey were anything like battling the Devil these guys sure got it fahkin right, kid.

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Published in multiple print and online sources, Author, Blogger and Freelance Writer Jenn Flynn-Shon has been writing for publication since 2001. Follow her antics on twitter @jennshon

The Boston Bruins are on a Roll but Not Out of the Woods Yet

You knew it was coming eventually. I held out as long as I could for all of you readers who have no interest in sports, hockey in particular. But after last night’s four hour long, double overtime, game three between the Boston Bruins and the Pittsburgh Penguins ended in such dramatic fashion I’d be remiss if I didn’t write at least something.

Plus, this is the semi-finals and with the Stanley Cup Finals just mere games away for two lucky, hard-working teams it feels right to talk about the fact that the Bruins are up 3-0 on this last series before they could theoretically get to the big game for the second time in as many years.

But they aren’t there yet and as any professional sports player knows – it ain’t over ‘til the final goal horn sounds. Or something like that. So more now than ever is the time for the Bruins to bring their A++ game because the Penguins will not be put down without a fight.

And that fight will no doubt result in more bloody and bruised faces like this one:



Image Courtesy CBSBoston



So let’s just say I’m looking into where I can buy a broom but I’m not saying out loud just what can be done with one.

There are a few Bruins from last night’s game that I feel deserve a high five. Let’s start where no one else is and give a huge debt of gratitude to Jaromir Jagr.

Boston was iffy on Jagr becoming a Bruin and with good reason. In hockey years the guy is about a million and one. As my uncle said “he looks older with every shift out on the ice.” True dat.

But with age comes experience and as the (unquestionably biased) announcers happened to mention during last night’s game he’s been spending some time with David Krejci lately to help him improve his game. And centerman Krejci is leading the team in goals scored this post season with nine.

Which brings me to my other point about Jagr, can someone just give the poor guy a goal for goodness sake? He’s played all 15 post season games, has 7 assists, a +/- of +1, and 45 shots on goal (third after Tyler Seguin at 50 and Patrice Bergeron at 48) and the guy just cannot seem to put the puck in the back of the net.

Not to mention he’s working his old ass off every single night and last night was no exception. It was his play along the boards at the line that created the puck freeing to Brad Marchand who passed to Bergeron for the game winner.

Clearly Jagr’s the team muse because whatever he’s feeding Krejci and the rest of the guys is working.

But Jagr isn’t the only one who battled it out last night. You want to hear about some extreme toughness? Talk to Gregory Campbell who was out there during a Pens power play in the second period. He laid out to block a shot and ended up with a 100 mph slapshot to the leg resulting in a broken fibula.

Ouch.

But that’s not the tough part. The puck remained in the Boston zone so Campbell had no choice but to get up and play for almost a full minute on that broken leg until the puck was cleared down the ice. And what happened during that minute? The guy pushed his stick out to poke the puck away and broke up another play that could have resulted in a Pens goal. On a broken leg.

No pansy-ass players on this team.

Campbell is out for the remainder of the post season regardless of how long it goes but hopefully prognosis will be good for him to return next season all healed. He’s a key member of the roster and his presence on the ice will definitely be missed.

Everyone played a hard fought game, and I’ll even say that the Pens looked pretty good too for most of the contest but they were not getting more than the one goal through the brick wall in goal known as Tuukka Rask. He stopped 53 of 54 shots and in quite dramatic fashion at times. The man was a machine.

Overall the Boston Bruins exerted a solid effort that went until after midnight on the east coast and they left the Pittsburgh Penguins with quite a mountain to climb if they want to stay alive or take the series away from Boston. But coming back from being down three games is rare and I’m sure the spirits of the Pens were quite crushed at the end of the very long game.

And in hockey playoffs, because it’s the Cup, momentum and spirit can count for almost as much as effort when players take the ice. I’m looking forward to seeing if the Bruins can get it done on Friday night to advance into the Cup finals.

Oh, and as a side note…

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Published in multiple print and online sources, Author, Blogger and Freelance Writer Jenn Flynn-Shon has been writing for publication since 2001. Follow her antics on twitter @jennshon

Ride that Zamboni Right into the Playoffs Boston Bruins!

Despite the lockout that happened forcing all of us hockey fans into a world free of pucks and checks for a few months, I’m still a fan. For a few weeks I wondered if I’d get back into it again, if I’d be able to forgive all the crap that happened on both sides. In the end I decided I’m not in it for the money, I don’t fall on either side. I’m just a fan.

I like to watch the guys skate, I like to see what trades happen and who does well on what team and I like the thrill of the rush to the Stanley Cup. What they decide about contracts and all the other hoopla that comes with professional sports these days is not of any concern to me as a spectator. Not really.

So I stuck through the season and they were 40+ of the best games I’ve watched because every single one was like watching the playoffs. Teams for the most part brought their A game just about every night and it was high energy watching it unfold.

Being in Phoenix now we have the Coyotes to root for and I do like to see them do well because I’m a supporter of hockey in the desert. Rink rats and desert rats aren’t really that different. Sadly the playoff hopes for the Coyotes went down the drain in this short season. I just hope it doesn’t get them bought by someone who plans to move them to Canada. We have plenty of Canadian snowbirds here in the Valley, keep the ‘Yotes here and fill the seats!

But my real team of course is the Bruins. They only have a couple games left as I write this post on Friday afternoon. By the time this posts on Tuesday I’ll already know who took the top spot in our division – Boston or Montreal (Update: Stupid Bruins not getting it done!). Since the Habs finished just about dead-last one year ago, I have to scratch my head how they could’ve turned it around so fast this season.

Well, they did sweep the B’s. Much to my chagrin. And the chagrin of the entirety of Bruins Nation.

But by the time this posts, all of that regular season drama will be over and the playoffs will begin in short order for everyone. And most of the injured B’s are back in full force now. Watch out, here we come.

When the Cup Finals finally wrap up its likely going to be in the 110’s around here. I guess it’s just as well the Coyotes are out this season. Water skiing is tough wearing all that padding and the Zamboni wouldn't do as well on Lake Jobing.com Arena.

Posted for April 2013 A to Z Blog Challenge Z is for Zamboni

Hockey on All Seven Levels

On April 6 Matt and I were fortunate enough to get an invite from a couple friends to go with them to a Coyotes game. The really cool part of this invite, you know, aside from seeing a game which you know I’d never turn away when given the chance, was that before the game we got to take part in a tour of the arena. Um, hello awesome!

For today’s post I’m just going to tell the story through some photos so you can enjoy the tour too. It was really super cool to have a chance to see the underbelly of the arena.

Stay tuned for information on a possible new story where a character might just find a body somewhere under those bleachers. Oh yeah that’s right. I wonder why our tour guide Rich looked at me funny when I mentioned it would be a great place to find a body. Because it really would be.

Touring Jobing.com Arena. Our tour guide asked if we knew how thick the ice was. I said 2". Pretty sure that was the answer but it might have been anything from 3/4 of an inch to 4". Regardless, we weren't allowed to touch it. In fact we were strictly prohibited from doing so by our tour guide.



The officials sit here.




The bad troublemakers sit here.




I aspire to be a ticket holder at this level of the ice.




I might use this on a book cover sometime if I ever get back to hockey stories.




Don't be up here if you're afraid of heights. Can't imagine that the guys in The Garden are two floors up from this.




Ow ow ooowww!




The Yotes starting goalie Mike Smith has been out for a few weeks but on his first game back he got the shutout.
Great end to a great day!



Posted for April 2013 A to Z Blog Challenge H is for Hockey