Adventures in GC and Beyond: Birthday Weekend pt. 2: Hockey!

We had playoffs this weekend, so we left early Saturday morning at 6. It would have been 5:15 if it weren't for another birthday weekend miracle: Western Illinois forfeited both of our last games of the season against each other, so we won that one and didn't have to be to St.L til 2. However, it was supposed to be bad weather the whole way up (and it was) so we still had to allow for time to go 45 on the interstate for a while. So we got there to play the first playoff game against Southern Illinois, and it was looking pretty good for us. They were up I think 2 on us but the boys kept their heads up and scored. So then we were tied 2-2 for a while, and we eventually ended up losing it 3-5. BUT it was really awesome to see our guys play the whole game and not get down once we started to fall behind. It was a very good game.

So once the games were over for the entire weekend at 3, it was party time! We went to a nice Italian restaurant on "The Hill" of St.L called Zia's, where I ordered and shared my first bottle of wine with one of our goalies, Nick Sterlacci. (It was a Riesling, and it wasn't very good :S ) Fun that I could do it in any case.

Sunday was going to be Geoff's birthday so while he was hanging out with his family we hopped over to the grocery store behind the hotel and got him an Andes Mint ice cream cake!

And from there on the party ensued like it really was the last weekend of the season and we had no games the next morning.

From somewhat of a dance party, singalong-ish type thing we had going, it evolved into wrestling to tap out madness. Seriously, like some of these guys were at it so long they looked like they had just got done playing a hockey game. It got pretty intense at times.