Thrashers MIA in Miami

So our trip started off well. We got a rental car from Enterprise. A brand new Mazda 5. It had all of 89 miles on it. We were the first customers to drive it. We got the 50% off weekend rate. The Mazda 5 is a crossover between an car, an SUV, and minivan. Now, with car rentals, when you get an SUV or van, you pay a lot more for it. This thing had the room of an SUV for the price of a car. It was $5-6 more dollars total to rent the middle of the road car instead of the cheapest 4 cylinder they had. And we paid the price of a car and basically got an SUV for the same price. It had more than enough room for everything.

So we drove down 12+ hours down 75 to the Florida Turnpike. About 20 dollars worth of tolls, but it does save a good amount of time versus going down 95. Anyway, we stayed at a really nice Quality Inn in South Miami. A bit far from Sunrise, but the trip from the hotel to the game wasn’t all that bad and didn’t take nearly as long we thought. So we got in to the hotel and attached to it was a nice looking seafood place… Gotta get seafood when you are on the coast, right? Well, we walked in an stood there for 10 minutes waiting for someone to greet and sit us. They didn’t give us any service. It was very casual dress place, so I don’t understand WTF happened. We walked around the corner to a Chinese joint and were served right away. It was goooooooooooood Chinese too. After that we went back to the room and watched Borat then crashed.

Saturday slept in a little and then went over to the Miami Metrozoo. There just happened to be a brochure for the zoo in our room. When I booked the room, I had NO idea that it was near the zoo. It was about a 10 minute drive from the hotel, if that. And only $11.50 per person to get in. It makes Zoo Atlanta look like a horrible zoo. The animals are not in cages. You are separated by a deep ditch. It makes for GREAT pictures. It was a lot of fun. After the zoo we went back to eat our leftover Chinese for lunch and then drove up to Sunrise. It was a rather short drive compared to what I was expecting.

We went to the Sawgrass Mills mall. Let me tell you this mall takes every single mall in Georgia, even the Mall of Georgia, takes it by the tail, and kicks it around. It was awesome. Even though every other store seemed to be a shore store, there were New York City-style electronics stores, video game stores, and even a diecast car cart. The guy had about $1,000 worth of cars that I wanted. I’ve been collecting them for years, and as much as I wanted to buy every single one he had, I just couldn’t. He had many of which are VERY hard to find. I always to go the AJC Auto Show every year and this guy had a better selection of cars I wanted. We also stopped in one of the video game stores – they had ONE Wii Classic Controller left. ONE. Best Buy has been out of stock for months on it. So he sold me the last one. It was only $20. Best Buy wants $25. Most on eBay will charge around $30 plus shipping. So I got one for a steal almost. The only bad part about that mall is that the food court is sad. But we had planned to eat at the game anyway, so that’s what we did.

We walked across the street from the mall to the arena. We were a bit early, so we were the first in line…go figure that! Now, being that it’s the PANTHERS we are talking about here, I didn’t expect a big crowd at all, much less 18,000+ people. It wasn’t a complete sell out, but it was damn near packed for the game. Pretty impressive for a Panthers game. Then again, it was a Saturday night… and they are a hot team right now, and playing a huge division rival. The arena itself is very dimly lit until the players come out on the ice; I guess they do that to conserve energy. But, at first, it does feel very cavernous and empty. I do like the fact that, unlike Philips, a whole ¼ of the arena is not corporate only. They have their boxes like any other arena or stadium, but the seating bowl is for everyone. I really like that. The seats on the lower level are a gross looking green. The middle seats were brown. I didn’t get the color scheme of the seats. Anyway, we went down for warmups where the Thrashers come up. I was the only Thrashers fan who had the balls to bring my mullet wig with me. Slater noticed and threw me a practice puck. As many times as we’ve been down to see warmups and as many practices as we’ve gone to, I’ve never got a puck. In fact the last puck I ever got a game was at a Knights game. Yes, a Knights game. So I got one. Finally.

Now to the game. Even though the Thrashers scored first and went up 1-0 to start the game, they came out looking flat. They simply did not play well. It looked as if we had made no trades. But the Panthers were playing really well too. This did NOT look like the same Panthers team that we had just played in Blueland a few days before. The Thrashers didn’t look at all like the same team either. We were on defense for what seemed a majority of the night.

Now, right after the 1^st ended, two guys from the Panthers came up to me. We were sitting in a row of Thrashers fans. He was asking if someone had wanted to be in their dance-off contest. Now, at first I didn’t realize they were talking to me, but they were. So I agreed to do it. I instantly became a nervous wreck. My girlfriend was there for me to calm me down and make sure I was looking ok. I asked who I was going against and I was told it was a “Dodgers fan”. Bullshit. Why the hell would there be a Dodgers fan at this game? I warned them I can’t dance. I am worse than the guy in Hitch. I am so bad. The worst. But I have never been prouder to be booed by 18,000+ people because we got to scream and yell into the camera for all of the arena to hear. I have never been prouder to be a Thrashers fan when I heard all of those boos. Our row of fans were cheer for me, but there were just WAY too many Panthers fans. Even if I could dance well, I would have automatically lost because the other guy was really a Panthers fan with a Panthers jersey on. I could’ve been Elvis with a Thrashers jersey on and still have been booed.

Now the parts that pissed me off: At a Thrashers game, if a fan is in a contest, they NEVER go home empty handed. I just assumed I was going to get SOMETHING… a t-shirt, a gift… something to take home. I got NOTHING. And I missed 85% of the 2^nd period waiting for this to start. By the time I got back to my seat, there was only about 4 or 5 minutes left in the period. Worst of all, the entire time I was standing there waiting for this dance contest thing to start, the Panthers scored 2 goals and went up 2-1. I was not in ANY mood to dance after seeing THAT happen.

Kari made some great saves, but let two easy ones slip by. I did happen to see that 2^nd goal go in and Kari should have EASILY had that. Was he distracted because his parents went home and couldn’t stop thinking about it? Did they party a bit too much in Miami? They didn’t look at all like the Thrashers 2.0. Even though we did make it a game by making it 3-2 towards the end of the 3^rd, and I was so sure one was going to tie it up right at the end, it never did. Ed Belfour did have a great night and the Panthers did play very well. But they also had at least 10 more shots on goal than we did. We were outplayed most of the night. Let’s just say the Thrashers were MIA in Miami.

Of course this being our first ever road game, we wanted to have it go our way. However, we did have fun afterwards. We hung out with Sally and her crew… the Panthers have a promo going that if they beat a divisional rival, you get a free pizza from Papa Johns. Sally did have a few extra tickets, so after about an hour of trying to figure out where the hell the closest Papa Johns was, we went back to their hotel with them to hang out and eat pizza. Oh, and of course the Flames had to lose to the Bolts while we were sitting there eating. D’OH! But it was a lot of fun hanging out with them.

We are already talking about going to the game against Carolina on the 6^th. Thankfully it’s a LOT shorter of a drive than Miami. The hard part is that it’s the same night as the Braves Home Opener. Now, I have NEVER, EVER EVER EVER missed a Braves Home Opener. However, it is not the season opener. The Braves haven’t opened the season at home in a while. But I’ve been WAY too loyal to the Thrashers to not go. It very well may just come down to one of those two last games.

If the division comes down to the last game against Tampa, that will be almost too weird. Did the schedule makers know something? WTF? I hope it doesn’t, but it’s so close that it just may be that last game for the division. That would be the biggest regular season game so far in the history of the Atlanta Thrashers. I hope we can all watch that game with a bit more ease and comfort and hopefully by then it won’t matter, but it may. It will be hard to watch that game. I’ll have to take SOME sort of drugs to calm me down!

Anyway, I’m hoping the game against Carolina works out in a few weeks.

I’m hoping we can get back to our winning ways tonight against the Craps. There’s nom reason we shouldn’t get an easy win tonight. The Craps are down and out and we should be able to take advantage. But I do know our crowd is going to be WEAK tonight, seeing as how it is a Monday night. Funny part is that last week before I left for our vacation, I totally forgot to turn in my timesheet! So I had to return the rental car this morning and get my ass to work before the 10:30 deadline to turn in my timesheet. I normally work 12-6, and after driving for nearly 14 hours (we made a lot of stops on the way back) I was tired and I could easily still be sleeping right now. But since I had to be at work early to get my timesheet in, that means I also get to leave early, so I’ll be more than on time tonight for the game.

I’m about to go to lunch, so I’ll end this now. Yeah, I’ve already applied for the 7^th Man contest. I think I wrote a pretty good poem, so I’ll be crossing my fingers. I do know that my girlfriend would die to get a game worn jersey from Kari. I think she’d pass out. And the winner of the 7^th Man contest gets first choice. Oh, there might be a more dedicated fan who has lot more money than I do to follow the team wherever they go and sit on the glass; but you will not find anyone cares about this team more than I do. You surely won’t find anyone who is always first in line and never misses a game unless it’s a Georgia vs. Georgia Tech game. And I guarantee you will not find anyone who has never missed a Braves Home Opener to miss it and go see the Thrashers on the road. And there’s no doubt that I should be saving my money and not be spending it. But if there is one thing that I spend my money on (not counting DVDs and diecast model cars), it’s the Thrashers. I’ve already sent in my deposit for the 07-08 season. It will be my 3^rd year as a season ticket holder. Now, if I had a better job when I was younger and could have afforded season tickets from day one, I would have. But now that I can afford season tickets, I’m getting them and I don’t plan on ever stopping. My girlfriend who had never experience a hockey game before she met me is now just as obsessed, if not more, than I am.

Even when we seemed down and out a few weeks ago when we went out West, I never stopped believing. I believe from the moment the guys arrive to training camp until the last day of the season. And this year for the first time we’ll get to keep believe into post season. Now I’ve been a Braves fan since I was a little kid. I always will be. And I never, EVER thought anything else could ever overtake the Braves as my favorite team. Well, that has all changed. Of course the Braves are my favorite baseball team, but the team closest to my heart is the Thrashers. That, my friends, takes one HELL of a change to take the Braves away from being my #1 team. I’d call 12 hours there and 12 hours back driving to Miami loyalty. Add up the cost of hotel, car rental, gas, food, and other BS and that’s a good chunk of change I could’ve saved. But it was all worth it… even though we lost and I was booed by 18,000+ people. But it’s too the bad the Thrashers were MIA in Miami.

I have a feeling we’ll get it back together tonight against the Craps. It might be near empty tonight, but I don’t care as long as we win.

Oh and yes, last but surely not least, I have to thank my season ticket rep Dustin. He allowed me to write him a post-dated check. I had two options – put down a deposit for season tickets and cancel the trip or go on the trip. He let me post date a check for my next paycheck this coming Friday. So many thanks to him and his boss for letting me do that. It is much appreciated. He didn’t mention, however, that he was also going to be in Sunrise. Oh but he was there… and had just a little bit to drink. What a surprise that was!

That’s it for now. Let’s beat the crap… outta the Craps tonight!!