Posts Tagged ‘Stanley Cup’
Split Attention
So much sports to watch now that the 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament is underway. Last night, it was complicated by the concurrent broadcast of the 6th game of the NHL Stanley Cup final series. It is not an easy feat to pay close attention to both at once. At least the Carolina Hurricanes solved that issue in the future with their Cup-winning victory over Vegas.
Of course, the Tour de France bike race will start in July, so my attention will be split again, soon.
I spent the early part of the day using our battery-powered string trimmer to cut the growth beneath the fence line around the back pasture. Precision timing (or mere chance, if I were to be honest) had the trimmer battery drained just in time for me to catch the start of the first World Cup game of the day.
As long as I’ve accomplished something along the lines of property maintenance, I feel justified in lounging around watching athletes entertain me with their team skills for the rest of the day.
It helps that the horses and Asher have been taking care of themselves for the most part, lately. When we came in for lunch, Asher decided he wanted to stay sprawled out in the front yard, enjoying the breeze and keeping watch over his domain.
Mia was showing us that she understands what the shade sail is for. The other three horses demonstrate much less interest, preferring to remain under the overhang. Their loss, I say.
While I was watching sports deep into the evening, Cyndie occupied herself with packing preparations for traveling to Norway with Elysa. They will be celebrating a milestone birthday for E, experiencing the light of the midnight sun, and visiting with Friswold relatives while they are there.
I have warned them that Norway will be playing two matches during their visit, so the people may be a little preoccupied on those days –or I should say nights, given the time difference.
There will be no shortage of things commanding my attention while Cyndie is away. Here’s hoping Asher will remain content to stay within our property boundaries for all the days I am the sole person in charge.
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Questions Answered
I got my question answered last night as to what the competition would look like between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Championship series. Both teams were so dominant in their semi-final series that I was curious how it would look when they went up against each other.
Pretty evenly matched, as one might expect. The hometown Carolina fans went home disappointed. It had started so well for them, with a goal in the first 25 seconds of the game.
I also got a question about my crumbling tooth answered. It wasn’t the tooth; it was an old filling. I’ve been chewing on one side of my mouth for a week, hoping it wouldn’t fall apart more than it already had. My appointment for a repair was yesterday morning.
Unfortunately, to make me all better, the dentist went medieval on my jaw. It’s too bad that fixing our bodies can cause pain in the process of ending pain. My head really hurt after the Novocaine wore off. However, I was able to eat dinner on both sides of my mouth. Gimme a “V” for victory!
There is no question that the new blade motor on my riding mower is working better than the original did. I haven’t had an error since I replaced it.
One question that has yet to be answered is whether I will get packed and ready to go on my next biking/camping adventure before today is over, or wait until tomorrow morning to finish, leaving only minutes until departure. I’m not usually one to wait until the deadline is so close to complete my preparations, but I am prone to procrastination.
I guess I’ll surprise myself by waiting to decide if I value sleep more than being prepared in advance. At least I won’t have the distraction of a hockey game tonight.
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Getting Grumpy
Don’t mind me, I’m just grumpy because the Minnesota Wild are getting thumped by Colorado in this second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. If the puck had bounced in just a little bit better direction for us last night, things might have turned out differently. The Wild are now trailing 3 games to 1 in the best-of-7 series. I will not be anticipating a 3-game sweep to happen in our favor to keep our season from ending in the second round.
Or maybe I’m grumpy because I have been unable to solve a problem with my electric riding mower that regularly shuts down the PTO with an over-temp error code after a very short period of use. I have a thermal imaging device that indicates the actual temperatures are barely warmer than normal room temperature.
I spent a lot of time on the phone with the manufacturer and a designated service provider yesterday, but have made little in the way of helpful progress. Negotiations are ongoing. Too bad the grass doesn’t take a break from growing while I’m dealing with mechanical issues.
Thankfully, the asphalt repair crew showed up as promised and did a bang-up job of making cracks disappear.
It was intriguing to watch them scrape off the upper layer of material after heating it with torches. They brought chunks of old asphalt and melted them down to make an almost good-as-new patch. Asphalt artists, those guys.
The bonus on the day was finding the controller for Asher’s e-collar that had come unhooked from Cyndie’s pocket a few days ago. We’d thought it was lost for good, and Cyndie had even purchased a different version of collar as a replacement. We hadn’t figured out the more complicated controls on that one yet, so we will now happily return it and go back to using the one we are all familiar with.
Those were just enough happy outcomes to balance out the grumpiness over the hometown hockey team loss and the error-prone riding mower.
At least I’m not entering a new decade of years today like someone else I know. Happy Birthday, Marbare!! That number sounds a lot older than my age. Hope you will be celebrating in the least grumpy of ways! Love to you!
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Watchin’ Hockey
Maybe it’s a carryover from the US Olympic hockey victories a few months ago. The NHL Stanley Cup tournament is underway, and I’m finding myself drawn to not only the games of the Minnesota Wild but also those of any of the other teams, too.
It has me staying up past my bedtime too many nights in a row and leaving me a little bleary-eyed during the day.
Our games have been starting so dang late. Even though it’s the playoffs, when other games go into overtime periods, I tend to give up and shut ‘em off. But I can’t do that if it’s the Wild. What’s a guy to do? I gotta watch, but it sure stings double if we lose in sudden death a couple of hours past my regular sleep time.
Even if we win in late-night OT, there’s all the residual adrenaline making it impossible to fall right to sleep.
It’s interesting to be so fanatical about something that is basically a form of entertainment that means very little in the grand scheme of things that truly matter in life. It’s a little crazy to sacrifice a good night’s sleep over a hockey game.
I’m glad I have the luxury of not needing to show up at a workplace this morning. Still, I shut the game off at midnight last night when my eyes gave out.
I can always watch the replays.
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Successful Foal
We learned yesterday that three of Mia’s nine foals are still racing and the last-born filly just won a race at Churchill Downs on Friday.
“Shes a Secret” is a three-year-old who ran to victory, making us all proud for Mia and her last baby. Mia’s former owners stopped by to see her and express their appreciation for This Old Horse taking care of their retired broodmare. They told us that Mia was a very good mamma.
It was hot and muggy with miserable air quality due to smoke from Canadian wildfires and the horses were standing by our fans, stomping their legs to knock off biting flies. Not ideal conditions for hanging with the horses under the overhang. Cyndie noticed that Mia was really sweaty and wanted her to be looking her best when company arrived so she choreographed an opportunity for Mia to have better access to one of the fans.
Worked like a charm.
Mia posed for a few pictures and the visitors served up cool baby carrots for all the horses to celebrate the occasion.
I ducked out to check on Asher up at the house where Cyndie had left him with a bone to occupy him. He was doing fine but wouldn’t let that bone out of his mouth for nothin’. I put his vest on over the bone and we went out for a little walk. When he found a spot he liked, he dug a hole and dropped the bone in it. Then came the classic exercise of nosing dirt and leaves over the precious snack to save it for who knows when in the future.
He appears to have that natural instinct down perfectly well.
I am impressed with his ability to cope with the heat outside lately. He is such a hot bod and his dark color must really grab those sun rays fast, yet he soldiers on without complaint. Asher is quick to drink from our landscape pond, passing up perfectly good bowls of water to get there. He shows no hesitation about going back into the house where the floors are cool to lie on for naps.
There was no napping for me yesterday afternoon. I mowed grass around the barn to spruce up the place before our visitors arrived and failed miserably at avoiding the heat and bad air. I cooled off later by watching Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals on television.
With no prior favorite between the two non-hockey geographic location teams, I find myself leaning toward Vegas over Florida.
I won’t be placing any bets on it, though.
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Winning Cups
I watched the NHL Tampa Bay Lightning win the Stanley Cup by defeating the Montreal Canadians on Wednesday night. The television broadcast included some post-game celebrations and interviews with winning players. It included the typical reaction of, “I don’t have words to describe the feeling.”
The mostly bearded and predominantly burly men were hugging with passion and obviously over the moon with joy.
They won the Stanley Cup.
“We worked so hard for this.”
Yeah, I’m sure they did. Surviving a season of games and all the playoffs in the NHL is quite a feat. It’s in the realm of racing a bicycle for 21 days in France or climbing in the death zone to reach the top of Everest.
Heroic efforts like those bring the ultimate rewards that participants struggle to describe.
On Thursday morning, while I was grunting and sweating through my daily exercises for core strength, the thought occurred to me that I work really hard on this but I don’t get a cup.
The rest of us work really hard at our jobs every day. We labor through getting errands done, bills paid, mouths fed. We sweat and ache, we race, we problem solve, we fix broken things, and do the laundry. Sometimes it feels like there is not enough air to breathe.
But we don’t suddenly win and then take a few months off. No trophies, no podiums, no mountain tops. Day after day we get up and fight our battles without an end in sight.
Maybe that is why I like to watch sports. I live vicariously through the athletic accomplishments of others. This line of thinking has given me a new understanding of the people who buy lottery tickets. It becomes their shot at winning the cup. Otherwise, it’s just the daily grind with no end in sight.
I work hard. I’d kinda like to have a Stanley Cup moment like those guys.
Wouldn’t we all?
Now get back to work. It’s another day of doing what all the rest of us do every day.
We can watch trophy celebrations on tv later.
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Relative Something 