| AHL ALL-STAR GAME |
| Febuary 13/2002 Darren, a Friend and I had bought tickets to the AHL All-Star game and were planning on getting some nice autographs that night... btw this was the night of the Skill's Competition... after the competition, we were waiting outside for the players (there were about 2 other people there waiting), Darren had gotten Rico Fata (2 cards) and Jason Williams (1 card) and our friend had gotten a bunch of the players to sign a program. I did not have anything for them to sign and was not really interested in a lot of the players. I was only prepared with cards for Mika Noronen, Steve Kariya, and Rick Dipietro, anyway after a long wait, none of the players I was waiting for came out, I was mainly wanting to meet Mika Noronen because 1. he is a Sabre and 2. he is 1 of my favorite NHL/AHL stars. Darren and our friend had left but i wanted to wait around for some more so anyway after about 2 hours of freezing my ass off in the cold, I said screw it and ran over to a store across the street called "LAR's" to call my ride. anyway I opened the door and then none other then MIKA NORONEN was there at the counter buying a drink and a banana (oh thats right I remember what he was buying lol). I just stood there like an idiot in disbelief. There was no one in the store except me and Noronen (and well the old lady at the counter) so it was pretty sweet, we had a big ass conversation and I got him to sign my Buffalo jersey that I was wearing (i was to hyped to remember the 2 cards of him I had in my pocket). He asked if I had seen him run over there and if I had followed him, I told him no, that I was waiting for him outside and came over to call to get picked up, he then was like "oh I think I have my sell phone here with me" and then let me use his Cell!!! It was AWESOME!!! anyway I still feel like kicking myself in the head for forgetting the cards but I got my jersey signed so what are ya gunna do. This was my first time ever attempting to hound and I couldn't ask for a better first time! Febuary 14/2002 Night of the All-Star game... me, darren and our friend were planning on going to the stadium together really early but some stuff went down and it ended up just me and Darren going, anyway... we went out and decided to go over to the hotel where the players stay (the hotel is RIGHT NEXT to the stadium, like 50 feet away) and well we were just waiting there in the lobby hoping to see some players walk by us and possibly get some auto's, but after about an hour of wandering around we said screw it and went and sat down. At the end of the hall we found out there was a VIP party going on and well considering there was a few hours till game time we figured that it was for the players so we went over and well we were not allowed in (like i said, it was VIP) and so we were pretty pissed, so we went back and sat down again, then these 3 old men (possibly drunk lol) came out and sat next to us and started talking about hockey with us (we were both wearing jersey's so you'd figure we like hockey lol) and well the guy asked us if we had gotten any autographs and told us that Wendel Clark was at the party so we were pretty determined to get into that party but before we took any action, the guy GAVE us his VIP pass! at first we couldnt get in cuz we only had one pass but after some other stuff going down... yada yada yday.... we got in and well Darren got his jersey signed by Clark and I got my picture tooken with him and well we were walkin around the party and then met up with Lanny McDonald, Rick Vaive and Daryll Sittler. Darren once again got his jersey signed by em and got his picture tooken with McDonald (I never had nothin for any of em to sign so, meh) and well that was our VIP experience. After the game.... we were waiting around by the gate again and got Steve Kariya. And that topped off one of the most Awesome 2 days of my life!!! TOTAL AUTOGRAPHS: 15 |