Yay, hooray! Live hockey at last! :o) The Phantoms beat the Bridgeport Sound Tigers at the NE Philadelphia Skate Zone 3-0 this afternoon. Antero Niittymaki was in goal, and I was darn proud of our baby goalie. :o)

Come to think of it, the LAST time Antero played a preseason game at the Skate Zone in NE Philly, he blanked the opponent, too. Good boy, Niitty, keep up the great work!

We have some guys trying out with the Phantoms who I hope we keep. One is a fellow named Robert Snowball. Now if that isn't a cool hockey name, what is? (Though we already had THE ultimate hockey name a few years ago, in the form of a guy named Darren Rumble. Hee hee!)
Anyway, Snowball got into a couple of dustups out there. I was trying SO hard not to make the pun, "Oh, look, a Snowball fight", but it didn't matter because the guy sitting behind me said it. LOL. Here's hoping we find a place on the team for him.

Oh, we also have a local kid, James Laux, vying for a place on the team. He's from Cherry Hill, NJ, and according to the bio information, he was born in Philly. He scored our third goal, and there was one particular group of fans who were VERY loud in their applause. I think it was his family and friends. :o) He's another one I hope makes the team. It would be really cool to have a guy who grew up as a Flyers fan playing pro hockey in the Flyers organ-eye-zation.

The only minor bummer was that Neil Little wasn't on hand at all. We had another netminder, Chris Houle, as our backup. We brought Houle on board during the preseason, and I'm wondering if he's going to be our fifth goalie on the depth chart during the regular season. Time will tell. Time certainly told why Neil wasn't on hand for this game; when I watched the Flyers preseason game this evening, they said that Flyers backup Robert Esche had a minor injury. Neil was up with the Flyers as the backup tonight. There was even a glimpse or two of him on the bench... well, if I can't see my Alpha Goalie in person with the Phantoms, a sighting of him in a Flyers jersey will do.

Unfortunately, the Flyers didn't emulate their farm team; they lost 4-2 to New Jersey.

We had some bizarre weather today... at any given moment, it could sunny (through gaps in the cloud cover), overcast, drizzling, or pouring rain. Unfortunately, Mother Nature was in Torrential Downpour Mode while we were on I-95 driving to the Skate Zone. UGH, visibility was absolutely awful! Fortunately, the worst of the rain didn't last long; it eased up to just a normal heavy rainfall soon. Even so, I can't figure out why the idiot with the convertible was driving with his top down. I told Mark, "Remember David Letterman's 'Stupid Pet Tricks' and 'Stupid Human Tricks'? This is Stupid Driver Tricks."

I'm really looking forward to the start of the regular season. I've missed hockey a lot. For now, I'm just glad to have survived another offseason. ;o)