For the last few weeks i have been helping out a friend with promoting the tournament he organizes . I have repeatedly told you all about it and i will mention it one more time ! The Baycrest Pro Am started yesterday and a couple days ago Rob Weir sent me a message to see if i could play this weekend as a fill in ... of course i said yes . Here is the crazy part ... every team gets to draft an NHL Alumni player !!! I was needed to play for the Media Team , they drafted Todd Hlushko .
So yesterday morning shows up and i get a message letting me know that i am not needed , yeah i was a bit upset but i understood that i was just needed to fill in and not to play the full tourney ( which i couldn't anyways ) . After i got that message i went downtown to pick up my Brazilian Visa then i went to pick up my team jerseys from Big Stick Custom Jerseys ... as soon as i got home i got another message from Rob . Apparently the team i was supposed to play for thought it would be funny to tell the organizer that they had a goalie ??? when they didn't , so Rob cancelled me thinking this team had a goalie when they didn't LOL . Yeah makes no sense to me because i could have said no if i made different plans but luckily i didn't .
Off to York U. to play , basically i threw my bag into car and left immediately ... when i got to the rink i realized how HUGE this event was . There were a bunch of amazing volunteers there that were very helpful , for some reason i was named team captain so i had to pick up our team package with schedule , etc ... made my way to my room and there was a goalie in there already ... yeah i was confused , i asked the guys if they were Media Team they said yes and i plopped my bag down in front of the goalie cut jersey hanging on hook . The other goalie was Greg Zaun former Blue Jays catcher and let me tell ya he was a HOOT ! i didn't notice Todd Hlushko but he was sitting in there chatting away with everyone and Greg was telling a couple of good stories about his playing and broadcasting career .
Zaun has these great Blue Jays colored pads that are really nice and we started talking about that , then i asked if how he wanted to split the game .... he told me to go out there and do my thing . Greg is new to the game but is really really into it . When game started we needed to add a couple skaters as we only had 6 , so a buddy on the other team Liam and former Boston Bruin Don Sweeney joined us too ! It was a fun game so it didn't really matter what happened in the score line , yeah we lost :) But we had a great time doing it ! There were some snipers on the other team , the highlight of the game was when Zaun made this amazing paddle save while rolling around on the ice ... we were all amazed how well he played :) for a rookie !
After the game we went up to the bar and it was a who's who of NHL hockey !!! I saw Gordie Howe , Walter Gretzky , shook hands with Doug Gilmour , talked to Darcy Tucker and had a beer with Marcel Dionne ( also going to make plans to go visit his restaurant this summer so got his contact info too ! ) There had to be at least 50 former NHL stars there inside the arena mingling around with everyone ... i was in HEAVEN .
Next year i am going to try to do some fund raising to help this great tournament out ... everyone i met on my team yesterday were totally class acts and i hope to meet with them again ! Hope you guys get a win today too , wish i could be there for day 2 but unfortunately i had plans already made for today :( i would highly suggest to anyone that loves hockey to try getting into this tournament next year , it is worth every penny ! Good luck to all the participants and thank you Rob and thank you to all the volunteers at the tourney !
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