Grand Rapids Griffins Hockey Schedule 2009-2010 Season
The AHL today released the 09-10 schedule. I have made a public Google Calendar of the schedule: http://z11.us/3
The season gets underway Oct 3rd with the first home game scheduled for Oct 23rd. Drake and I will be so excited to get this season underway. He had asked to watch hockey a week or so ago, it was so cute.
The Griffins put out a press release with some interesting facts: http://z11.us/4 My biggest concerns are these:
Longest Road Trip
6 games: March 12-25Three Games in Three Nights
12 times: Oct. 23-25, Dec. 11-13, Dec. 18-20, Dec. 26-28, Jan. 15-17, Jan. 22-24, Feb. 19-21, Feb. 26-28, March 4-6, March 12-14, March 25-27, April 9-11Four Games in Five Nights
3 times: Dec. 9-13, Feb. 24-28, April 7-11
The late season road trip never seems to do us any good. Also the multiple games in a short span are always worry sum. Now we just have to figure out who is going to be on our team…
Tags: The weekend started a little early with me starting a clean install of Windows on my computer at home. I backed up all of my data and made note of programs that I needed to install. Once I got Vista installed and upgraded to Ultimate I started the process of getting my programs back on the the computer.
The only thing that is not working correctly now is pyTiVo. I use this to transfer videos back and forth from my TiVo units. For some reason I cannot get the TiVo units to see my computer. The computer can see 3 of the 4 TiVo units in the house. What’s even stranger is that now the TiVo units cannot see all of the other units in the house. I still cannot figure it out. The only real bad thing about this is that I cannot transfer my movie collection that is on my computer to the TiVo units. This might put a damper on Free Movie Monday with Redbox.
Thursday Criterion Games released new cars for Burnout Paradise. Yes I did buy them, just like I bought the Party pack. This whole paid DLC is new for me, as this is the first bit of Add-Ons that I have purchased for games that I already own. Both of the packs have seemed worth it to me. The new car packs that have been announced, Toy Cars & Boost Specials, may see screen time in my house, but I’m not sure. I do know that I will purchse the Big Surf Island pack as well as the Cops & Robbers pack. I still think they should bring back Crash Mode.
Drake went to a play date with Aunt Pat, and an old friend of mine stopped by to say hi.
Friday was a short day at the office. For lunch we went to the bar next door for some food. After that we just decided to call it a day. We went to the arena for a hockey game, but couldn’t get in. I had ripped the wrong tickets our of our season ticket pack. Theresa and Drake waited for me as I ran back to the car to go home and get the correct tickets, I still can’t believe I did that. That was the first time I brought the wrong tickets, now I’ve forgoten to bring tickets all together twice, but not the wrong ones.
The Griffins on Friday put together one heck of a game against the Manitoba Moose. This bit of statistics make me happy:
GriffinsHockey.com: With the victory, earned before a raucous capacity crowd of 10,834, the Griffins (33-13-6-5) pulled within four points of Manitoba (38-15-0-5) in the North Division race, broke the Moose’s eight-game point streak and ended their 14-game road point streak one game shy of the American Hockey League record.
Saturday morning it was nice to sleep in a bit as Drake didn’t feel the need to wake up at 6.30am. After we got up and what not Drake and I left to go to my parents house. Theresa stayed home to get some shopping and a few things around the house done. My mission was to install an external hard drive and move the document folders on the computer at my parents house. I had forgotten that the internal drive there is only 30GB. They now have plenty of space on their new 500GB drive. I also tried to fix the VHS/DVD Recorder combo unit that I bought for them some time ago. It is acting really strange, it shuts off after being on for only about 14 seconds. Since it is out of warranty the only suggestion the manufacturer had was to leave it unplugged for a while to see if it would reset itself.
The Saturday night game was a different story then Friday night. On paper we should have had no problem beating the Lake Erie Monsters. On the ice however we did have a problem. I’m not sure if the Griffins were all there mentally for the game.
Per Ledin scored twice to lead Lake Erie to a 4-2 victory over the Grand Rapids Griffins on Saturday, making the Monsters the only team this season to claim a pair of regulation wins at Van Andel Arena.
GriffinsHockey.com: Grand Rapids owned a commanding 33-18 advantage in shots for the game, but Garden City, Mich., native Jason Bacashihua made 31 saves to help the visitors to their second road win in as many nights against a second-place team, following the Monsters’ 3-1 win at Rockford on Friday.
Sunday morning Theresa and Drake stayed home from church. She was not feeling well, and a bunch of snow had fallen. We had a laid back morning watching TV and playing video games. The Grffins played at 4 in the afternoon which gave them 3 games in less then 72 hours. This time they were able to pull out a win, which shouldn’t have been a probem, but the third period was almost heart stopping.
GriffinsHockey.com: Jimmy Howard made 32 saves in his return from the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday, including 20 during a frantic third period, to help the Grand Rapids Griffins claim their third win in five nights, a nail-biting 5-4 triumph over the San Antonio Rampage at Van Andel Arena.
Combined with Manitoba’s 2-1 loss at Chicago this evening, the Griffins have moved within two points of the first-place Moose in the ever-tightening race for both North Division and overall AHL supremacy.
After the game we went to the grocery store to pick up some dinner and some food for the week. I think this week I am going to be playing more of Burnout and Roller Coaster Tycoon, as long as I don’t get sucked into too much TV.
Last night it was confirmed that Chris Chelios will spend the weekend playing for the Grand Rapids Griffins on a conditioning stint. The best part of this news is that they are playing home games on Friday and Saturday. My prediction is that we’ll have a couple of sell out games this weekend.
December 2, Detroit News: “I think that’s the plan,” Chelios said of being sent to Grand Rapids, the Wings’ American Hockey League affiliate. “I’m probably going to go play Friday and Saturday there just to get some minutes in and then come back and be ready.”
December 2, Grand Rapids Press: Chris Chelios is coming to Grand Rapids.
“Not a knock against the American League, but it’s going to be a little slower pace,” Chelios said. “It’s probably better for me to start there and get hopefully 20-some minutes a game and get ready for the pace here.”
My sister Brooke brought the Sean Avery issue to my attention.
December 2, Yahoo ! Sports: Sean Avery knows all about the punishment that comes with saying something inflammatory on the ice, from time in the penalty box to having a stick swung at him.
On Tuesday, he learned how harsh the league can be about things said off the ice.
Avery was suspended indefinitely by commissioner Gary Bettman for making “inappropriate public comments, not pertaining to the game.” The punishment came down only hours after Avery used a crude term about his former girlfriends now dating other hockey players.
I checked the local news to find that Ada has a boil water advisory. I’m not sure if it includes my office or not. I’ll have to find that out before I make tea this morning.
Yesterday I watched some Cnet TV blooper reels; Buzz Report, Molly Wood, and Tom Merritt.
Monday was a pretty average day. Work was a little busy, home time was good. Tuesday is where it really is at.
In the morning I was taking apart cubicles as my office prepares to move. I kept finding strange things in the desks. There was one that had a bunch of paper bags in it. I swear I never saw anyone bring something like that in here. They are the style of bags that you would get with a large bottle of beer. I even got some push pins in my shoes as they were all over the floor.
I left work real early, 10:30am, to go pick Drake up. He was super excited to see me. We went to the arena for the Griffins annual matinee game. Whomever writes the releases for griffinshockey.com had this to say:
November 11, griffinshockey.com – The AHL’s highest scoring team found a different way to win on Tuesday, riding a dominant defensive effort and a 16-save performance by Daniel Larsson to a 1-0 victory over the Houston Aeros at Van Andel Arena.
A matinee crowd of 7,352 saw the Griffins improve to 6-2-2-1 on the season, 4-1-0-1 on home ice and 6-2 all time in their annual noon game, thanks to Larsson’s first shutout in North America.
Grand Rapids will take aim at its third straight home win this Friday when it hosts its first-ever meeting with the Hartford Wolf Pack at 7 p.m. …
After the game Drake and I headed home for a nap. After he woke up he just sat with me in the lazy boy watching True Blood. Yes I know, I am a very bad father for letting my toddler watch that show with me. There is no need to scold me.
Theresa brought home a new chicken sub to share for dinner. Yum, she even put black olives on my half for me. After dinner Theresa and Drake left to do a little shopping. Right about that time the Red Wings game got underway on VS. I do not like watching games on VS. I will take Mickey Redmond over VS. any day. As far the the Red Wings though, George James Malik says it best:
November 11, Snapshots: Unacceptable – The Detroit Red Wings lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night, and their record in "measuring stick" games is now 0-and-4 (they lost to San Jose, Anaheim, the Penguins, and they bombed their banner-raising opener). The Red Wings had 3-1, 4-2, 5-2, 5-4, and 6-4 leads at various points of the game, but "cutesy" plays resulting in turnovers and an inability to clear the slot and bear down on clearing the puck out of the defensive zone resulted in the vast majority of the Penguins' goals. …
I myself am also highly disappointed with the Red Wings play last night. I would be more disappointed if I have been a paying ticket holder.
As a footnote, I do have pictures on my camera that I need to get uploaded. Maybe I’ll get that done tonight.
This last weekend was busy, real busy. Friday night was filled with Red Wings hockey. I grilled a steak on the George Foreman, and once again it was more done then I would have liked. Even after all of the years owning this thing I still cannot get steak correct on it. Eric and Megan were at the house to stay the night.
Saturday morning was kind of strange. Once Drake got up and exhausted his attention in my computer we went into the TV room to watch a little Saturday morning cartoons. Instead of Drake being all hyper, running around, and waking up Eric and Megan, he just sat on me, then started to lay down on me. He didn’t want to do anything he normally does on Saturday mornings.
Once we were all up and ready we left Grand Rapids for Frankenmuth. My dad’s parents were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. The car ride there was perfect. Drake took a good nap and was not cranky once he did wake up. Dinner went well, which included the best chicken I have ever had. (Which reminds me that I need to pay my Dad.) Theresa and I are going to have to go out there sometime. She was working and was not able to go with us. Drake ate lots of food, was social, and only had one small meltdown. We needed to leave dinner as soon as everything was finished so we would be able to make it back to town in time for Griffins hockey.
We got home, picked Theresa up, and headed to the arena for the Griffins home opener. The Griffins’ website provides a better game story then I could come up with…
October 25, Griffinshockey.com: Grand Rapids needed just 1:42 to net its first home-ice goal of the campaign. From the right boards, Mattias Ritola sent a long cross-ice pass to Garrett Stafford, who ripped a shot past Marc Denis from the left circle.
Goal number two came courtesy of a power play less than two minutes later, when Muskegon native Justin Abdelkader set up in front of the Hamilton cage and redirected Jonathan Ericsson’s low shot from the left point at the 3:19 mark. The onslaught continued at 4:51 when Ritola finished off a 2-on-1 by blasting Cory Emmerton’s pass over Denis’ shoulder from the slot, making it 3-0 and sending Denis and his four saves to an early shower in favor of Cedrick Desjardins. More…
One we got home from the game I was able to watch the thrid period of the Wings game. When I first turned on the game I was mildy disapointed because they were down 4-2. They did end up winning in a shootout.
Sunday was afternoon hockey with the Griffins. George James Malik does a good job with this one…
The Grand Rapids Griffins dropped a 3-1 lead against the Norfolk Admirals before Ryan Oulahen’s late-second-period goal and a perfect third period, punctuated by an insurance marker and an empty-netter that gave Justin Abdelkader his first professional hat trick, pushed the Griffins past Norfolk by a 6-3 tally. Ville Leino must have read the pre-emptive press release regarding a Red Wings call-up before the game, because he posted three assists. Continue reading the entry…
The Griffins had not seen the Norfolk Admirals in town for about five years. Which brings me around to the new AHL and NHL schedules. There are more cross conference games this season then ever before. Well, at lease for as long as I can remember. It was last year during the summer that I read an article that was talking about how the Griffins and some teams from the east had to work together with the AHL to get some games scheduled. This is a great step in the correct direction to having a minimum of a home and home with every team in the league. The NHL has gotten very close to that. Every NHL team will see every other team at least once this season.
Now that the weekend is done I have to get back to work this morning. Oh, and I do have a few pictures of Drake from this weekend that I’ll have to get posted soon.
