Saturday in review

Here's a more detailed review of Saturday: We woke up Saturday morning to a fresh 1-2" of snow covering everything. A very fine, powdery snow - the kind that blows into your car seat when you open the car door. The snow was actually still coming down, and would continue to do so to varying degrees all day long.




We headed into town to find a place called Leif's that was recommended as a good breakfast spot. It wasn't hard to find, and the food was very good. Our waitress recognized us from the story on the news last night, so our notoriety was already preceeding us.


After breakfast, we packed up the bags and drove over to the rinks to prepare for our last two games of the trip. Our goal for the day: not to get embarrassed. As we were headed to the pond, the sun was shining a bit through the clouds. It wasn't much, but it was nice to see the sun through all the clouds we'd had since we got here. Temperature-wise, it was a bit colder than yesterday. The 21+ guys were slated to play at 12:15pm, and the 40+ guys at 1pm. We found a place to park, and as it so happened, it was right next to the rink where the 21+ guys were playing their final game. The team set up shop, and enjoyed the parade of humanity that marched by in front of us. It's amazing how many people walked by and yelled "Ice Holes!". Somehow, in the course of 24 hours, we'd developed a following. It was around this time that someone said something about a car that was sinking in the lake. Not to miss out on an opportunity to laugh at other's misfortune, we made a field trip over to see the SUV that was sunk up to it's front wheel well. We found out later that the drivers of that SUV were the 21+ team's opponents for their last game. That game got started late. The players were all there and ready to go, but no scorekeeper. It took them a good 10-15 minutes to find a scorekeeper, but the game eventually got underway. Today's game went much better for the 21+ group. At halftime, they were actually leading 8-5. In the second half, the other team got on a streak and racked up several goals before the Holes could get back in scoring mode. In the end, the officially lost 11-10, however, it must be said that, according to several witnesses, the game was actually tied. The ref missed at least one goal for the Holes that might've changed the outcome. Oh well. Because of the late start, the 21 team had to hurry over to catch the last half of the 40 team's game. They were leading, and playing very well. They held it together through the second half, and earned the Holes the only victory of the trip. Congrats 40-somethings! (And 50-somethings!) Following the 40 Holes' win, we decided to just hang out a while - partially to watch some of the other games, but mostly to see if the SUV would sink all the way into the lake. By now, they had tried to free it using a truck and tow cable, but no luck. Then the tow truck arrived. The extraction was more difficult than even the tow truck driver had thought, but after about 45 minutes of positioning, pulling, starting over, digging, placing wood boards, and a whole lot of advice and cheers from the crowd, they succeeded in freeing the foundered vehicle. By now, the wind had picked up, and the temperatures were falling. Everyone was fairly chilled, so we went back to the hotel to soak in the hot tub.










On tap for tonight was a reception for the pond hockey crowd that included an appearence by Neal Broten, a former NHL-er and member of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" USA hockey team. We got to see his gold medal.








It was at the reception that we finally saw some cheese. Now, I don't know if it was actual Wisconsin cheese, but we pretended that it was.




After the reception and some give-aways, they invited us outside to a snowmobile track where some guys were doing a demonstration of trick riding. They were jumping about 20-30 feet in the air. Erik and I thought we could do better, so we borrowed the sleds and put on a show of our own. The whole team was very impressed with our snowmobiling prowess.

The local hockey team was playing again tonight, and the group had such a good time the night before, we decided to head back over to the "Dome" to see them play again. As was becoming commonplace, we were a big hit with the locals, and entertained several requests for pictures. It was another good hockey game, but the hometown team lost 8-5. Following the game, Kent got out on the ice to hoist the "Mullet Cup" amidst cheers from the gallery. He then fell flat on his back to even more cheers.









We finished the night in the hotel bar. A group headed by Joe played a very drawn-out game of darts, while most of the others just shot the bull. I finally did get to take Georgia dancing for Valentine's Day. I know, I know, I'm such a romantic.