OFF-SEASON SHANAHANIGANS

I SCORED! I ACTUALLY SCORED!

Hey guys, one piece here, long time reader first time blogger, so be gentle on the criticism. :) Just joking; go nuts.

So it’s been one week since the finals and the AIHL season has come to an end. No doubt all the teams have by now had their end of season party (for some, sooner than others) and are looking forward to the summer and some time away from the game. After one practice and one or two games a week for five months, who can blame them?

Now I’m not comparing the AIHL to the NHL, although you hear some interesting stuff  that players get up to  in the offseason. For example, I believe Sean Avery, one of the NHL’s most hated players, is opening a new sports bar in New York with Lundqvist as hired entertainment. I guess when he called the press over to talk about his sloppy seconds before a game back in 2008 or 2009, he was commenting on the food at his new bar and NOT Dion Phanuef’s girlfriend.

Who is my favourite player in the nhl? um..me?

A lot of Hockey players love to play golf in the off-season. Now how you go from a game that has everything to a sport that has nothing is beyond me, but they seem to like it nonetheless. I didn’t know Happy Gilmore was a religion. Anyway, I mention this because it's true: hockey players love golf. And one player in particular who is no stranger around the NHL seemed to have quite a knack for the sport. I’m talking about Alex Ovechkin who, for some reason, anything he touches turns to gold. In 2006 he played a round of golf for the first time. Obviously he was watching Happy Gilmore that day (if you haven’t seen the movie, Google it) because he managed to get a hole-in-one on his first round EVER of playing the game. Some people who have played the game for years go through their whole career and never get a hole-in-one, so I think that’s pretty amazing.

Only 365 days til next tryouts!

So the question is, what do OUR so called professional athletes get up to in the summer? Is it a chance to have a break from the game and spend some time with the family? Or maybe now there is more time for drinking on the weekend? Although I don’t see that affecting the Dogs at all. Or how about getting ready for next year? I know you may think it’s too soon to think about next season after it only being one week into the off-season, but we claim that the AIHL is the best hockey in the southern hemisphere, apart from the Japanese league. So what do players do to get ready for next season? And when do they start?