Monday, February 11, 2008

What do hockey players do when a game is delayed?

As you may have heard (or experienced), Sunday's Gladiators game against the Columbia Inferno was delayed about an hour and 45 minutes because the Inferno's bus broke down. How did the Gladiators kill the time? Let's have a look.

First they appeared in ones and twos out on the bench. Here's Alex Sawruk stickhandling and Chad Denny having an energy drink.


Then they appeared in fours. Myles Stoesz, Stuart MacRae, Dinos Stamoulis (smiling as ever), and Tomas Pospisil. It's funny how they are trained to sit so close together on the bench so they keep doing it.

I headed down to investigate. Brad Schell eats a banana as he entertains Cam Brown, while Stoeszer poses for his glamor shot. This one is funny all around.

In the back, Andy Brandt rides the exercise bike as he watches golf on TV. Brando said I was getting his best side here. He's too modest. Matt Anderson heads back into the dressing room from the bench area.


A mish-mash of people gather in the back hall. Here we have the ref David Jones, the cop that normally guards the refs (and flirts with all the ladies walking by as entertainment -- not complaining, mind you), linesman Rob Montepare, Dani the athletic trainer, Stoesz, and an off-ice official.

The (new) bus carrying Columbia finally arrives. I was talking to their trainer, who drove separately, about what happened and she said the original bus driver didn't seem to take any action when the bus broke down other than smoke two packs of cigarettes. They called a different bus company to come rescue them. It was tough because it's the south and bus companies are closed on Sundays. They called up a guy who used to drive them, who was, where else? In church.

The Gladiators locker room staff unloads the bus.


The players head in. Why this guy got an empty cart, I have no idea. But the guy behind him thinks something's funny.


From this point on, things ran smoothly. Well, except perhaps for Columbia's coach going ookie-balookie on the bench and having to be restrained by his players. But that's for another post.

No comments: