It’s Not Me, It’s Him, Right?

Where did you come from, where did you go…

Back after a week’s vacation, broken up into three mini-vacations. As I wasn’t going for the terribly unusual, nothing terribly exciting, but I brought pictures.

First trip was to Chattanooga to play in the 11th incarnation of Trashmasters in a valiant attempt to help my team win their fifth title. Let’s just say we finished second, and I hate Cotton Eyed Joe even more now than I did in the fifth grade when I had to perform it in an school assembly.

From Chattanooga was a interesting set of flights to get to Fargo with the idea of going to Grand Forks for the Men’s World Curling Championship. This first involved a 2:10 driving sprint from Chattanooga to Nashville, only to have my flight delayed (after boarding and unboarding twice), arriving in Chicago, going to the “tiny terminal” where four different small planes are waiting for passengers. It was snowing in Fargo, and there’s nothing like trying to drive a rental car in the dark on a snowpacked freeway you’ve never traveled. However, the snow was very localized, and 20 miles out there was no snow.

Curling tournaments involve 12 teams, 8 of which play at a time. Three sessions play a day and each team will play in 2 of them. The only country that truly cares about curling is Canada, and with Grand Forks less than an hour from the border, there’s sure to be a flood of people coming from our neighbors to the north.  Notice the big difference in attendance when Canada is not playing (left) opposed to when they are (right):

The Ralph Engelstad Arena has an interesting history. Ralph, a former North Dakota goalie, made a bunch of money in casinos. Right before he died, he paid for two arenas on the campus — one for hockey (called ‘The Ralph’) and one for basketball (called ‘The Betty’, for the Mrs.). It features over 2,000 Sioux head insignias, which will prevent the arena from hosting any future NCAA Championship events until they’re removed. Which is a shame, because it’s an awesome arena.

One of the neat things was an NHL banner for each of the teams a former Fighting Sioux has played for. Notice something neat here? Defunct franchises are included for a total of 38 banners. For some reason, Phoenix got two banners.

There were also flags for every member of the World Curling Federation, including Andorra and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Can you name the flags in these pictures. Hint: they are in alphabetical order.

It is also a tradition to have the curlers brought in with a bagpipe group. This happened in one draw, complete with Skip, the mascot of the tournament. For a different draw, they changed things up and used a local high school’s drumline:

I had some time to kill before my next flight, so I took a trip down to downtown Grand Forks. The area has issues with flooding, so all they have near the waterfront to the Red River is a park. They had an obelisk showing the heights of different floods over the year, but I forgot to take a picture of it. However, across the river in Crookston, Minnesota, just to remind you that you were in the upper Great Plains, was Whitey’s Restaurant.

It was off to Denver and the 2008 Frozen Four. Michigan was involved, but had a rare poor game and did not advance to the championship game. I stayed with Walt, who lived down the hall from me in Markley Hall back in the 1980s. We both ended up in Colorado after graduation, and caught an NHL exhibition game between the then defending champions Pittsburgh Penguins and the Calgary Flames. Since the Pens were there, they brought the Stanley Cup. And since we were at a championship event again, they brought the trophy, so 16 1/2 years later we could recreate the picture:

I would like to point out why traveling is so much fun in this country. My trip home Sunday morning:

7:15 – leave for airport
7:55 – buy gas for rental car
8:00 – return rental car
8:15 – arrive at airport
8:45 – leave ticket line
8:55 – leave security
9:05 – arrive at gate after a train ride
9:40 – supposed to board plane — plane isn’t there
10:35 – actually board plane
10:55 – take off, lose two hours
3:40 – land
4:15 – luggage finally arrives
4:25 – finally get to car
5:00 – finally get home