4/10 and the big 4/0

Enrico Ciccone keeps popping up in my Google Reader news feeds. Apparently, Zenon Konopka surpassed his 14 year old record as Tampa Bay's leader in penalty minutes in one season (was 258). Kind of dubious (on both sides), but hey, any Cicco news is good news.

If anyone else has an Enrico Ciccone news feed, hopefully this will pop up in his/her today's instead of that one.

Joyeux Anniversaire Monsieur Ciccone!!

Since setting that mark all those years ago, he's gone on to bigger and better things, as I outlined in a post on his birthday last year, like commentating and player agenting. (that's not a real word, but oh well)

Of course, he holds a very special place in my heart. Not just as my second favorite player of all time (sorry B-Rad, you're still technically my second favorite ACTIVE player). Not just at the second jersey I ever bought. But, as of last June, as the greatest lunch date ever!

It still makes me smile until my face hurts

So yeah, he pretty much earned 1,000,000,000 good karma points.




P.S. His birthday is always easy to remember. It is exactly 7 days before mine. April babies ROCK! May babies aren't bad. June babies? They're pretty cool, too.

Montreal musings

I've tried for two weeks to sit down and put my thoughts to paper, er, keyboard, er, screen... whatever! I keep waiting for a flash of eloquence and brilliance. Yeah... it's not happening. So in lieu of a brilliant masterpiece, here are my random thoughts, observations, and experiences from the best 5 days of my life, also known as my trip to Montreal for the 2009 NHL Draft.

• Saw real life cowboys on my flight to Calgary
• Got a stamp on my very bare passport
• Experienced a real Montreal thunderstorm (if only for the 10 minutes it lasted)
  
• Met awesome Twitter folks: Amanda, Amy, Brian, Charlotte, Dani, Joe, Julie, Kate, Katherine, Kimberly, Kuyaz, Kyle, Rick, Sarah, Silvana... I'm sure I'm forgetting someone
• Met some awesome bloggers, too, including the mysterious Eklund. Special props out to Brandon of Defending Big D. Awesome guy!
• Went into the Bell Centre. What a place! I regret that I didn't look around more. I'll need to go back to Montreal for a game.
• Witnessed, in person, the first round of NHL Draft, including John Tavares, get selected by their new teams

• Saw B-Rad's name on the Lady Byng trophy that he won in 2004 (I'm not sure the Conn Smythe trophy was there, so I didn't get to see his name on that; the Stanley Cup was around, but I didn't get to see it. I last saw it in person 10 years ago, so I got to see Mathieu's name, but it was obviously before B-Rad had his name was etched on that bad boy.)
• Played ball hockey
• Scored the first goal of the ball hockey game
• Ate poutine! It was as awesome as I've heard
• Ate a whole lot of Timbits

• Ate smoked meat (but not from famed Schwartz Hebrew Delicatessen. Yet another reason I need to go back)
• Drank lots of beer
• Had a beer with Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau (seriously)¹
• Slept probably an average of 5 hours a night (including one "night" I didn't get into bed until it started to get light; but it starts getting light there at about 4am this time of year)
  
• Rode the metro
• Went to the Biodome and saw the beaver habitat (but the beavers were sleeping; I was highly disappointed)

• Visited the Olympic Stadium
• Saw Alexander Ovechkin's mom's name on one of the plaques outside the stadium (she was on the USSR's 1976 gold medal winning basketball team)

• Sat through a Catholic mass in French in an amazingly beautiful cathedral (I was able to follow along pretty well; Father Sal at work will be so proud of me)
• Dropped by both McGill and Concordia Universities. The academic in me sees colleges as cathedrals of knowledge and must-see places on vacation.

• Actually joked with a very pleasant US Customs agent; usually they are so dour
  
• Flew on the smallest plane I've even been on from Montreal to Chicago (Bombardier CRJ 700), and on the biggest plane I've ever been on from Chicago to San Francisco (Boeing 767-300). I'm kind of a plane nerd.

Oh, and for the big one that needs more narrative

• I had lunch with my second favorite player of all time.

Years ago on the old Unofficial Mathieu Schneider Home Page, I had an "About Me" page that, short of anything more creative, I had listed things I've done in my life and also things I still want to do. On the accomplished list, I had "met my favorite player, Mathieu Schneider." On my to-do list, I had "meet my second favorite player, the now retired Enrico Ciccone." I didn't think much of it. Fast forward to a year ago, on my 30th birthday of all days, I get an email from the real life Enrico Ciccone (great birthday present!). He had seen that and said to me that if I was ever in Montreal, he would take me to lunch.

When I found out last month that I was going to be going to Montreal, I wondered if I should bring it up. He seemed sincere. After debating it for awhile, I decided to just send back the original email with a brief "did you mean it, because guess where I will be in June" message. If he responded, then cool. Sure enough, he wrote back suggesting a time and place. I would be meeting him at one of his favorite downtown restaurants (which luckily was close to my hotel), just a few hours after landing in Montreal.

And from here, I will plagiarize myself and cut and paste the note I already put up on Facebook:

I had directions from MapQuest to the place and headed out into hot and muggy Montreal. Those who know me know that I'm not a fan of heat, and, being the pessimist that I am, I was already anxious if he was really going to show up. Plus, I hadn't eaten since a small sandwich at SFO the previous night and I had been awake for the past 30 straight hours. Anyway, I got lost. Badly. And started to get really nervous. At noon sharp, my phone rang, and it was Enrico asking if I was lost. He talked me through some directions before realizing that I was way off. He told me to grab a cab, I gave my phone to the cabbie, they talked, and 3 minutes later I was there.

Side story: I'm weird, and I know this. I keep random currency in my wallet. It's a cool conversation piece, and you never know when you'll end up in Ecuador and need to buy a newspaper. Anyway, among the currency oddities, I have a Canadian $2 bill, which haven't been used in years. Also, I always keep a toonie. Not expecting to take a cab, I had very little Canadian cash on me. The fair was $4. I only had $20s from the ATM on me and a handful of Canadian quarters in my pocket. I could have given him a twenty and gotten change, but I wasn't thinking clearly. So, I did the unthinkable. I spent my $2 bill and toonie!

So... I get out of the cab at the corner and hear someone say "Sarah?" I look up to a sea of suited business men and women on their lunch break, and there was Cicco. Even though he was suited like the rest, he's kind of hard to miss. I mean, dude is 6'5!

I really can't begin to do justice to the next hour. I'm not the best conversationalists, but wow, it was one of the easiest lunches I've ever had. Every once and awhile I'd look up and think "holy crap, I'm sitting here talking to Enrico Ciccone." Even now, I think I'm still a bit shell shocked. Did that really happen? It had to have happened. I have the photo and the gift he gave me as proof. And I'll have those memories...

So, um, yeah, those 5 days were some of the best of my life. I had an amazing amount of fun, met fabulous people, and had experiences that can never be taken away from me.

If you are one of those people that actually likes to look at other people's vacation photos (actually, I am one of those people), you can see the rest of my two collections:
Around Montreal
2009 NHL Draft and Draft Tweet Up

I already can't wait to go back!

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¹The Bruce Boudreau story? I'll save that one for later. =)

Off-Topic: 10 Avril

After my 30th birthday last year, I knew birthdays weren't going to be such a big deal (at least, until 40). I had hit the milestone I wasn't looking forward to, so calendar watching wouldn't be as big of a deal. Sure enough, I woke up today and looked at the calendar and saw it was April 10. Crickey! My birthday is next Friday!

But April 10 is a big day besides being the week before my birthday. It is also the 100th day of the year, the anniversary of the first ever Arbor Day, and the day the Beatles officially announced their breakup¹. More importantly, 39 years ago today, Enrico Ciccone was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

One of four children born to Antonio and Francine, he would play soccer for many years until hanging up the cleats and focusing on hockey full-time. After turning down a scholarship to an American university to stay in the junior leagues in his home province, the 6'4 / 210 pound defenseman would go on to leave his mark on the NHL, literally and figuratively. He played for seven teams (2 of them twice), appeared in 374 regular season games (13 post-season matches), and collected 10 goals, 18 assists, and 1,469 penalty minutes. (Good God!)

Not to take away from anything he did on the ice, but one of his biggest contributions to the world of hockey, in my humble opinion, is Vincent Lecavalier. Mr. and Mrs. Ciccone opened their home to the 18 year old Quebecois superstar-to-be, helping him transition from the sheltered world of a teenage QMJHL player to the fast world being a teenage in a foreign country, with the loads of expectations, distractions, and mad cash. I look at the soon to be 29 year old Vinny now-- a Stanley Cup champion, Maurice "Rocket" Richard trophy winner, and budding philantropist (and total hottie!)-- and think wow, things could have been so different. Not to slight mom and pop Lecavalier for the 18 years of work they did raising their son to that point, but the Ciccones, too, should be proud of helping him avoid the pitfalls that damage so many young talents. (Even Vinny thinks so)

After retiring from hockey in 2000, Cicco has continued to look out for the youngsters, exposing many dangerous problems in the QMJHL, ranging from drug abuse, to lack of adequate time for school and studies, to gratuitous violence.

He spends most of his time now as a commentator on Radio-Canada (en françias) and is a frequent contributor to "La Zone," a French-language sports show. I watch a lot of episodes of La Zone, but I have absolutely no idea what anyone is saying.² Even though the language barrier prohibits me from really following much of what my second favorite player of all time³ is saying, I'm beyond thrilled that he's still saying it and that he is doing well.

So, with all that said... Happy Birthday Cicco! Or rather, Joyeux Anniversaire Cicco!

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¹Thank you, Wikipedia!

²Mostly I watch because it is fun to listen to. I can pick up a name or a hockey term once and awhile. I took French in college for a year, but my ability to speak (and hear) the language is basically limited to "bon jour, " "ça va," "trés bien," "j'ai mal à la tête," et "vous êtes une super nana." When I was teaching last semester, my former French professor had a class down the hall. She actually remembers me, and I always meant to take her an episode or two to see if she could translate.

³Thought that was Brad Richards, huh? B-Rad is my second favorite active player. And strangely enough, I started following him because of Cicco. The Ciccone connection introduced me to Vincent Lecavalier. Now Vinny is pretty cool, but when I started to hear about his buddy, the lesser known Brad Richards who was still in the juniors at the time, I was intrigued more by the "little guy" (kind of like Mathieu way back when). It seemed kind of fateful that B-Rad broke into the league as Cicco left, and I've been following B-Rad ever since. Ta-da!