What I like about being a Big Red fan

[CowbellGuy]

http://www.elynah.com/?movieb&id=194

You can't see Nick, because he's out of the net, but the last goal of the game is the one.

[HeafDog]

Along the lines of Drew's story about a subway platform encounter with a Clarkson fan, I too had a similar encounter with a Clarkson fan.  Only it was 3000 miles further west.

A few years ago, I was driving to work in the San Francisco Bay Area when I passed by a white pickup truck on the highway (they call highways "freeways" out there, as most of you know, but I'm not a Californian, so I'm not doing it).  I saw it had a green and yellow Clarkson bumper sticker on it, and the 'l' in 'Clarkson' was shaped like a hockey stick.  I drove ahead of the guy, thinking he might see the CORNELL bumper sticker on the back of my car.

Well, he must have, because he pulled up alongside me and, as we're driving along at 65 mph, looks over and makes some sort of gesture as if to say, "HEY, CORNELL GUY, did you see the bumper sticker on the back of my truck?"

I gestured back, "YEAH, I SAW IT..."  I think I even said, "Screw the bumper sticker, SEE MY HAT?" as I was wearing my favorite Cornell Hockey brim at the time.  And then we made gestures back and forth to signify something along the lines of, "HOCKEY FAN, right?"  (Picture taking your hands off the wheel for a split second and making like you're using a hockey stick to play a puck.)

The idea having been successfully communicated, we smiled and waved at each other, and then kept on driving.  I couldn't believe that I had had somewhat of a (friendly) college hockey smacktalk session, 3000 miles away from home, and still grin at the memory.

(As a footnote, I later encountered the same guy at an area sports bar, and we kept in touch for a while.  Totally nice guy, though I've forgotten his name.)

It goes without saying that so many of our memories of CU Hockey are good ones.  That's why, bad administration of things like the hockey line and all, we'll keep coming back.  Let's go Red.

[Beeeej]

I started a new contract job on Monday of this week; I'm working with a team of lawyers doing document review on some corporate litigation.  It's not exciting, but it's work, and the people are cool.

Tuesday, I found out that one of the lawyers working on another project at this location (it's not a "temp agency" so much as a "new kind of law firm") is one of my fellow eLFers.  I'll let him self-identify if he wishes.  :-)  But it was a pretty cool coincidence.

Then, yesterday, we had a ninth lawyer added to our team, and we were asked to go around the room and give our names and say what we do when we're not at work.  I didn't want to say the usual "gym, cats, reading, biking" crap, so I mentioned that eleven years after graduating from college, I still have season tickets to my school's hockey team.  That raised a few eyebrows.

More importantly, though, the lawyer who sits next to me at work struck up a conversation based on it later - he's an Ohio State alum and an actual Ohio State hockey fan.  Yes, they do exist!  We talked smack for a little bit, but then waxed poetic about college hockey in general.  It was a nice connection to make during an otherwise very boring project.

Beeeej