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Post by boltsgm on Mar 16, 2018 14:31:49 GMT -5
So I'm leaving this restaurant (Buddy's Pizza) and I walk past the bar area, and it's kind of closed off because of a private party it seemed. I see an older guy standing up about 20 feet away and he looks super familiar. So I'm staring at this guy for like 6 seconds (which is kind of long to be staring), and I swear I know who he is, but I have no idea where I know him from. For a second, I thought it was a friends grandpa and I was debating if I should wave or go up to him because that's polite. I'm still staring at him when he looks up and we lock eyes. I then realize who the hell this man is and I give kind of like a half smile and quickly shuffle out the door.
I know he probably get's it a lot, and it is a bigger deal in my head, but I still kind of feel like a dumbass. I'm against treating celebrities like celebrities if they are doing everyday things especially with family. The whole ordeal was still kind of cool though. I locked eyes with Mickey Redmond.
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Post by Kraken Bobby on Mar 16, 2018 14:34:19 GMT -5
I love this. Were like little kids for a brief moment. Ive got a few stories I will share when I get a minute. Nice!!
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Post by boltsgm on Mar 16, 2018 14:37:12 GMT -5
I would love to hear them! I met Ericcson too once! He was at a local grocery store promoting some condiment and I deadass listen to his shpeel for like 10 minutes before I gathered the courage to ask for a picture. Ericcson! He's not even good, but I was still kind of intimidated.
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Post by Kraken Bobby on Mar 16, 2018 20:44:43 GMT -5
I got a couple... Summer of 1989 im in Regina Saskatchewan at an indoor mini golf place and im with my brother playing a round. I see this guy golfing with two little kids. As we pass I just say "your Darren Veitch" He laughs and says "holy shit nobody ever recognizes me unless im wearing a jersey" I just chuckle and tell him Im a die hard Leaf fan and a friend of his team mate Todd Gill. He was grinning every time I saw him after that.
That relays to the Gill story or better yet the Big Bird story. I am on the board of a local charity. We hired Todd Gills wife Krista as our executive director. We run a Brockville Ribfest fundraiser in the summer and require a ton of volunteers. Todd offered to help in the beer tent stocking beer and stuff behind the scenes. While standing out front chatting with a buddy we see Larry Robinson standing in line beside us waiting to get a beer. He had been in town on his boat and decided to enjoy the festival. As the line moved closer an older guy infront of Larry kept looking at the bar then looking back at Larry. Finally he turns to Larry and says " I think thats Todd Gill behind the bar" Larry looks over at us laughing and says "I think your right" grinning ear to ear. Pretty funny stuff. I went back and told Todd the story and he went to find Larry to rib him a bit that he was in Leaf country. (side note Larry played Jr hockey for the Brockville Braves at one time.
Last one is with Todd again andnot really a sighting for me but still funny.We were at a Buffalo Bills game sitting about 10 to 12 rows from the field. The guys 4 rows infront of us kept standing and blocking our view of the game and more importantly the cheerleaders. We had a few pops during the tailgate and Todd yelled ath the idiots to sit down. Typical fuck you...come down her and say that blah blah blah. Then one of the guys below says "Your Todd Gill" he had retired at this time BTW. Then they all bugged him to come down and take a pic which he obliged. When he returned he was laughing and saying "They all hated me when i was playing but now im a legend LOL Then he said " and the Grinches heart grew 10 times that day"
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Post by AvsGM on Mar 16, 2018 22:43:13 GMT -5
Not really a hockey story, but kinda...
When I was a teenager I was on a plane with my family going from NY to CA. During the flight I saw my dad standing by the stewardess area talking to an older gentleman for a while, so eventually I got up to stretch my legs and see what was going on. As I walked over I realized my dad was talking to Willie Mays! I was a huge baseball fan as a kid so I was pretty excited. Eventually my stepmom came over and my dad said to her "I would like to introduce you to one of my childhood heroes, Willie Mays". To which she replied (word for word), "are you some kind of hockey player or something?". Needless to say he had a pretty good laugh and then was nice enough to take pictures with us and give us all autographs.
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Post by Kraken Bobby on Mar 17, 2018 10:10:42 GMT -5
Mickey Redmond is a find though... Im not sure id recognize him unless he looked a lot like his Opee Chee hockey card!
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Post by boltsgm on Mar 19, 2018 7:09:41 GMT -5
lol it's funny how it's "fuck you" until you realize he was a professional athlete.
"are you some kind of hockey player" I lost it.
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Post by boltsgm on Mar 19, 2018 7:10:05 GMT -5
Mickey Redmond is a find though... Im not sure id recognize him unless he looked a lot like his Opee Chee hockey card! See him during the Wings broadcasts, so it's a familiar face
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Post by Isles-Aaron on Mar 19, 2018 8:03:08 GMT -5
I have been lucky enough to meet and talk with Don Cherry himself at one of his restaurant opening in Kingston years ago, even got his autograph on a menu. He talks with you as if he has known you all his life.. what a great guy!
The best story I have is playing in a charity golf tourney in Lanark Ontario. As I proceed to the sign up desk, I look up and it's Battlin' Billy Smith behind it taking names. I didn't get much chance to talk with him but being an Isle fan myself it was great to see one of the greats up close and get an autograph.
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Post by RangersRon on Mar 19, 2018 14:40:39 GMT -5
My story is not hockey guy but I was at Jets/Giants preseason game and afterwards my friends and I headed to strip club behind Giant stadium. When we got their Lawrence Taylor was already behind the bar, I swear he left before the game ended. Anyway a friend of mine introduced us and we talked for hours about football, life, everything, he was cool to talk to. My friend said we were talking like we were friends for years. Well conversations did take breaks as he headed into kitchen for his pick me ups. The guy who introduced me to him was his supplier/dealer, probably the real reason he was talking so much. Funny thing is he taped all his fingers for games and his fingers were still taped, saw years later at another bar and he remembered me and we had another long conversation. Great guy but wide open, he partied as hard as I did back in the day!
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Post by boltsgm on Mar 19, 2018 14:52:27 GMT -5
My story is not hockey guy but I was at Jets/Giants preseason game and afterwards my friends and I headed to strip club behind Giant stadium. When we got their Lawrence Taylor was already behind the bar, I swear he left before the game ended. Anyway a friend of mine introduced us and we talked for hours about football, life, everything, he was cool to talk to. My friend said we were talking like we were friends for years. Well conversations did take breaks as he headed into kitchen for his pick me ups. The guy who introduced me to him was his supplier/dealer, probably the real reason he was talking so much. Funny thing is he taped all his fingers for games and his fingers were still taped, saw years later at another bar and he remembered me and we had another long conversation. Great guy but wide open, he partied as hard as I did back in the day! Were the boobies nice?
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Post by RangersRon on Mar 19, 2018 15:07:46 GMT -5
My story is not hockey guy but I was at Jets/Giants preseason game and afterwards my friends and I headed to strip club behind Giant stadium. When we got their Lawrence Taylor was already behind the bar, I swear he left before the game ended. Anyway a friend of mine introduced us and we talked for hours about football, life, everything, he was cool to talk to. My friend said we were talking like we were friends for years. Well conversations did take breaks as he headed into kitchen for his pick me ups. The guy who introduced me to him was his supplier/dealer, probably the real reason he was talking so much. Funny thing is he taped all his fingers for games and his fingers were still taped, saw years later at another bar and he remembered me and we had another long conversation. Great guy but wide open, he partied as hard as I did back in the day! Were the boobies nice? LOL Knew owner and knew the girls so really was not paying attention, more of a hang out for us. LOL Back in day, knew alot of working ladies.....
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Post by Nordiques - Chris on Mar 19, 2018 17:39:51 GMT -5
My story is not hockey guy but I was at Jets/Giants preseason game and afterwards my friends and I headed to strip club behind Giant stadium. When we got their Lawrence Taylor was already behind the bar, I swear he left before the game ended. Anyway a friend of mine introduced us and we talked for hours about football, life, everything, he was cool to talk to. My friend said we were talking like we were friends for years. Well conversations did take breaks as he headed into kitchen for his pick me ups. The guy who introduced me to him was his supplier/dealer, probably the real reason he was talking so much. Funny thing is he taped all his fingers for games and his fingers were still taped, saw years later at another bar and he remembered me and we had another long conversation. Great guy but wide open, he partied as hard as I did back in the day! Coach G wins.
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Post by Nordiques - Chris on Mar 19, 2018 18:06:15 GMT -5
My stories are less glamourous, but met and chatted with some cool peeps over the several years I dove into hockey writing with a focus on prospects. I finally put it on hiatus last year as I found it was taking way too much time to produce quality material. It started to feel like a second job, so took a break. Anyhow, I know I'm forgetting some but some of the guys I chatted with include prospects (at the time), Coaches, and some cool media personnel. - Alex. Barkov - when World Juniors were in Calgary - it was year before he was draft eligible, but I had my eyes on him. I think I was first media personnel to request an interview with him. Cool customer even then. He probably should have had translator, but we managed. - My fav interview actually was Jiri Fischer, former Red Wings dman. He was asst coach of Czech at that same World Juniors. He gave me so much time and answered a ton of question very insightfully. Great lad. Smart, sharp. Was hoping to see him to "go places" in NHL as coach/management. We'll see. - Oh! This was a phone one, but Igor effin' Larionov. I connected thru his daughter (Alyonka, not hard on the eyes, given the theme that Ron brought up : ), to get quotes on Yakupov and Galchenyuk in their draft year. - Nail Yakupov at WJCs - I wasn't his biggest fan at the time, but admittedly still thought he was the best prospect from that draft, like most everyone else...there was something about him that set off a red alarm though, but couldn't put my finger on it... - Mikhail Grigorenko - I got thwarted twice by goddamn Sergei, the Russian PR dude who, just as we started chatting, would call him away. Finally got him later on. 3 times lucky. - Many others from that tourney including Johan Larsson (Sweden captain), Sebastian Collberg (hasn't turned out), Marko Dano, Ryan Murray - Jermaine Franklin - TSN personality - couldn't be nicer guy - Elliotte Friedman at Flames-Habs outdoor Heritage Classic (I talked to some players at that one, but memory evading me at the moment) - Matt Dumba: chatted with him few times covering the Hitmen - Chatted with some coaches in WHL who were former players as well - Pens prospect Teddy Blugers. Still hoping he turns out - everybody was after Zemgus Girgenson at WJCs from his team; I was the first to request Teddy and he seemed shocked at first (he was draft eligible and I liked what I saw). We had great chat afterwards. It was funny; I was nervous for first couple interviews at WJCs, then other media members would seem to be watching for who I was requesting and piggy back on my interview (Ryan Kennedy, THN for one; as well, Aaron Vickers from Future Considerations and NHL.com). As well, several guys from scouting outlets would be listening in on my interviews (Mark Edwards from HockeyProspect.com who scouts full time, for one) - Sam Cosentino from Sportsnet specializes in prospects. I sat with him at a Hockey Canada selection camp and a red and white game Team Canada put on - he is super knowledgable and kept chatting to me, asking my opinions, and (even he was just being polite) said he enjoying my stuff. - Oh, former Flames GM Jay Feaster - got to ask him a few questions at hockey event. Great to chat with. (Side note: actually glad to see Mark Jankowski finally turn out as that pick made him a sort of laughing stock. He deserved better. Really nice guy. Super smart. Think he knew what he didn't know and left true hockey decisions to hockey minds).
Sorry for the longer than planned walk down memory lane. It was many of the GMs here that actually convinced me to take a stab at sportswriting and it went farther than I actually could imagine. Thanks for that, lads!
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Post by LeafsGM on Mar 19, 2018 20:47:48 GMT -5
Worked the 09 combine together with Shawn. We were posted at different stations throughout and at one point caught Hedman at the post workout lounge and told him how much I watched his highlights on YouTube. He goes, what's YouTube? We had a laugh and I told him what it was, it was probably a 2-3 min chat but felt like a lifetime to me. Great guy and we even snapped a pic, until some jerk saw it and made me delete it on the spot. Met Jason Arnott and had a few drinks with him at a wedding where I was a plus one. Great guy, snapped a pic that I dug up, luckily this one wasn't deleted: twitpic.com/5obiyi
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