Rivermen Banquet

Tonight was the end of season banquet for the Rivermen. They have been playing awesome hockey though lately, so lucky for us it's not the end of the season - only the end of the regular season this week. They clinched a spot in the playoffs and will hopefully clinch home ice advantage on Wednesday! The banquet was fun! We sat with 2 players that we have never talked to. One of them we had great conversations with; the other just came here from Finland last week and does not speak much English - but he was nice!

They had bags for all of the kids on the tables so Justin got a lot of candy and treats! It was at a hall though so it was nice becuase all of the kids were running around away from the tables. As soon as we walked in he said "I want to go play with the kids" - mind you he has never played with these kids before. We didn't see him until he had to go potty maybe 1/2 hour later! He was so good :) I won a door prize too; a Rivermen t-shirt that will look great on my husband! After dinner they did the adopt a player announcements of who had what families. This year, the players knew ahead of time though so they could buy a gift if they wanted to for their family. We had Manny Legace and we got to meet him for the first time...he was SO down to earth and nice! When they called our names and we had to take his gift over, Justin carried it right over with it above his head the whole way - everyone was oohing and aahing at how cute he was :) We got him a shirt with the Peoria Harley Davidson dealership on it and a Harley 6 pack cooler. He likes to ride his Harley and I thought something to remember Peoria by would be good! His wife was really nice too!



Mr. Olsen giving a speach before the Marc Olsen award was presented. This guy is one of the coolest guys I have met. He was the captain of Tech's hockey team in 48-50. His whole family played hockey. His brother was on the Miracle on Ice team in the Olympics. His son Mike that we know well played for State...just a really nice family :)






Justin being the goalie with the new goalie stick he got from Manny












Manny signing Justin's goalie stick














Our family with Manny after dinner











The gifts we got from Manny. They had us fill out a questionaire about our family. I thought it was cute that he included the baby in the gifts too :) We also got a TGI Fridays giftcard...and 2 sticks (see above) that I couldn't pry out of Justin's hands - they are in bed with him now.

The little cards on the right are signed too - one from when he was a Red Wing and one from the Blues.



A close up of the picture he signed for Justin