In 1972 The Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup against the New York Rangers. I was 7 and I’m pretty sure my brother Mark and I were playing hockey at that time. Bobby Ore was my favorite player and since that time I always remember the Bruins as being my favorite team. They never won another Stanley Cup after that. Until now that is. Congratulations to the 2011 Stanley Cup Champions, the Boston Bruins who took down the Vancouver Canucks in a very unlikely Game 7 away from home 4-0. And another huge congrats to Mark Recchi, who played his final game last night and retired at the age of 43 from Pro Hockey. He scored 5 goals in the playoffs and is a big inspiration to me. GO BRUINS!!!

Interesting bit of trivia – The oldest professional hockey player of all time was Gordie Howe who retired at age 52.

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These past couple of weeks we have seen an unusually cold time here in Portland with no precipitation. Most days have been sub-freezing and the nights have been in the teens. Last thursday night I caught a brief piece on the news about a frozen casting pond at Westmoreland Park where people were ice skating. How cool is that? The weekend was shaping up to be warmer with good chance of freezing rain or snow so I decided to throw my skates in the car and head out early friday morning to see this frozen pond for myself. I wasn’t sure of the size but it turns out this pond is big enough to fit about 8 ice rinks inside it. When I arrived there were about 20-30 people of all kinds skating and it looked fantastic! This would be the first time I ever had the chance to skate outdoors. This is the kind of thing you just don’t see in Portland. I stuck around for a few hours and just had a blast. The Winter Hawks even showed up and brought a net with them. It was all very informal and we eventually had a big game going on that was basically the Hawks against everyone else. It was crazy fun! It’s a day I won’t soon forget. [album id=3 template=compact]Photos by Justin Pick