Yeah baby, the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup again! And the Lakers won the night before. I've been a die hard Wings fan since 94 when I first started playing hockey. My first year playing, I was voted the best defenseman and my second year, I got bumped up to center. I started to study my favorite player and still is, Sergei Fedorov to play like him and move up and down as quickly as possible playing at both ends of the net. I play a lot of sports and I believe the NHL playoffs are the hardest to get through and that the Stanley Cup is the hardest thing to win. I remember wearing my Avs jersey in high school because of the great rivalry and everyone in my school chased me around the hallways after school ended. When they won back to back in 97 and 98, I was bummed because I could not go to the parade due to finals week in high school. Now that they have won again, I am sort of in that dilema again. This year the parade is on Monday, so do I go to class? If I go to class and try to go straight to the parade after, then I'll get some crap spot. However there is also VBS, although I'm not doing anything till Wednesday, I feel like I should be there even though I never committed to doing anything. So what am I suppose to do?

I was listening to what Kobe said during the post game interviews last night. And he is right, what do you plan on doing now that you're a 3 time champ was the question. He didn't say he was going to Disney Land but he did say he was gonna start going back to work for next season already. That's the heart of a champion and the desire to be getting better and better. To this day, I still have yet to figure out why some people bother playing certain sports when they have no desire in being better or trying to improve. Like today, I had another great day of soccer practice/scrimmage, and now I am starting to get that soccer rust off. And when we get this team together, hopefully I'll be contributing a lot more and scoring more than one goal a game. The thing I love about playing with these group of guys, is that they all want to be better. And I just love the fellowship and how we close the day off with a word of prayer.

And speaking of team work, watching the Wings made me evaluate of my thought process for CCUC. Yeah I keep talking about it, but I don't get to leave the house that much. And just spending time going out there and fellowshiping with close friends and meeting new people is just an unbelievable experience. Or going through practice whenever we're gonna get started on that, it's just a lot of fun because we're all striving to win our own version of the Stanley Cup. Anyways going back to what was I saying about weighing my options. I wanna be on a team like the Red Wings. No not with a collection of stars, but just how close knit there team is. A priceless moment was seeing Stevie Y's daughter , Isabella going up with him to get the Cup from Gary Bettman. At that moment, it made me wanna have a kid, to have that type of experience. Playing on the A team for b-ball would be like that, because everyone on this team has a lot of individual talent. I see guys like Andy lately bringing his kid Conner, to b-ball is just a moment you would want to treasure if you were a father. He's so cute but a little on the violent side, but you can tell from Andy that winning one last championship is running out of time for him. That is what would want me to play A b-ball, is just the collection of talent and everyone is playing hard.

Also there is the fact of playing on C b-ball and my goal was to form my own CBC b-ball team for the C Division. This is where the boys and I are all close, and we can all build on that as brothers in Christ. With this type of team, I would like to have like team dinners or just get togethers to build the unity as a team. Sometimes I'm bummed though because some of the guys believe they are better than C. We all have pride, but when I hear people say that, it makes me wonder why would I wanna bother trying to put together a team like this. We would have a great time as a team because all of us are close friends to begin with. So my goal of forming an all CBC team is slowly shutting down.

Then there's the v-ball side, the thought of repeating champs is a great feeling. Actually I wanna do what Kobe or what I saw Sergei did, which was hold up 3 fingers for how many championships they've won now. Well I would hold up two if this was to happen. Since I still haven't decided, I'm just trying to put together a strong team for my co-captains. Last year's team, was great despite some team turmoil, but it helped me grow as a leader/captain of this team. When we won, it was truly a team effort, Mark and Kin just spiking it with power but more importantly with control, Joyce and Lindsay were just amazing with there sets, and Tim just placing the ball at uncovered areas just like only his daddy can. I'm upset that Mark won't be playing this year because of other priorities, and I hope Kin will know soon enough if he will be returning, and I wonder if Tim is gonna play with us or play with his dad this year. So I'm kind of bummed that I can't get the type of players on this team that I would like to see. And again my love for this game isn't at a high right now. What will it take to get my passion back for this great sport?

Gosh this has to be my longest blog for sure, it's because I can't sleep. I'm still too excited that the Wings won! Also I got a couple of bumps and bruises that kind of make it hard to go to bed. I'm also kind of down that Scotty Bowman is retiring now, but I'm glad that he is leaving this game on his own terms and on a Stanley Cup win. Here's an annoying part to me, now that the Wings won, let's bring out those fake fans, who don't know what the G is all about. Like I was watching the UPN coverage of the post game interviews, and that other anchor girl sitting next to Makeupson, like acting like it's a great thing for the Wings to win. Yet she did not know about the playoff beards, and she said something like did you know that those beards are superstitious during the playoffs or that they grow them for the playoffs. Like hello??? please do not talk about hockey again lady, so this weekend let's see all the fake fans coming out of the closet acting as if they knew this game all along. I guess it's time for me to call it a night now, I think I blab enough and plus I wanna get up early for the U.S. game as they go for the World Cup.

Without Stanley