I will definitely be attending a few Colorado Eagles games this season – my hotshot is what you call a pretty big fan. I used to dismiss it as just an adorable quirk of his, but in the last couple of seasons I’ve gone from “Eagles? Why not just keep driving and watch some professional hockey in Denver” to a self-proclaimed big fan. See, people can change!

Besides, any sport that this can happen in a fit of anger has my vote:

I wasn’t at this actual game, unfortunately. But if this is how the assistant coach channels his anger, I’ll keep sticking around to see if it happens again. No shame here.

I actually met this coach on Saturday night. After an exciting game we headed over to  the after show at this restaurant/bar in town – a fun post-game tradition where the owner, coaches, and a few players will show up and chat with everybody. FYI y’all, sometimes the players are hard to recognize – the look very different cleaned up and in person than with a helmet on or in their PR photos.

But we did recognize the Eagles owner, Mr. Backstrom, and the aforementioned Assistant Coach “Greatest Temper Tantrum by an Adult in Public Ever” Pankewicz. Let me set the scene: A bar, a band just started playing, and a lot of people – fans, groupies and drunks. So we spot the owner and head over to shake his hand – I was so nervous! How do you tell somebody you hope to be as rich as him someday and by the way is he in the market for a young personal assistant or intern/chauffer or anyyyything? – so I panicked and just said “great game!” He said (he is an older gentleman and remember that band is playing not twenty feet away from us) something I couldn’t hear but kind of gestured to the assistant coach sitting next to him. I assumed it was “oh I had nothing to do with it” or something more eloquent than just the “nope” I thought he said at the time. So he gestures to Coach Pankewicz and I make the move to shake his hand and then one of those oh this will be hilarious! ideas popped into my head so I lean in and go “Nice to meet you! I’m really looking forward to you taking all your clothes off on the ice again this season.”

Yes. I said that. To a stranger.

That video was taken two seasons ago and I’m sure he’s sick of hearing about it (or, as I like to imagine, secretly thinks what he did was awesome). He just gave a kind of an embarrassed chuckle and just kept saying “oh no, oh no, oh no” in some kind of Canadian/Minnesotan/Far North accent so I just flashed him a smile and got out of there before I started laughing too hard to ruin the moment.

I’ve never felt so conspicuous or awesome at the same time. It was glorious.

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Girly shoutout/hotshot brag: On our way out of the bar we had to cross the empty dance floor right in front of the band, so my hotshot turned, gave me a spin and a dip, then led me out of the place without missing a beat. That handsome fella knows how to make an exit, y’all!