STRANGE FEELING ON EVE OF WINTER CUP 2016

This is a tough one for me to write, normally this evening I would be packing up my car and hitting the road for our annual Winter Cup event in Pittsburgh.  This is (aside from Nationals) my favorite event of the year!  HotShots is such a great facility to visit, the staff is great led by Nick Pilotti, the rink is always in great shape and I love the Pittsburgh area.  On top of all of that, this is the one event that our entire staff is at prior to Nationals and getting to see some of my favorite people in the community like Jason Muro, Dave Thomas and Vio is always a great time.  On top of the coaches, the families that I have become close to over the years (especially the Dellamorte’s and Halvorsen’s) are conversations I am going to miss big time.

This year I made the decision to work a little more behind the scene with T2H4I in order to spend more quality time with my family.  As most of you know, I have twin 5 year olds at home and every day that I travel I have constantly missed them more and more.  With added responsibilities consistently coming at my “normal job” I had to make some adjustments  and Winter Cup was one of those.

I am going to miss this event more than you can all imagine.  Even with the late nights and hectic schedule it is so much fun to get to be around the rink with my second family.  Guys like Mike “Willie” Bell and his ridiculous pranks that always happen this time of year, George Brown, who as you all know can be high maintenance at times but is someone that I am proud to call a great friend and of course our two owners Joe and Ron who hands down are the best guys to work “with” in the business. 

With all of that being said, I wanted to write a quick note to wish all of the teams good luck this weekend.  We have some great organizations coming out to kick off the season including the Tour Roadrunners, Pittsburgh Tour Bandits, Revision Inferno and Mission Black Ice and I can’t forget newcomers in 2015 Winchester Warriors and all of these organizations will be represented in Kalamazoo this summer. 

Speaking of “K-Zoo” I don’t know that I have ever been more pumped for Nationals.  This arena is amazing and there is a ton to do in the area.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, definitely take a few minutes to look at their Facebook page and website, this years atmosphere is going to be more electric than ever!

Well, I am done rambling for now but again I will miss you all this weekend and hope you all enjoy Winter Cup.  I’ll be in Chicago, Detroit twice and at Nationals so hopefully we will be able to catch up soon.