Bowling Green State University Athletics
Jonathan Matsumoto's Blog
March 02, 2007 | Ice Hockey
March 2, 2007
BGSUFALCONS.COM - So it is 3 p.m. Friday afternoon on the day of our opening playoff game against the University of Nebraska Omaha. Most teams that are playing in the first round of CCHA are off taking a pre-game nap in a nice hotel in a warm comfortable bed. We are at a Pizza Hut 60 miles and two hours away from the city of Omaha, in some small town of Iowa. When most players have awoken from their nap they are getting dressed in track suits waiting for the bus to bring them to the rink. We are waiting for an experienced man in a large green John Deere tractor to pull us up a hill, so we can continue onto our destination. Whatever is thrown at us we will take and take with a smile. This has been our theme all week.
Wednesday - February 28, 2007
After finding out we would be traveling to UNO for the first round of the playoffs, we were anxious in figuring out our travel plans. We attempted to get an NCAA exemption to allow us to leave before the standard 48 hours prior to a match. That was unsuccessful, so we had a normal practice on Wednesday as we prepared for the Mavericks. We leave at 6 p.m. on our way to Coralville, Iowa, which is where we would stay after completing half of our trip. All is good at this point. We sleep soundly Wednesday night after a long and tiring day of travel. Movies for this leg of the trip consisted of `Office Space', `The Edge' and `The Greatest Game Ever Played'.
Thursday - March 1, 2007
The day starts out promising enough with a 10 am wake up call, followed by a solid breakfast in the morning. We Load up the bus and the day gets even better with, `Enemy at the Gates' playing on the bus. Everything is good, smiles and jokes all around, ready to get to Omaha and raise some hell. Ahhh, spoke to soon I guess. I-80 the highway we have been taking the whole time is closed, no big deal for the Falcons. Coach decides to stop for lunch at a mall in Des Moines and try to wait it out. Lunch time is definitely the best time of the day. Chinese food is the overwhelming favorite among the guys. We get word that the highway will be closed a little bit longer. No big deal again we don't mind because we know that nothing can stop us, not even a closed highway. So it's movie time again, this time at the mall theater. Two different movies are starting up, so it's time for Breach or Ghostrider, tough call for most of the guys, so time to split up and see Breach. The movie finally ends and it is problem time again. The I-80 is still not open and there is no chance of waiting it out. No problem we don't need to get there the night before, we can still go on game day and win. We are confident of that after last week's performance up at Michigan State, where the bus broke down on the way to East Lansing and we had to stop at Toledo and get a new one.
Friday - March 2, 2007
Wake up call comes all too early for me at 8:45 AM but we need to get on the road. After breakfast, the highway is still closed so we try to wait it out again because there is some promising news, that we might be able to get on our way this afternoon, and show up to Omaha and win a game. So, back to bed and grab some shutskies. 11 am time to get the show on the road, we pack up our gear and are greeted by a Fox News TV crew in the lobby, looking to get a story about our travel problems. Sinks does his best to get in every camera shot of our team and before you know it we are leaving Des Moines. We are taking back roads and country roads to get to Omaha. 2 pm rolls around and we are starving. It's pre-game meal time and all we can find is a Pizza Hut. Food time, the mood on the bus starts picking up again. This is tough to describe how it actually happens because I wasn't really paying attention, but our bus gets stuck in the snow. We all hop off the bus and head in because Tom the bus driver says he can figure it out. Meals over and not a crumb of food is left in that Pizza Hut. Outside we go and the bus still has not moved. Team building time; push the bus out of the snow drift. Everyone grabs a hold and pushes, turns out we pushed so hard we caused the bottom of the bus to hit the ground. That is the result of the Falcon Strength department for you. I guess they made us too strong. End result the bus is still stuck and we are in a time of desperation. Four and a half hours to game time and we are stuck in a snow drift in some tiny town. Thankfully, Tony was there, who is Tony? Good question, some business owner who happened to have a John Deere truck. We finally get the bus out of the snow drift, take a quick picture with him to thank him and then get on our way for the final leg of our journey. Into Omaha for some Falcon Roadkill!!!!
