Jay Richards

It worked out to do the grooming in the late evening this past weekend so I could catch a couple of Jon's games in Thief River Falls tourney over the weekend. The first game was at 8am Sat. morning. TRF is about 1.5 hours north of here so not a bad drive, especially in the early morning and hardly any traffic. The first game was at the Ralph Engelstad arena, or the Betty they say up there since the original is in Grand Forks where the Sioux play. Last year went up there for the Section 8AA final against Moorhead and Roseau but it was full house and hard to take it all in but a beautiful rink, incredible really, for a town of 9000. Hope to catch a Section final this year.


Entrance. I know a lot of groomguys don't like Arctic Cat as a company but last time I checked, there weren't any snowmobile manufacturers sponsoring any Nordic related events so when making purchasing decisions in the future....
When you walk inside it is something else. Granite flooring.

Single tier seating. A great seat anywhere in the house.

Images and what not of years past.
Taking and elevator up and down to the locker rooms.
When I got there, I asked how to get to the box since I was going to run the door. They said go down the stairs, look for the locker room and will take you right to the box. I couldn't find the locker room so I went through a door, walked through a hallway and then I popped out to the box. Except it was the penalty box and I could see Jon's team across the rink on the other side. Not sure how that happened. So I went back to the long hallway and sprinted around the rink and found the TRF locker room, went through their box, on the ice, buzzer rang, stepped in our box and the puck was dropped. We had TRF the first game and they have to be the best team we have played this year. We lost 6-1 and it would of been more but our goalie played unreal. We always seem to have slow games the first game of tourneys. Ended up winning the second two games, both Canadian teams.. right on! and fifth place. After the weekend, Jon is up to 78 goals now. I didn't believe it but we went through each game. With up to 9-10 games left on the year, he could possibly make 100. Crazy.

Locals getting some laps in.
They were making french toast to order with bacon at the concession stand. Never seen that before. Jens put down a full foot long and Jon had breakfast pizza. The kids have to put up with me sometimes, I know. Jake told my Mom to "work on me". It isn't going to get any better, in fact, it will probably get worse the older I get because the more normal and "cool" you try to act, the dorkier you get so they might as well get used to it. At least the Canadian people thought it was funny. Thing is, after my bike and ski friends Brendan Moore and Per and Margie Nelson dealing with the losses in their life, who I think about daily, you learn to appreciate the funny and special moments and nice to have this blog to keep it all tracked down.
Ralph. Both EGF and TRF grateful for his genorosity but keeping that TRF rink going, covering the operating costs has been challenging for them.