Claimed: Looking out my back door [1/2]

[jRuutu 2,426]

 

I have now officially sold my apartment in Quebec and moved into Seattle and into new place. Somebody might be wondering how much I got for two bedroom place almost right in the middle of Quebec,  not much. Turns out I did not actually own the place - I rented it from Frank Chadwick, who is the GM of Quebec, but I don´t remember ever paying rent, so I was happy to get 40k from Matthieu Bourdon who was looking for a place to live in Quebec. He is the new guy in Quebec, so I thought I help out and give discount on the place I don´t really own, my way to welcome Matt into Quebec and also say thanks to Quebec at the same time.

 

I have been living in Seattle close to five days now. My new place here is close to the arena where we play our home games, that was actually almost my only criteria for the apartment, gotta be able to walk to work, great way to get some fresh air,  especially in the mornings. Nothing worse than sitting in a car and being tired, when you walk and breathe fresh air, you wake up little bit at the same time. My new crib has two bedrooms also, but what is different here is the bathroom area, extra wide sinks and full body mirror! That is huge for hairy guy like me, but I´m not going to talk more about that. Really happy that I found this place so fast, got everything single man like myself need and like I said, close to the arena.

 

Since I´m new to the city, guys in the team have been helping me out a lot and told some good places where to eat and things to go and see, like the most famous ones - Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Chihuly Garden and Glass etc. First impression of Seattle: I like it, beautiful place that has a lot to offer, great food and awesome views! I have barely scratched the surface and have not visited all the places I should, but I still got some time to spend before the training camp starts, so going to see what Seattle is really about during next 7 days!

 

 

 

After I arrived to Seattle, I have not just walked around the city, I have also tried to get more familiar with the players in Seattle Bears and of course with everybody in the coaching staff. Like I mentioned, the training camp has not even started yet, so everything is still possible with trades and free agency madness, but looking at the roster right now, I´m liking what I´m seeing. We got really talented group of players in Seattle, got little bit of everything in the roster, got elite level scoring power in McAllister and Gretzky, excellent two-way game in Fook Yu and really promising young players like Forsberg, LaFlamme and Quill.

 

Perhaps the most interesting fact is the amount of centers in the Seattle roster. Got 4 right now, that is a lot, but few will play on the winger position of course, but having so many centers in the roster tells you something, four players who can play on the middle usually means those players are solid two-way players as well, or should be at least. If you cant play in your own end at all and focus only on offense, you cant be a center.

 

Having versatility like that makes it that much easier for the GM and coaches to put lines together, if one player is injured or not playing well, can just switch the lineup little bit.

 

In net we have Axelberry and Perought,  Axelberry is a solid goalie and Perought is young and upcoming goalie, so that area is covered quite nicely. I will naturally play in defense with Federov, we are quite similar as players, so I´m looking forward to getting out there and playing with Federov and seeing how well our ideas click when playing regular season hockey.

 

I bought a painting, it´s a cat looking at the Space Needle!

 

Team is looking nice and the city is looking nice, move from Quebec to Seattle has put a lot of energy inside of me, so refreshing to experience something like this as a veteran player. I was almost sure I will retire in Quebec, but in the hockey world everything is possible, now I´m in Seattle and getting ready to finish my career in here. I have two more seasons before I will call it a day, I would like to play more and for longer, but my body might not allow that, I have played quite physically in the past and that has not helped at all, especially those punches to my face has taken it´s toll, if I looked bad when I was a young player, should see my face now. Of course there is more to it than having scars and looking rough, for example how long can I push my luck and expect to walk away from hit to the head without any major effects to my mental state ? Been extremely lucky to not have any massive concussion problems in the past, but in my line of work - it´s only matter of time. Better to walk away as a fairly healthy man and enjoy time away from hockey as a player who went out on my own terms.

 

 

That is not something I need to worry about too much now, fully focused in Seattle Bears and getting a cup right away. What comes down to the training camp and depreciation, I have been thinking of focusing heavily on my skating and scoring, those are two of the  biggest tools in my tool box and I gotta have them on elite level to be able to help Seattle as much as possible. I know I have talked about this in the past, but having defender who can score goals is absolutely massive, how often you watch your favorite team and defenders in general shoot miles away from the net and thought about if only those shots would hit the target even half of the time? I know I got that feeling when I watched Team Finland play back in the day, the shooting ability of some of the defenders was disgusting, that pushed me to work hard on my shot and eventually my shot opened a lot of doors for me.  Depreciation has not visited me yet this year, but I heard it´s coming soon, so we will see just how much work I will have in store before regular season!

 

(1050ish)

 

11.12 - 17. 12  and 25.12 - 31.12

[hedgehog337 3,480]

Perought is retired.

[jRuutu 2,426]

13 minutes ago, hedgehog337 said:

Perought is retired.

Oh

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

Review:

Lol at selling the place you don't really own.
I can't say anything about Quebec in real life, although I have relatives who have been there and say it's amazing.

But, I can definitely speak for Seattle. It's a great city and I wouldn't mind living there myself.