Ought to Whine about Ottawa?

The answer is NO. They beat us fair and square in five games winning the series on our hectic moving day of May 19. Four games in the series were decided by a single goal.

But Ottawa could not handle the Anaheim Ducks in the Stanley Cup Final, falling in five. Things wrapped up two nights ago and Anaheim has some Buffalo tie-ins worth mentioning:

• Todd Marchant was born in Buffalo and got to hoist the Cup for the first time at age 33.
• Brad May was a 7-year Sabre and got to lift the Cup for the first time at age 35.
• Andrew Miller, brother of Sabres' super goalie Ryan, gets his name on Lord Stanley's hardware because he played two games in the finals. The 23-year-old was at Michigan State for the entirety of the regular season. Talk about being in the right place at the right time:)

I feel I have aged a lot in the last 3 weeks:) We moved after 15 years to a
more teenager-friendly home in Kelowna. There were problems with the movers and they did not get paid for almost two weeks. There are also contract items that were not looked after by the previous homeowner and I had to meet with our real estate agent and her boss two days ago to see how to resolve the issue.

How Old Do You Think I Am? Visit The Age Project and do a guess. I found this fun site tonight thanks to my friend, Dave Carrol. Be nice in your guess...I like to think I am aging well like a fine wine...now that sounds like a fine whine!

Ought to Win versus Ottawa!

We are coming up to game time in Buffalo as the Sabres are in the semifinals against Ottawa.
I am predicting it will take 6 games to move onto the finals and I
posted this at Peter's blog in Buffalo.

Have you seen and heard the Sabres' theme song for the playoff run?
Feature producer Matt Gould spent a couple weeks putting that together. Well worth the wait:)

15 years ago a Vancouver band named 54•40 put out a great album named "Dear Dear" and it included a catchy song named "Nice To Luv You." The chorus goes like this:
Nice to luv you baby
With all my heart and soul
Nice to luv you baby
No matter where I go

I would like to see them remix it for Sabre fans:
Nice to luv you SABRES
With all my heart and soul
Nice to luv you SABRES
No matter where I go

I am going to drop 54•40 an email about this. They are big hockey fans and are taking part in the Memorial Cup Celebrations in Vancouver May 18. That is where the top 4 teams in Canadian Junior hockey battle it out for number one!

“Go to” guys! No eGos here

Here are some clutch “Go To” guys I’d want on my Team:

Roberto LuonGo: He ain't NO GOat! He's great and the only reason the Vancouver Canucks survived the NHL playoffs until last night. Thanks for coming to Buffalo in January. Click here to see my MSG-TV intro for that game. Go golfing now Mr. LuonGo!

Travis Moen: Got an assist on the first goal last night against Vancouver and scored the overtime winner in the game before that! Played junior hockey here in Kelowna. How could ChicaGo let this guy get away to the Ducks?

Bob Souer: The best voiceover blog around celebrated it's two-year blogiversary this week. You can see some of the many folks like myself who thanked Bob on this special occasion.

Ross Huguet – GO 2 Productions is the result of a merger between
One Stop Voice Shop and Gener8 Creations. I worked with Ross in radio
and he and his right-hand man, Jim Ptycia, helped me get off on the right foot a couple of years ago when I ventured into voiceover. Online video is in the mainstream now so best of luck to Go 2 Productions as they help all kinds of companies with their branding.

“May Day! May Day!”...Moving day

Welcome to May!

Rick Jeanneret's famous “May Day! May Day!” call from 1993 can be listened to here.

It's actually my fault the Sabres lost Sunday in double overtime:)
I was emceeing the local kickoff to the minor baseball league season in town and did not have a chance to watch one second of the game. Sabres still lead the Rangers 2 games to 1 with Game 4 tonight in the Big Apple. I will be glued to the tube...

The first pitch was thrown out by Brent Gilchrist, who had a long NHL career and won the Cup with Detroit in '98. The current coach in Detroit, Mike Babcock, played junior hockey in Kelowna just like Brent. The Red Wings are the #1 seed in the West but currently trail San Jose 2 games to 1. One of the coaches for a young baseball team I introduced was another former NHL'er, Dixon Ward, who had his best years in Buffalo.

Our family has enjoyed 15 great years in our current home but last month we sold it and found a new one that has a better set up for my home studio. Other positives include the kids' rooms all being downstairs, a more central location, Grandma close by and we are not too far from my brother-in-law Darren and his family. Darren is turning 40 in a few days. Happy Birthday Darren!
You'll be pleased to know I'm renewing my Sports Illustrated subscription and you can borrow them any time...

Playoff Predictions...take a shot!

My voiceover friend in Buffalo, Peter O'Connell, has picked the Sabres to move on to the Final Four. I am hoping for the same results and Peter and I have said the New York Rangers will not survive past six games. You can see our bold predictions here along with Peter's story about "political interference."

Have some fun and let me know how you think the playoff road will turn out...
by the way, if the Sabres fall short, it's all Peter's fault...
Spoken like a true politician, eh?

Hockey ain't hokey!

Howdy partner!

Round 2 of the NHL playoffs starts Wednesday night as the Buffalo Sabres host the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks visit Anaheim. The Sabres got by the Islanders in round one 4 games to 1 and the Canucks survived a seven game series versus Dallas with a 4-1 win Monday night. Dallas' only goal came from Joel Lundqvist - brother of the Rangers' great goalie, Henrik Lundqvist.

Country music is popular in Dallas, Nashville and Calgary. But the pro hockey teams in those cities all got eliminated in the first round. Ouch!

The basketball team in Dallas - the Mavericks - were the top ranked NBA team this year with 67 wins, 6 more than the Phoenix Suns and former Dallas star, Steve Nash. Stevie "Wonder" and the Suns currently lead Kobe and the LA Lakers 2-0 in their opening round series while Dallas needs to bounce back against Golden State Wednesday to even their series at one apiece.

Can you believe the Dallas Mavericks Ownership Group landed its 767 luxury jet at the airport here in Kelowna last Tuesday for a major overhaul?

Here you can see the overhaul the basketball logo took after 20 years in 2001:

"Wheel Of Fortune"

The Sabres clinched the 2007 Presidents' Trophy as the top team in the league with their 2-0 shutout victory over the Washington Capitals two days ago. The Presidents' Trophy guarantees the Sabres home-ice advantage throughout the entirety of the 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs. That is good fortune I hope:)

The Buffalo jumble of letters offers some unique words, like FLUB, which I hope is not going to happen against their first round opponent, the New York Islanders. I am hoping those guys will play more like Gilligan's Islanders...FLOB is British slang for spitting, FLAB is not FAB if you are dieting...LOAF means to loiter or lounge around in an idle way. Our cat (camouflaged on the bed covers) is a perfect illustration of that, wouldn't you agree?

If we get another cat, I would want to call her Sabre Cat. But the one we have is named Bunzo. She makes us LAFF a lot...

Congrats to my sister-in-law, Sandra, and hubby Lewis Johnson. They recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. This Easter weekend they got a new car: a Toyota FJ Cruiser.

By the way, I am now listed at: CarDealerSpots.com. Last month I finished second in the running to become the branding voice of this trucking firm in Texas.

You can't win 'em all but it is fun to be in the game...I think I'll start my own car company: HASSER

Happy Birthday Son!

Our youngest, Jordan, turned 12 yesterday! We'll start preparing for the teen years now:)
13...along with 14, those are my 2 favorite numbers. Jordan's 13-year-old brother, Justin, was born on a 13 - in June. Darlene and I were married on August 13th.

I was born on March 14 and I appreciate the well wishes from my voiceover colleagues two weeks ago. Stephanie of Voices.com, Bob Souer and Liz de Nesnera are all having a great time at a voiceover conference in Las Vegas right now. To quote Liz: "This has truly been a life & career altering experience for me. Yeah, I know, sounds a bit dramatic, but you know sometimes you participate in something that you just KNOW is going to have a lasting effect on you...THIS is one of those times for me." Read more of Liz's comments here.

Happy birthday today to Nathan Paetsch of the Buffalo Sabres! He is 24 today and has 24 points in 60 games played this year. His best birthday present will have to wait for a while: the Stanley Cup! Just 6 games left in the regular season and then the NHL playoffs begin. GO Sabres! Go ALL the way! Just over an hour until game time versus the New York Islanders and here is how my opening (thanks to the pen of Matt Gould) on MSG-TV reads for tonight:
The end of the season is just over a week away...
But playoff excitement is already here to stay!
Wednesday was a major leap towards top spot in the East for Buffalo....
And tonight...the Sabres could be there for good!
The Islanders limp to town grasping for rare playoff air...
But are without their guy in goal.
The Island visits Western New York...NEXT on MSG!

TV interview

Well, it is time to take "our" blogging relationship to the next level. The last 2 blog entries have featured photos of yours truly BUT now you can see and hear me in this TV interview aired locally on Shaw Cable 11 and the show "Okanagan Today." It was produced by Tim Morton - a true Sabres fan...he has a tattoo to prove it:) My thanks also go out to the producer of "On The Adventure Trail", Kelly Veltri, who's technical expertise compressed this footage for the worldwide web. Kelly is a longtime Pittsburgh Penguins fan and they could be battling Buffalo for the title of best team in the Eastern conference. Beginning play tonight, Buffalo is on top while Pittsburgh is in fifth. Kudos of course to Feature Producer Matt Gould of the Sabres for writing those excellent opening scripts and mixing the video footage and graphics for MSG-TV.
I mailed Matt a CD with the interview but I'll email him the YouTube link tomorrow morning when I email him the mp3 voice file opening for the Saturday night game versus the Toronto Maple Leafs. Business associates I communicated with today on other projects got the YouTube link already. They include Edmonton's Chris Wait (a BIG Chicago Blackhawks fan), Chicago's Darren Callahan and Texas' Jason Gutierrez. As I leave you, it's 2-0 Buffalo against Montreal seven minutes in, 2-2 Pittsburgh and Carolina and Chicago losing 2-0 after one period to Detroit...some things NEVER change Chris!

Me and the Amazing Musicians!

In stores today is "Barenaked Ladies Are Men." They did a great show here in Kelowna, BC last night and I got free tickets thanks to Tour Manager extraordinary, Fin.

"Barenaked Ladies Are Me" was their last album in September '06. "Maybe You Should Drive" came out in 1994 and that's when the photo above (me in the middle) was taken on the tour bus.

ME-smerizing M-EN-tertainers! is what I said in an email moments ago to Fin. If you are fortunate enough to see them on tour in the next little while, you'll understand why M-E is played up in my review.

Barenaked Ladies and I (Me) worked for the same record company (Warner Music Canada). I was there for five years (1991-1996) and I always enjoyed my time with the group at concerts and setting up promotions like in-store autograph sessions. I had a chance to catch up with drummer Tyler Stewart in the afternoon yesterday and even gave him a copy of the TV interview I did 2 weeks ago on Shaw-TV with all that Buffalo Sabres footage. Tyler is a big sports fan like yours truly and is a regular guest on this sports show in Toronto.