Saturday was an incredibly busy day for us.

I am not sure how we managed to fit in a movie, a hockey game, a girl scout cookie booth, and a parents-only date night, too. But enough about us … let’s talk Hockey!

Here’s a picture of Felicia during the pre-game skate of today’s San Jose Sharks hockey game against the Dallas Stars. Her favorite goalie is in net, although he would end up as the backup for today’s game, watching Evgeni Nabokov lead the Sharks to a 5-2 victory.

We get to see Brian Boucher pretty regularly, many mornings at a certain local favorite coffee shop.

We also expected Felicia’s most favorite player to put in strrong showing at the game too. And Devin Setoguchi didn’t let us down, notching a goal and an assist.

Felicia has the privilege this week of creating a preschool art collage for the Letter ‘P’ ….

Pillows, Pepperoni Pizza, Pears, Presents, Pancakes, Paper, wrapping Paper, Popcorn, a Printer, and Pavelski with a Puck

You know we love Elva’s Coffee Stop.

Among the many reasons we visit almost every day is Elva’s commitment to helping our community. She often hosts special events to raise money or collect things for those less fortunate than the rest of us.

For this year’s Thanksgiving Turkey Drive at Elva’s, our family chipped in by donating a pair of tickets to a Sharks hockey game. Everyone who donated got a raffle ticket, and Elva invited Felicia to draw the winner.

Of course, she was quite honored to play her part in helping our community.

Felicia and Karen joined some preschool friends and their families for an afternoon at “Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes,” skating around the ice at San Jose Arena.

Meanwhile, Jocelyn and David spent the afternoon at The Tech Museum downtown. Once everyone was finished, our family linked back up for dinner at Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria.

Even though she’s not too into the princess scene, Felicia had a great time with her friends. While describing the show during dinner, she mentioned that the princesses were dancing “where hockey’s supposed to be!” That’s my girl …

This picture is also available on Flickr.

Alright … I have to admit something. Today wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was a second Friday in a row that I had cobbled together the logistics to support a day snowboarding in Tahoe — and it was the second Friday in a row that my plans fell apart just minutes before departure.

After gushing over my incredible day snowboarding with Jocelyn a few weeks ago, I have to profess …. My day with Felicia today was equally awesome. After I convinced her that we really weren’t going to see Grandee & Grandpa — or the snow as planned — we had a great time playing games and hanging out. We ate bananas on our walk home from school, we made lunch together (Mac & Cheese out of a cardboard box), we joked around with creative word play, and we watched most of the Sharks hockey game in Detroit. It was really great!

And even though she did insist that we play with our pretend snowboard mountain and resort gondola, she did allow me to listen to “Daddy Music” from Sacramento’s KWOD (my new favorite station, thanks largely to internet radio). We even danced to a little Gnarls Barkley.

And to cap it all off, her favorite Sharks player (Devin Setoguchi) scored twice — including the game winner — and was the “First Star” of the game.

I’d have to vote for Felicia as my First Star of the day today!

As a San Jose fan in the Calgary Saddledome for tonight’s Sharks’ road game, I’ll look on the bright side. Current and former San Jose Sharks outscored the Calgary Flames‘ Never-Sharks, 8-1. Unfortunately, the actual score was Flames 5, Sharks 4 (although it wasn’t really that close).

Former Shark Owen Nolan scored a hat trick, and I would have been more than willing to throw my hat … if only I didn’t need it for the -30C temperatures outside … and if only I’d been able to reach the ice with one throw. My seats were only six rows from the roof of the Saddledome — way, way above the pressbox and possibly higher than the Continental Divide Karen and I visited a few days ago.

Although I consider myself completely free of any superstition or negative jinxability (from having been at the Sharks franchise first-ever victory, coincidentally against Calgary in 1991), I do have to admit that I came within about $120 (Canadian) of buying a #11 Owen Nolan RBK Flames Jersey earlier in the day, only to choose a more-reasonably priced blank CCM jersey instead. Perhaps I was asking for it. Sorry, Evgeni … but you had a lousy game anyway.

It was her first professional hockey game — ever — but she watched it like an old pro! And she even provided her own special version of good luck.

The Sharks haven’t had a great record inside San Jose Arena this year, but a little dose of Grandee helped out last night, as the Sharks defeated the St. Louis Blues, 4-1.

Here she is standing and cheering as the team enters the rink through the famous Shark Head. She went on to recognize icing calls, offside calls, and she possibly even saw the puck go into the net a few times.

As for the lucky part? Section 121 was the game’s “lucky section” and everyone got a coupon for a free Togo’s sandwich. Toss in the free Round Table pizzas (courtesy of the Sharks offense), and they can practically feed themselves this week … which might be a good thing because Karen and I will be celebrtaing our 15th Anniversary this weekend, with tree days of snowboarding in Banff, Alberta!

This picture is also available on Flickr.

The San Jose Sharks played a rare matinée game this afternoon, battling the evil Dallas Stars in a daytime hockey game at San Jose Arena. It was the perfect opportunity to take Felicia to a game!

We had a great time, and she really enjoyed dancing to the music and watching the game. Although, she also enjoyed watching the ice crew shovel snow off the playing surface during commercial breaks.

She also danced around the concourse with our preschool friend Kate, who was also attending the game with her dad. And before the game, Felicia donated a pretend kitchen set and a game of Sorry! to the Marine’s “Toys for Tots” campaign.

This picture is also available on Flickr.

Oh yeah … the Sharks lost the game, but Devin Setoguchi scored the first goal of the game, so Felicia really loved that!

This was kind of a fun coincidence.

The National Hockey League has been part of a “Hockey Fights Cancer” awareness project this month, so it’s allowed us to talk about pink-shaded cause marketing. In particular, Jocelyn has been interested in pink-based cancer awareness.

Simultaneously, we are cheering for the San Jose Sharks, who happen to have an up-and-coming prospect named Devin Setoguchi. It took Felicia no time at all to latch onto a nickname for him: “Gooch!”

So when the Sharks top development affiliate in Worcester, Massachusetts, hosted a “Pink at the Rink” fundraiser last week, we
decided to buy six pink pucks and have them signed by players in Worcester. They were signed by Sandis Osolinsh, Garret Mink, Thomas Greiss, Derek Joslin, Lukas Kaspar, and Setoguchi.

Conveniently, Gooch was playing in Worcester last week. But not anymore … he played in his first game as a Shark tonight, making his NHL debut in Dallas. The pink pucks arrived this morning, including his. And he scored two goals in his debut! See … the pink pucks are good luck!

This picture is also available on Flickr.