BSU Mania

I'm sitting here, watching the Boise State football game as I'm writing this post...I think everyone else in the whole city is also sitting in front of their TV's, watching the Broncos take on the Georgia Bulldogs. Needless to say, it's a big game. Every BSU game is a big game in Boise. But when BSU has a chance to take out an SEC opponent, the game takes on even bigger importance. It's been the talk of the town here in Boise on the radio, commercials, on billboards in downtown, and even at the Boise hot air balloon festival this morning (more to come on this later.) The BSU football team is a BIG deal here in Boise. Almost every car I see has a Broncos sticker. It's wild, but I guess that's what happens when there is no major professional sports team in a city. People rally behind their teams. At the moment, the score of the game is 28-7...should I jump on the bandwagon?? Ah, what the hell. I'm already a Denver Broncos fan, and the BSU Broncos are not that far off, even in team colors. Go Broncos!

Today, we had a day off from on-ice practice, but we went on a team hike. Before the hike, my billet family and I went to the Boise hot air balloon festival...we had to wake up at 5:15 to be there on time and beat the traffic. It was worth it! I've been to the balloon festival in Steamboat, but it was a long time ago, and I forgot how cool it is to be so close to the balloons as they're getting blown up and launched. It was a beautiful morning.

My favorite part of the morning was watching a certain balloon get blown up. This ballon was designed to look like the famous blue turf at the BSU home stadium. There were field numbers all the way around the big, blue balloon and a huge BSU logo on the side, with a bucking bronco. When it was completely inflated and ready to get launched, the packed park cheered very loudly for their Boise State Broncos. That's some BSU mania!

The hike we went on was great too. It was a long hike, but it was very pretty. We started at about 8:30 AM, hiked for 3 hours or so as a team, and went way up into the hills behind Boise. There were a lot of great views overlooking the whole city and its green trees--Boise is French for "City of Trees" by the way, if you didn't already know. It really is a beautiful city, and I realize how lucky I am that I get to live and play hockey in a city that I might never have discovered had it not been for my junior hockey career. Anyway, it was a great team bonding event, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow, when we head up to McCall for the first time to do some community service and participate in a community parade. We're really going to try as a team this year to get more involved in the community and gain some interest with people who don't know what the Idaho Junior Steelheads and junior hockey are all about. Should be fun!