Sunday morning our group of black aces (as we call them) gathered at the Jobing .com arena around 9:30am. Our Group that includes Joel Perrault, Alex Picard, Al Montoya, Josh Tordjman, Brett MacLean, David Schlemko, Mikkel Boedker, Viktor Tikhonov, and an injured Kyle Turris arrived excited about practice and then stayed and watched the Coyotes game right in the locker room. We got on the ice and had a good hard skate, I reminded them of what our job there was and that everybody had to be ready just in case they may be needed sometime during the playoffs. It happens regularly in the post season that somebody from the black aces has to jump in the lineup and play big minutes and my job is to make sure our guys are ready if they are needed.

After the skate we all got into our work out clothes and got ready for a workout. Mike Bahn the strength coach for the Coyotes runs all workouts and we were getting set to start ours. It started when the Coyotes game did and the guys worked out while the first period played on. We were all cheering when Sami Lepisto opened the scoring on the first shift of the game. After the workout we ordered pizzas for everyone and moved into the players lounge to watch the remainder of the game. The room got a little quiet when we saw our captain go down and not return. Shane is as tough of a player as I have seen and we all hope he is back soon.

The third period saw us take the lead and after Vrbata scored the 4th goal we all knew we had a 2-1 lead in the series. It was pretty exciting! A few minutes after the game I received a call from Brad Treliving saying they wanted to bring 3 of our players to Detroit that night so they could be there for practice in the morning. They were excited and got moving pretty quickly. We were all excited for them. We are not sure if any of them will play on Tuesday but what an exciting time if they do!!

Looking forward to the game … Go Coyotes!!