Good morning, Edmonton

After an early start at the MTS Centre and a “comprehensive” victory, the team bused to the Winnipeg airport, where the light snow had mostly stopped, though snow on the aircraft and a chilly wind meant that deicing was necessary before the hour and 45 minute flight to Alberta. You can see why:

After gaining an hour, the team touched down at YEG shortly before midnight before beginning the drive downtown. It’s a notoriously lengthy drive from the airport to central Edmonton, and members of the media have a tradition in which friendly bets are placed on the exact length of the route. Clocking in at 26 minutes and 31 seconds, the length of last night’s bus trip was correctly (or most closely) gauged by Jim Fox, according to Jim Fox. No one contested this, so congratulations, Jimmy.

With so many late arrivals – this computer wasn’t turned off until 4:00 a.m. when we arrived in Calgary last week – it was refreshing to still have something left in the tank after arriving at the hotel and watch highlights from other games around the league when it came time to retire.

Highlighted Local Artist! I was stunned and overjoyed to learn that Leslie Nielsen is counted (by Wikipedia) in its “List of people from Edmonton,” but after a thoughtful and discriminating approach (read: I scanned two articles about his background), I decided that the link between Nielsen and The City of Champions was a mostly tenuous one. Instead, I’m rolling with an actor actually born in Edmonton, Michael J. Fox.

When did movies stop having really, really awesome scores?

Practice time today is at 12:00 noon. Before then, I’ll post Waking Up with the Kings, and around that time, James will have The View from Winnipeg for you. There’s lots more to come on a busy Friday from Oil Country.