Good morning, San Jose

Traveling to San Jose to play the second night of a back-to-back set is deceivingly tough for a 55-minute flight. Nighttime noise restrictions at SJC mean that teams must fly into Oakland and bus 45 minutes down Interstate-880. Or do you refer to it “The” 880, like we would, Northern Californians? Your vernacular frightens and confuses me.

So it was about half past 1:00 a.m. when the team checked into its downtown San Jose hotel. It was not as festive of a scene as when we arrived for Game 6 of last year’s playoff series, which overlapped with FanimeCon.

And major respect to Link in the last photo. I’d choose to go as the Hylian, though I’d likely be rejected because of my curly hair, which would almost certainly make me an outcast throughout Hyrule. I’m probably more suited to be a Hobbit. :/

HIGHLIGHTED LOCAL ARTIST. DJ Shadow grew up around the entire Bay Area and graduated from high school in Davis, California, near Sacramento, but he was born in San Jose and fits in nicely as today’s HLA. There’s also a personal hockey tie in. When we’d travel around the Western Hockey League cities scattered around the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada late at night, the easiest way to unwind, move past that night’s game and gradually drift off to sleep while sitting upright in a moving bus was by putting on DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing….., which became a welcome part of the post-game routine. I’d usually be fast asleep by the time the 11th track, Midnight in a Perfect World, came on.

Does anyone else get high school flashbacks from listening to that song, or is that too much of an exclusive time and place, reaching-adolsescence-in-the-Valley-in-the-90’s type of thing?

Here are the views from LAKI HQ. Because of the proximity of Downtown San Jose to SJC, west facing rooms at this hotel are ideal for easily distracted / lazy planespotter types.

2014-04-03 10.03.44 (640x480)

2014-04-03 10.45.49 (640x480)

The team is not heading to the arena for a morning skate. Instead, meetings will be held downstairs at noon. I’ll have some more reaction from last night’s game as well as some comments looking forward to what has developed into a likely playoff preview between the two California rivals. Stay tuned.

SJS 008 (640x480)

SJS 009 (640x480)

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.