Tap the Rockies

March 16, 2011- (The views expressed in this blog are the views of Bryan Benway, and may not be the views of the Laredo Bucks organization). Oh Hi Friends. I am writing to you from the spacious Hilton Hotel here in Fort Collins, Colorado about four hours before the Bucks take on the Colorado Eagles.

Let's start off today's blog with a Bucks playoff update. Laredo enters tonight's game two points behind Rio Grande Valley for the final playoff spot in the Berry Conference with six games remaining. The Bucks, who still trail the Bees in the tiebreakers, need to finish with more points than the Bees to claim that playoff spot. Rio hosts Odessa tomorrow, travels to Odessa on Friday and heads to Allen on Saturday. After Saturday's game the Bucks and Bees will each have three regular season games left.

The Bucks will have the same lineup as they had over the weekend in their two wins over Missouri and Arizona. Torrie Jung is expected to get the start in net today as he and the Bucks look to win three straight games for the first time this season.

Colorado beat Rapid City last night 7-3 in South Dakota to finish 9-3 this season against the defending champs. The Eagles arrived home around 5am this morning and had an optional skate today, with less than five players and assistant coach Greg Pankewicz (with his shirt on) taking the ice for about 25 minutes or so.

The Eagles enter tonight's game tied with Rapid City for first-place in the Turner Conference with five games remaining so it's not a throw away game for Colorado tonight. The Bucks should have the fresher legs tonight because of Colorado's game last night and late arrival this morning at the drunk tank (Budweiser Events Center).

The Bucks will hold the final road watch party of the regular season tonight at Hal's Landing starting at 7:45pm. As always there will be drink specials and some awesome Bucks trivia questions. Stop by if you have a chance.

Let's move on to the Bucks trek here to Colorado. The team didn't have ice to practice Monday because it was being taken out for the monster truck show this weekend. Because of that the Bucks had Monday off, but left from the LEA at 2pm sharp to behind the journey here to Colorado. We traveled about six hours to San Angelo before we stopped and ate dinner at Cheddars. El Presidente Coach Rosco and athletic trainer Bobby Moore were telling stories of the Bucks epic playoff series with San Angelo in 2005, which the Bucks won in seven games. We drove by the old arena and hotel there on our way out of town with coach and Bobby both saying that they missed playing in that town.

The next time everyone was awake was when we arrived in Colorado around 9:30am yesterday morning. We, of course, stopped at coach's favorite road eatery IHOP and had a pretty good breakfast before heading to the drunk tank for practice. Since the Eagles were in Rapid City yesterday the Bucks were able to get right on the ice around 11:30am yesterday and hold practice for a little over an hour.

After practice we arrived at the Hilton Hotel, which is about 30 minutes from the arena. This is the first year that the hotel has not been the Fort Collins Marriott so we all were seeing this hotel for the first time. Speaking of the Hilton, the hotel manager told coach today after lunch that our team ate the most food of any other CHL team this season. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but hey, at least the Bucks are on top in something!

Let's move on.

After tonight's game the Bucks will get back on the bus and head six hours to Rapid City to prepare for Friday and Saturday's games at the Rush. We are scheduled to get into Rapid City between 5-6am and will not have practice tomorrow because of the late night of travel. What we will do tomorrow however, is take a team trip to see Mount Rushmore in the afternoon. When the Bucks played in Rapid City last season we didn't have time to see Mount Rushmore, so this trip worked out perfectly and we are able to go tomorrow. Everyone is pretty excited to check out a piece of American History.

And finally today, if you have not seen the line brawl between the Bucks and Sundogs Saturday night then click here to watch it.

I will try and blog from Rapid City on Friday or Saturday.

Enjoy the game tonight.

Until next time,

It will be a hot one in the old town tonight!

GO BUCKS GO!