It's finally here!  I didn't really sleep last night with all the anticipation of the opening weekend of NHL camps upon us... Well that combined with the dread of having to make the 661.7 kilometer trip from Calgary to Penticton.  It's 5:15am MDT, and we're packing up to hit the road shortly.

I'll keep an ear open for any news related to the World Cup or the Young Stars tournament that I hear on my journey that might interest our readership.

9:30- I am surrounded by mountains and the sun is shining.  Makes me wonder why more people don't live in the mountains, myself included!  So far we've seen a deer and a rolled over semi with Emergency Vehicles at the scene.

NHL network on XM is at the Traverse city tournament interviewing the prospects there.

Fan960(Calgary sports radio) has their prospect guru on the ground in Penticton. He spoke a lot about how a player needs to step up their game because there's always going to be another player who wants to be more highly sought after by their organization.

Finally, I have bought lottery tickets for tonight's draw in 2 provinces... I HAVE to win now, right? RIGHT?!?!

UPDATE #2: 2:30 (PDT)- The journey is 99% complete.  We have arrived at our resting place for the weekend in Summerland.  Took a slight detour on our way down the 97, to stop in at the Arrow Leaf vineyard to pick up a few of our favorite wines (my better half has joined me on this adventure, I'm not that pretentious that I talk about my self as a 'we' entity).  We aren't going to dwell on how much money we spent on wine... let's just say it woulda bought a lot of hockey tickets though!

Radio Update:  XM crapped out through most of the mountain area, ended up listening to iTunes for most of the journey.  I did try to get TSN radio, but even with the volume cranked up to max I was unable to figure out what they were saying!  When XM did kick back in, they were talking about the World Cup of Hockey... 4 hours of talking about how Canada and the US both have 3 great goalies.

Final tally for wildlife: 1 deer seen at 6 AM near Calgary; 1 set of emergency vehicles, about 300 dead bugs on my windshield and hood (exactly that many, give or take a few hunderd), and 60 construction workers (estimated)!

Flames/Jets puck drop is a little more than an hour away, I'd best be off to Penticton!

Go Hockey Teams Go!