How I Spent My Lockout Vacation: Jay Bouwmeester

 

 

Hey guys, it’s me J-Bo! I just wanted to first say hi to all the Citizens who make up the essence of what is most certainly my favourite sports blog on the web.  You guys are like 16 times better than OilersNation. And I would know. My Dad is a teacher, so I know math. It’s in my blood.

Can you believe this crazy lockout nonsense is finally over? I thought it would never end. But my days didn’t drag on, increasingly more and more inert, like how it felt when those locusts injected us with their love toxins as they successfully forced us into being their zealous love slaves.

What a week that was!  No, friends, It was a busy and tumultuous let’s say three months for the ol’ Bo Dawg! First off, I nicknamed myself Bo Dawg. I’m trying that one out right now, but I think  by the time the season starts it will have sunk in and people will call me Bo Dawg out of sheer force of habit. I feel like it helps me exude a meaner personality, and maybe if I can carry that disposition with me onto the ice, Mark Giordano won’t be so mean to me anymore. Don’t fall for that adorable face of his, the man is ruthless 🙁

I did a lot of travelling too! I jumped in my car and hit the open road, stopping where it told me to stop. Which turned out to be Detroit, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. I have no idea why I chose to visit any of these locales, they just kinda called to me, you know?  All three cities were beautiful (even Detroit!) and no matter where I was, I always kept thinking to myself was "Y’know Jay, you could really make it in this city". Some people recognized me and made a big deal of it  I could see them all pulling out their iPhones and tweeting to all the journalists who weren’t wiped out by that Comet Tsunami last month. I was pretty impressed with them, they must really like my style of effortless skating and positional defense.  

Either that or they mistook me for Ryan Gosling. Sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror I find myself thinking that I look like Ryan Gosling, so I can see how everyone out here could make that mistake.

Chris Butler called me up the other day. I don’t remember ever giving him my phone number, I think former coach Sutter maybe gave it to him at some point. He used to always insist that as a unit we never communicated enough. I don’t think this was the way to resolve the issue, but that’s a story for another day.  

Chris wanted to say hi, and to say he’s sorry for everything that went down at Comeau’s funeral (hopefully none of you Nation Citizens got consumed by "The Fog".  We miss ya Blakey!), and that he can’t wait to line up with me on the blueline again this year. He kept talking, but at that point I had kinda started convusling and having flashbacks and quite honestly everything after that was kind of a blur. My senses kicked back in to the sound of Chris pleading pathetically to his own phone trying to reach out to me: "…Jay?  Hey Jay?  Bo-Dawg?"  I  half answered with some vague reply "uh yeah Buts, we’ll totally nail down that breakout this year" or some other kind of lie and then hung up.

Speaking of Butler, my first session with my therapist last month went better than expected. We still have a lot of work to do, but Dr. Stanz suspects we’ll hit our first breakthrough any day now.

I’ve been training a lot with some of the guys over the course of my lockout vacation.  We need to keep in shape, after all, if we want to finish in 8th place like Mr. Feaster keeps telling us we can do. Jarome always looks sad while he’s working out. I think he had a tear in his eye while he was taking a breather the other day at the gym. He was reading something by a guy named Kent Wilson. I have no idea what it was about, but I don’t think he liked what he saw.

 While training with Kipper, I had to leave the gym for a few moments and get some air, as I was having a bad reaction from the exposure to all that second hand smoke. No worries though, I’m better now, and Kipper looks to be in midseason form already!

I also hit the gym with Anton Babchuk. I went hard on the cardio for about thirty minutes straight. He spent the entire time sitting on the bench counting a big stack of fifties.

Anyway, I guess that’s about it for me today, Flames fans. I’m excited for the season, and I hope you all come out to the Dome to cheer us on with that boisterous malaise you’re so renowned for! We do what we do for you, Citizens, and I guess all that money we make too, but mostly for you. We’re going to ice a hell of a team this year, I promise. Roman Cervenka is sitting next to me and he agrees.  

At least I think he does. I don’t speak Czech, so I have no idea what he’s saying, but he’s softly trembling and uttering "Žádné další Avengard" over and over again in some kind of half frown, all while clutching tightly at some kind of golden looking helmet. Man, talk about focus!

But I gotta go. Coach Hartley is yelling at me. And he’s slapping Sven in the mouth again. These things have been happening so much that we almost start to forget about it, but it does mean that we’re missing something important, so I have to go see what’s up. Go Flames!  

Oh hey, Mr. Feaster, I…what? Of course I’ll come see you in your office. Hey, why is Ken Holland here?