CJ Stretch's Thoughts from the Recent US Road Trip

Well we departed Kamloops at 11 am to head to Portland on Tuesday morning. It was a pretty fun bus ride as we watched the TV series Band of Brothers and a comedy act done by Robin Williams. He is hilarious! I don’t spend much of the time watching the movies; usually I am playing Mario Cart or Mario Party on my Nintendo DS. A bunch other guys like Kurtis Mucha, Ryan Funk, Mark Hall, Linden Saip, Bronson Maschmeyer and Ryan Hanes have it as well so we usually play against each other. We are all competitive so it’s pretty fun to play.

Hockey Club travelling on the bus

It took a long time to get to Portland it seemed; we ate some lunch in Chilliwack and got into to Portland at about 8pm. It was a quiet night because we play tomorrow night so most of us get into bed fairly early.

On game day Wednesday morning we went to the rink in the morning for a pre game skate. I am pretty excited for tonight’s game because I have a bunch of cousins coming from Grants Pass, Oregon to come watch me play tonight. Grants Pass is about 4 hours south of Portland, and none of my cousins have seen a live hockey game before. It will be nice to have a small cheering section for me and our team.

The game was definitely a weird one. Mucha was awesome in goal for us, this game was really important to him to beat his old team. We were all really happy with the win. Our team has been playing well and we needed this one. It was icing on the cake being able to score the game winner in overtime! I could hear my cousins cheering pretty loud when I scored. We watched some more Band of Brothers on the bus after the game on the way to Spokane.

Action shot of CJ Stretch

Thursday was a day off the ice for us because of highschool basketball in the Spokane Arena. Toledo, our trainer, and our assistant coach Scott Ferguson planned a team building activity for the day. We went to laser quest and played laser tag, it was so much fun. It was one of the first team building activities we had done since the trade deadline. We have played so many games over the past month so there hasn’t been much time for activities like this. The guys loved it though, what a great time.

Team Recon Snake Eyes for Laser Quest

We have a big game against Spokane. It will be a game to remember for Kurtis Mucha and me. I will break the Blazers record for most games played as a Blazer. It is such a thrill considering how many great players have gone through this organization. Being the person that has worn that jersey for the most games sure is something special. The last five years have been the best time of my life. Kamloops is a great city and a great place to play.

Stretch and Mucha getting ready to play Friday night in Spokane

This is a huge achievement for Kurtis Mucha though. He already has the WHL minute record and now he will have the record for games played too. “Mooks” is a great guy and it’s good that we get to end our WHL careers together with the Blazers.

I thought we played alright in Spokane against the Chiefs but our penalty kill struggled and we couldn’t get anything going on the powerplay. When you give up four powerplay goals your not gonna win too many hockey games. We have to forget about tonight though and start getting ready for tomorrow night. We have a long bus ride home so we have to do the best we can to get some sleep on the bus.