Training Camp Is Now Underway

And you know what that means... LESS THAN ONE MONTH UNTIL THE PUCK OFFICIALLY DROPS!!! It's ironic that this has been the shortest off-season for the Pens in over a decade because it certainly has felt like the longest summer break we've ever had! I don't know if it's because I'm so pumped for the season to start again because I run this blog now which it makes it that much more fun, or if it's because I want this season to be a sequel called Stanley Cup 2009: The Penguins' Revenge. :P It's most likely an even mix of both reasons. :)

FINALLY! Do it.

First things first: Friend of The Show Jan M. found this Q & A with Ray Shero. The most surprising thing in the article to me was how nonchalant Shero seemed about the idea of losing Jordan Staal to another team! Perhaps he was just playing it cool in front of the media... LATE EDIT: Please disregard the last part of this paragraph. I totally misread Shero's response to a question about resigning Jordan Staal. (See the comments section for all the details.)


So now that training camp has started, I think it's a good time to get you excited for the season opener against the Senators in Sweden. Good Friend of The Show Dave H. sent in some crazy facts about the Stockholm Globe Arena in which the games will take place (from Deputy-Dog.com):

To be found in Stockholm, Sweden, this enormous building holds 2 records, one far more interesting than the other - to me at least.


The less interesting but still impressive record? It’s the largest hemispherical building in the world with a diameter of 361ft and volume of 21′188′800 cubic ft.

The Globe is shown lit up for a hockey game in February 2007. That is truly stunning. (Click to enlarge, image from Wikipedia)

The best of its records? The building represents the sun in what is the world’s largest scale model of the solar system (1:20,000,000). That’s to say, all other planets of the solar system are represented by other precisely sized and distanced objects throughout Sweden. As an example of the distances between these models, the dwarf planet of Pluto can be found 300km from the Stockholm Globe Arena and has a diameter of 12cm.

Clockwise from top left (click for sources): Venus, Jupiter, Earth, and Mercury (Click to enlarge)

This is a map of Sweden with the Globe as the sun and all the "planets" plotted out. (Click to enlarge)

Here's another interior view of the Globe. (Click to enlarge, image from Wikipedia)

Prior to Dave's email, I didn't realize the arena represented the sun in a scale model of the solar system. That is absolutely amazing!

Yesterday when I got home from work, I had two special visitors waiting for me at my house in Tyrone, PA:

Haha, we've finally reached our limit! Google Maps won't let me plot out Sidney Penguin's travels from Nashville to all the towns he has already visited to my town. I haven't figured out how I'm going to handle that in the future, so for now I'm just going to show you his journey from Colorado Springs to Tyrone.

It marks the first appearance for one very special Roaming Penguin:

Sidney Penguin and Mario Penguin (← finally!) found their way to my town!!!

My visitors wanted to meet my dogs. My Golden Retriever, Baylee, is a good boy and obeys my every command, so I trusted him enough to let them get close to him:

Aren't the three of them adorable together? My Greyhounds (Link, Connor, and Logan) really are good boys, too, but for the first 4+ years of their lives, they chased a mechanical lure around a track, and as a result they're conditioned to catch (and potentially destroy) small things so I didn't want to take any chances...

I'm planning to take S.P. and M.P. on a tour of State College some time soon... I've got more Roaming Penguins pictures from several Friends of The Show to share with you later this week. :)

But for now, it's time for TSCS's Quote of The Day:

"Probably the biggest thing that surprises people is that I am obsessed with hockey. I grew up in the Boston area so I am obsessed with hockey since I was a little kid."

~ musician and horror film director Rob Zombie

Well, it certainly surprised me enough to include it as the Quote of The Day! A hundred thousand thank yous are due to Dave for all the awesome information about the Globe Arena and to Jan for sending in the Shero interview link. :)