BETWEEN GAMES, TEAM TRIES HAND AT CURLING

By Victor Chi

Mercury News

BANFF, Alberta - Evgeni Nabokov slid to the ice with his legs splayed out to the sides.

``Butterfly style!'' Coach Ron Wilson shouted at Nabokov in reference to the popular and effective goaltending technique.

Unfortunately for Nabokov, he wasn't trying to stop a puck when he dropped down this time. He was attempting to throw a 40-pound stone during the Sharks' team curling function Tuesday, and like many first-timers, Nabokov stumbled and bumbled.

``I didn't even know the rules,'' Nabokov said. ``It's a lot tougher than it looks. But it was a good experience. It was fun.''

Fun was what Wilson had in mind when, between games at Calgary and Edmonton, he booked a team-building trip to the Canadian Rockies resort town of Banff.

The curling event included the training staff and equipment managers in addition to all the players, and they hooted and laughed like 8-year-olds having a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.

After Mark Smith scored with a nice toss in the championship round against the coaches' team, Joe Thornton gleefully chortled: ``Take them down, baby!''

Wilson has been a big practitioner of team-bonding events throughout his career. While coaching the United States to the gold medal at the 1996 World Cup, Wilson arranged for his team to attend a Boston Red Sox game and organized a round of golf at Oakland Hills in Michigan, site of the U.S. Open that year.

While coaching the Washington Capitals, Wilson once took his team to Las Vegas during a West Coast trip and brought the players on the rooftop roller coaster at the New York, New York casino.

Later this season, the Sharks will make their second visit to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

``Curling doesn't provide any kind of inspiration like that,'' Wilson said. ``They promised us that the next time we come, they might be able to get some of our guys on an F-18 simulator. That'd be a lot of fun.''

But Wilson will also draw the line on what he allows the players to do on these excursions.

Carolina left wing Ray Whitney chipped a front tooth last month when the Hurricanes went to the Fort Bragg military base for a team-bonding event that included a parachute-jumping exercise from a 40-foot tower.

``I don't want us jumping off towers and some of the other things that teams claim to be team-building because you can get hurt at that point,'' Wilson said.

At the curling venue, the Sharks suffered only bruised egos as they needled each other about their flubs.

The winning foursome was Smith, Patrick Marleau, Curtis Brown and equipment manager Mike Aldrich. They were dubbed Team Saskatchewan because all but Aldrich is from that province.

They beat the team of Wilson, assistant coaches Tim Hunter and Rob Zettler, and defenseman Rob Davison in the finals.

``We pretended to know what we were doing,'' Brown said. ``We pretended better than anyone else.''

- I love my hockey team :D

edit : Now with pictar -

An extremely modest man was in the hospital for a series of tests, the last of which had left his bodily systems extremely upset. Upon making several false alarm trips to the bathroom, he decided the latest episode was probably just another false alarm and stayed put in his bed. He suddenly filled his bed with diarrhea and was embarrassed beyond his ability to remain rational. In a complete loss of composure he jumped out of bed, gathered up the bed sheets, and threw them out the hospital window.

A drunk was walking by the hospital when the sheets landed on him. He started yelling, cursing, and swinging his arms violently trying to get the unknown things off, and ended up with the soiled sheets in a tangled pile at his feet.

As the drunk stood there, unsteady on his feet, staring down at the sheets, a hospital security guard, (barely containing his laughter), and who had watched the whole incident, walked up and asked, "What the heck is going on here?"

The drunk, still staring down replied: "I think I just beat the shlt out of a ghost."
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Marcus is back in Irvine. It is thursday night. Hence we made our 'weekly trip'... -
Sans Tommy unfortunatley since it his sisters birthday (HAPPYBIRTHDAY) but it was still fun. I'd post pictures, but you know... it was one of those more you had to be there. Plus only the crazy really drunk people are taking pictures there.

Why am i Xanging right now? I'm still awake, but not ready to sleep. So to spend some time-


Quiz Thing Time: (Thanks to Ryan Pak)
Instructions: Name 10 of life's simple pleasures that you like the most, then pick 10 people to do the same. Try to be original and creative; try not to use things that someone else has already used.

10.  Television - I love tv. Top two shows for me at this moment? House and BSG. Sarcastic smartass, and scifi that's interesting, great one-two combo imo.

9. Gadgets & Tinkering- When I was five, I broke my dad's computer by taking it apart. When I was six, I broke my computer by trying to install more ram, but doing it wrong. To this day, not much has changed. But gadgets, tech stuff, Taking stuff apart, fixing it (mainly cause i broke it while i took it apart), all excellent

8. Sports :
Hockey - Go Sharks go!
Baseball - Go Giants Go!
Basketball - Bastia boys never brought their game, or the beef. That's right. I said it.

7. Music (Drums) - Sure I can't do paradiddlediddles at 210 or even 192 anymore... alright fine I never could, but I still like to pretend I can play. I love music, Wilco is (thumbsup)

6. Dave and Buster Thursdays - Marcus, Tommy, Ryan, Jason, and all the others who join us. It's odd that no matter how much we hate that place and how much more we hate it on thursday night we gravitate towards booze and games. I say it's because we enjoy spending time with each other. But that's a lie.

5. Unemployed sleeping - I sleep absurd amounts of hours at more absurd times. One morning I might get up at 8:00am to read, another I might get up at 10:00am to go on a bike ride.. most 'mornings' I just wake up at 1pm.

4. Driving. - A bit about me? I used to go drive around just for no reason. I'd drive down McArthur, California, go to PCH, drive for awhile one way, then just arbitrarily decide to turn around and go the other. This is when I would think to myself.

3. Late Night (and other times) Writing - There have been times I've stayed up all night writing my heart out. That time was called college, and it was done out of sheer neccesity since I had been a FOOL and forgotten to get my papers done before. But I have enjoyed writing quite a bit for my own personnal works.

2. Time spent with family and friends - I have the most amazing friends in the world. True story. And i remember the first time i met (or at least remember meeting) most of them.

1. Reading - God, I hope I don't butcher this - but from faceboy - "The finest things in life are top shelf, and to reach that shelf you will need to stand on a pile of the books you've read"

10 people to tag... 
Blah, you've all done this already. KEN YEE, David Hasegawa aka "Gomez <Vanguard>" comeon.. your face should do it, Jquizzle, TommyB (since they were tagged with me and haven't done it yet - i think), KAM|Faceboy, KAM|Stupid Shit, My Sister, Cathay ( I haven't heard from you in awhile :( ), Acchan and everyone else I haven't talked to in a long time =\

Thanks to all those who came to the birthday thing awhile back. No pictures sadly since I'm one of the four people in the world who doesn't own a digital camera.

The highlight of the night (other then the fruit cake of course) was the bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Finely aged 12 year blended Scotch Whiskey. Mm mmmm.


Anyway, enough jiberjabering about myself - Here's something pretty amazing.

Man lifts car off pinned cyclist