This year the AHL All-Star Classic was held in Utica, NY. After a brief hiatus last year (so we could go to Florida and announce Kenzie!), we continued our tradition of attending. It turned out to be very fortuitous as we missed the great blizzard of 2015. While the weather geek in us was a bit disappointed, we were excited to not have to dig out the car… we ended up with 24 inches. Eek.
We started out All-Star weekend with a quick stop in Boston. Kevin’s mom and the girls hung out in the hotel while Kevin and I went to the Garth Brooks concert. It was awesome! The next morning, Kevin’s mom took the train home to Portland while the rest of us headed towards New York.
Sunday we went to Fort Stanwix.
Kaitlyn built her own fort in the museum.
We were the only people on the ranger led tour. Kaitlyn was very interested and actually asked a few questions!
That evening was the All-Stars Skills Competition. Kevin and Kaitlyn met Audie, the Utica Comets mascot.
Kenzie made her national television debut. I got several texts that friends saw her on TV! Kaitlyn didn’t make the TV, but she got her own special treat… more on that later…
Our representative was supposed to be Alexander Bolduc, but he was injured the day before and unable to attend. So Brendan Shinnimin was selected to go.
TJ Brennan (on the left) used to play in Portland. In the autograph session he spotted my jersey and immediately knew which other former player it had belonged to.
Kenzie was entranced by the Manchester Monarch’s mascot Max. Apparently we need to teach her they are our rivals.
The East won the Skills Competition.
Post-competition autograph session. While waiting for the players, Kaitlyn was given one of the used pucks.
Kaitlyn got everyone’s autograph.
Shinnimin was impressed we came all the way from Portland.
Kaitlyn got a t-shirt that the mascots were handing out. Had I know what was on the t-shirt, we probably would have had a bonfire with it.
Monday morning we went to the Utica Zoo. We pretty much had a run of the place. All the animals came out to see us! Some of them even walked up to fence and paced back and forth for us.
That night was the All-Star game.
The mascots’ game at intermission is always a hit! This year they played broomball instead of hockey.
During the second intermission the mascots had a dance off.
The West might have won the game, but Shinnimin scored the first goal of the game!
Now about that special treat for Kaitlyn… It was a good thing we saw Shinnimin at the autograph session because after the game he had a special present for Kaitlyn. Another kid tried to grab it first, but Shinnimin pulled it away and moved it closer to Kaitlyn.
Kenzie is disappointed we lost.
Our last day, we made a trip over to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame. Kenzie slept through the whole thing except for about the last 10 minutes.
Kaitlyn answered all the questions on the trivia sheet, so she got a free package of baseball cards from the store afterwards.
Someone just woke up…
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