Top Five of My First Year (Holty’s Blog)

First off, yesterday was a big day in the world of all things Condors. In case you missed it (not sure how you could have) we announced our first promotional nights for the season which include the Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings Ice Crew Girls and popular mascot Bailey coming on Opening Night, a Fathead giveaway, and of course, Teddy Bear Toss. Check out all the fun of the first two months of the season by clicking here.

But, the bigger news was that last year’s captain Peter Boyd and two seasons ago all-everything goaltender Brian Stewart are coming back to Bakersfield. It’s starting to get real people. The season is on the horizon and there’s nothing we can (or want to do) to stop it from getting here. Click here to watch coach (and friend of the blog, @BigOdie2) talk about how big the additions were yesterday.

That got me thinking. Yesterday was a fun day, but where would it rank in my Top Five favorite moments from the past year? After all – it was a year ago this week that I made the trek out to Condorstown, not quite sure of what I was going to find.

So without further ado, here are the top five memories of my past year in Condorstown listed in chronological order. They are all Condors related, some on the ice, some off the ice. Again, I’ll remind you, it’s my blog, and I’ll do what I want…

– The Condors Fantasy Football League Draft. This event (all for fun of course) took place literally before I had worked a day in Condorstown. I had flown in a few days prior and didn’t start work until the next week. It was my first chance to meet some of the office, coach, and other great friends of Condorstown. I quickly became labeled as the “guy from Boston who’s drafting all of the Patriots,” but I didn’t mind. Brad Urbani won the league last year, but I plan on stepping it up a notch and taking home the title this season.

– First road trip to Utah. It was an interesting experience taking a plane to go on the road. My first time doing so, since the year prior, I only made 17 hour bus trips on a regular basis (won’t ever do that again). After a while, you get used to the plane travel, knowing which terminals have the best food (I’m looking at you Seattle), and other quirks of being a crew of 23 guys dressed in suits with lots of heavy bags. But – more on that later in the blog.

– Something happened on January, 28, 2012. I couldn’t remember what it was, so I did a quick little Google search of “Condors January 28, 2012” and the following link happened to show up … click here.

Sorry I’m not sorry Ontario. That never gets old.

– I couldn’t write a blog about favorite memories without including the infamous “ice delay” game in February against Las Vegas. Essentially what happened was Vegas didn’t want to play, spent two hours complaining about how they didn’t want to play, and then eventually lost in a shootout which capped off a Condors weekend sweep. Evan Trupp (@Trupper19) scored the most widely publicized goal in the ECHL that night too. Why don’t you click here and watch it some more?

– I mentioned plane travel and waiting around in terminals earlier in the blog so I figured I’d share with you my favorite memory of being in the terminals this past season. It happened before the last plane flight we had, coming back from Idaho in March after a big win the night before. Jesse Gimblett (@GimboSlicce) challenged Justin Pender (@JPender24) to eat 15 chicken McNuggets in one minute. It sounds fairly easy, but it’s not. Pens got through 10 if I recall correctly and used sweet and sour sauce. A valiant effort that the entire team had fun either rooting for or against him. It’s little things like this over the course of a season that keeps everybody sane. If you want, send me your videos trying to attempt this feat.

One final thing, go recruit people for our Facebook and Twitter and help us #ToppleTheThunder.

Until next Thursday #Condorstown …

Have an idea for #HoltysBlog? Tweet him @BroadcastHolt or e-mail rholt@bakersfieldcondors.com

Ryan Holt a.k.a. ‘Holty,’ is the younger half of the Condors broadcast duo, and recently completed his first season in #Condorstown. He’ll draft Tom Brady again this year. Follow him on Twitter @BroadcastHolt for random stuff confined to 140 characters.