His kid was at a rookie camp for the next city over, and I was already going there for the day so I decided maybe there was a chance he was watching his kid, due to the fact Colorado's training camp doesn't start till September. He was indeed there so I waited till the exhibition game was in intermission to ask him to sign a card and a magazine and ask him questions, because I didn't want to bother him when his son was playing.
He was super awesome and nice, asked him what his favorite players growing up were and he said Mark Messier, Doug Gilmour, Mats Sundin and Gretzky. I also asked him what are the hardest goalies he's faced and he said Marc-Andre Fluery (my favorite goalie!!!), Andrei Vasilevskiy and Martin Brodeur. I thanked him for his time, good luck on the season and the ironman record and went back to my
seat and watched the rest of the game.
Then yesterday, the junior team was doing a final exhibition match, 2 teams of their best players from the rookie camp playing against each other and so I went to go watch that also. I knew he was probably going to be there again, but I was like "it's an actual game and theres lot of people, plus I already met him and just want to watch the game".
But then, me and my little brother were buying pizza, and he walked past and it was like "oh cool". Then we were walking back to our seat for the start of the 3rd and him and his wife were coming out of the team store. I was like "oh cool" again and we got to the end of the hall but I looked and he was just waiting for his wife to pay for the items so I said "screw it" and we walked up to him. I asked him if this was his final season and he was like oh I dont know hahaha like just have to wait and see and I told him he can definitely play a few more seasons and he said yeah he probably could if he wanted to. Then we asked if he would ever go back to San Jose for one last run with Celebrini and them and he said no cuz they love it in Colorado and with kids and school they are like settled. And then we shook his hand and said thank you for his time and sent back to our seats.
It was such a cool experience, even though I'm not a Colorado fan (because I'm a Vegas fan!!!) to meet someone like him and him being so chill. He seemed like the type of guy if he was free, would actually sit down and talk for awhile