Amie goes to LA for Canucks ROUND ONE!

Don’t mind the video, mind what’s about to come.

By some miracle, I am going to be in Los Angeles for game 3 and 4 of round one of the Stanley Cup playoffs while the Vancouver Canucks play the LA Kings! I’m going to be doing as much blogging and vlogging as I can to keep you guys in the loop of what’s the haps when we’re out of town. Feel free to drop any suggestions via twitter or comments of things you want to see. I apologize for how lame my video skills are but it’ll do, I hope!

Feel free to follow me on Twitter @amienguyen and the Province @theprovince for which I’ll be blogging for!

I’m so excited to do this, I hope you guys can join me on this ride because I know it’s going to be insane. Thanks again for your support!

The beginning of the beginning of the end.

What do you mean it’s already the playoffs? Didn’t we just finish like, last month?

As a true fan, I’m sure this is what you might feel too as well as know that heartbreak and recovery was not an easy process. I dreamed for years and years to get to the Stanley Cup finals and it was within the grasps of our fingertips. If you truly love the Vancouver Canucks, your blue and green heart must have shattered into a million pieces like mine, and the only way to mend is with that cup they call Stanley.

Well folks, that time is here again and the only way we’re going to get through this is if we stick together, believe in blue and support our men on the ice. Although impossible, try to be as positive as you can so we can strengthen the right attitude as a city.

When we won our last game against Edmonton, I know everyone was glued to the TV as we watched the final minutes of San Jose versus LA because the loser would be playing us in the first round of the playoffs. Secretly, I was chanting for San Jose to win only because I thought it might be a possibility to travel to LA to catch a game. And possible it was because guess what?! I just booked my flight to LA and I’ll be in attendance at Staples Center for game 3 and 4! I can’t believe it! Everything worked out so perfectly, it almost creeps me out. You see, my work is shut down for maintenance for the entire month of April so it was meant to be!

And what is making it even more exciting? The Province reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in covering my road trip via blogging, vlogging and tweeting. I only had to think about it for all of half a second and of course my answer was YES! So here I am, loud and proud to be documenting my trip from everything from the preparation to the games themselves. I put together a quick little video to show two things: 1) What to expect from my trip to LA for the playoff games and 2) How much of a noob I am when it comes to actually vlogging. I promise you, I will do my best to make it better. 

So here are some things I’m going to kindly ask from you:

1) If you’d like, follow me on Twitter @amienguyen and the Province: @theprovince

2) Send me a tweet or post a comment if you have any suggestions of what you’d want to see in LA or in my playoff coverage in general.

Until then, GO CANUCKS GO!!!!! 

Series of Unfortunate Events: Whistlin’ to a Concussion

Welcome to the Series of Unfortunate Events: Episode 1.

I don’t know what it is but for the past … two and a half months, I’ve come across some pretty funny and unfortunate events. Funny because things keep happening one after another; unfortunate because I’ve had to endure pain, many hours of missed work and not being 100%.

I’m going to bring us back to December. I can’t remember the date but it all began with the weekend it was Kitti’s birthday. She was celebrating up in Whistler and both Michelle and I were hesitant to take our cars because we were experiencing some weird sounds with the brake. Since mine was the better one off, we decided to take my car. So three of us trekked our way up the Sea to Sky Highway at 10pm at night. PS, what an incredibly smooth ride. I can’t wait to ride the bike up on a clear, sunny day.

Now let’s fast forward to going home.

It’s Sunday and I had just dropped Michelle off at home. My car sounds like every animal in the world dying at the same time any time I braked. I wanted to leave my car and run away. On the way home, I ask my dad if I can take his work truck because I really badly wanted to make it to my last soccer game before the winter break. I trade cars, drop Steph at home and make it to my game before half time.

Do you know what time it is? Time to get your truck clock fixed, pops.

Now we’re at the last few minutes of the game and my team is down without a single goal. Next thing you know, my right forward is on a breakaway and she is flanked by two defensemen (women?). I come barreling down center lane and she taps it over to me. As the keeper comes towards me, I try to bring the ball around her and take a shot. A few feet away, she saves it by kicking it … right into my face.

All I remember is hitting the ground, looking up to see what happens next and watching the ball trickle past the goal line. I roll onto my back and with straight arms, point straight up into the sky. I get up and run back to the middle and ask, “Who scored that?” (I wasn’t sure if my teammate had tapped it in)

“Um … You did. By the way, your mouth is bleeding.”

The second she said that, I staggered to the side, was extremely dizzy, and all of a sudden, this sudden surge of pain hit my mouth and jaw and I couldn’t stand up straight. I subbed out and sat down while my teammates told me I may have a concussion. Meh. So the game ends and I hop back into my dad’s truck and on the way home, I suddenly feel extremely nauseous. I know that’s a sign of a concussion. I decide to be responsible about it and drove myself to the ER. Mind you, this entire time my phone is dead. I just got the iPhone and had not gotten used to the short-lived battery life. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on.

I get to the VGH, park the truck and check in with the Triage nurse. From the time I had from the waiting room to my X-rays–which was no longer than 10 minutes–I was able to quickly charge my phone and text my family and closest friends. In the end, turns out I had a mild concussion and slightly dislocated jaw. Whatever, at least I went out in style! How many people can say they scored with their mouth … ? Okay, maybe a lot. But this is different.

On the stretcher, waiting to go in for X-rays.

More battle wounds on the take-down.

You wanna know what the crazy part of all of this was? No, not the crazy time we had in Whistler. Not the ghetto truck. Not the concussion or dislocated jaw. Not the goal off the mouth. The craziest part of all this was that somehow, somewhy, but it turns out Michelle and I had the exact same car problem — our routers were on the brink of destruction and we had to change our brake pads. WEIRD. I mean, what are the chances of that happening to us at the exact same time? Anyway.

Which leads to today.

Since this incident, I’ve gotten extremely sick where I got fevers, chills, body aches, everything congested, headaches, etc, I got into a snowboarding accident that left me with five stitches in my right shin and a nasty abrasion in my left, I got a goose egg bump on my forehead from walking into a shelf and now I’m able to write this post because I couldn’t go into work today due to some kind of allergic reaction/infection that has me looking like Jay-Z with swollen lips.

Exhale.

I’ll get into the snowboarding incident soon, it’s a good one with lots of awesome pictures. All I gotta say is be thankful for what we take advantage of everyday — a healthy body. I can’t wait to be 100% so I can tear shit up again. Wait for it.

Take care!