Ok, so we all had to wake up early...not as early as yesterday, but early nonetheless. I shuffled down to the lobby and partook of a microwavable breakfast sandwich (surprisingly good), a danish, and a muffin along with a few cups of lemonade. After that, we all piled into several cars and drove to the first practice session. The shot at Sunnybrook, as well as the ones at Sterling and Century, is not a lion, tiger, bear, guppy, iguana, or hornet. It was simply called "Medium." Eventually, the shot, which gave me a little trouble initially, became very playable and I found a few places where I was comfortable. We came back and headed off to check-in. Following registering and get the free gifts from the various booths, we walked into the merchandise room. It was pretty much shoulder to shoulder with lines nearly reaching the doors. The products this year were MUCH better than last year's.
We saw Rick Benoit and found out he was doing a seminar at 12:30, so a few of us stayed at the host hotel to hear what he had to say. Despite being really hungry, a few of us decided to stay. Even though the seminar was conducted as an open floor question and answer format, he went over some really important information, especially regarding mental game. Sean Rash was also in the room and I heard from his mouth that bar none what makes and breaks kids at this tournament is spares. One of the best parts of the day came at the end of the seminar. Every time someone asked a question, they would get a ticket that would be put into a drawing for a bowling ball at the end. Luckily, one of the tickets drawn belonged to none other than me. YAY!
We came back to the hotel and had to rush off to the next practice squad. Since we were all still very hungry, on the way to Sterling, we hit up the local White Castle. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to their sliders. While they were not particularly delicious, I could not stop eating them. The first one was "just alright," the second was "ehhh," the third was "pretty good," and the last one was "Are there any more?" That practice squad gave me a little less trouble overall.
We headed back to the hotel and a group of us decided to bowl in a side tournament. But first, we hit the Tim Horton's down the road. It was good, but I expect nothing less from them. We came back very briefly, changed into "proper attire" (slacks, collared shirts, etc.), and headed off to Imperial Lanes. The tournament would have had three patterns over the course of six games. However, when we got there, we were told they weren't going to turn anyone away and after standing in line for a good while, I asked how many pople were ALREADY on each lane. The answer I got was there was already five on a lane, we were still a ways back and there were people behind us. The whole group of us decided that we didn't want to still be bowling at 2 in the morning.
After heading back to the hotel, a group of us walked over to the Golf, Go-Karts, and Pool Hall. The line for go-karts was long, the mini-golf wasn't the greatest, but a few of us shot pool for a while. Then we walked back to the hotel. We were going to walk to Baskin-Robbins, but found out that Gaby, Kiri, and Jordan were already at White Castle, so Stacy, Heddy, Jeremy, Leif, and myself walked over to meet them.
After returning, we wound down and dispersed to our rooms for the night.
Tomorrow will be exciting, too, since AJ and Juan will arrive in the morning, we will have another practice session and from there, I suppose we'll wing it.
--Mike
Posted by Angel Zobel-Rodriguez at July 5, 2008 09:51 PM