I went down to Sioux Falls to watch my cousin Parker Tuomie play Friday night. He's a winger for the Stampede, a gritty player that forechecks relentlessly, gets pucks on the net and really reminds me of Martin St. Louis' playing style. I hadn't seen him play in person since 2010 when I was living with his parents in Bremerhaven, Germany, so it was great seeing him play. They are just about to head into their playoffs, they clinched with a win on Saturday night.
I made the trek down from Minneapolis to watch both the Stampede play the Tri-City Storm and to watch a family friend perform during the game(more on that later). I have never been to the Denny Sanford Premier Center before, I was impressed. It was built last year and seats 12,000 people. For the Friday night game they had just over 6,000 fans, pretty impressive draw in my mind. The Stampede were down 5-1 going into the third period, Tri-City had a few really nice goals in the first period off of some heavy shots. Tri-City wound up scoring two more in the third to make it 7-1. With four minutes to go in the third period though, it seemed like every shot the Stampede took went in.
Had to have been the biggest comeback I have seen, despite Sioux Falls still having lost. The final score wound up being 7-6 and they had a few quality chances to tie it up.
My cousin had two goals within less than 30 seconds of each other, which was great to see! The Stampede currently have 20 players committed to a D1 team and it was great to be watching players that young play in a setting like that.
Too Tall Ike; The man, the myth, the legend. A good family friend, Dave Isaacson, started skating on stilts in 2009. He saw someone do this about thirty years ago when he was a student at UMD. In general, he’s a tall man, but on stilts he stands at just about ten feet tall and is able to stick handle and shoot with an eight foot tall made 3-piece stick. He wears a Charleston Chiefs jersey and obligatory Hanson Brother glasses. The stilts are custom made sheet rocker stilts with goalie blades on the bottom for a little more steel on the ice. He skated around after the first period of Friday’s game. Laughing about it afterwards, he was specifically told to make sure he waited until the “Cadillac” was off the ice to start, the local dealership had to have been a little nervous about a ten foot tall guy on stilts next to the brand new car.
Walking into the game, I asked him when he started doing this at games. He said his first game was a junior game in Des Moines. He said it was dollar beer night and guys were carrying around five beers in a tray up to the stands when he was getting ready. "The people were loose", he said. He’s done junior games, college, and even a Columbus Blue Jackets game. Check out his Facebook, pretty great pictures!
Play hard, play fair, and have fun
-Taylor