Dear Jennie,

You should be home from Ireland by now and I know my last post made you unhappy, so I wanted to let you know that Wednesday night on my way home my primary job I got a call from my other job (not to be confused with my other-other job or my home job). They wanted to inform me that I had been switched from nightshift to dayshift for my two weeks of training, which meant that I would indeed be able to see the Stanley Cup Finals past game four.

It put me in such a good mood! Then I remembered the deprivation you suffered in Ireland, almost comparable to the deprivation that I suffered in Iraq (except Ireland has a little hockey, and Iraq has never heard of hockey, plus there was the LOCKOUT). I also remember the kindness and consideration we received when we passed through Shannon, Ireland both on our way to Iraq and on our way home. On our first pass through the people waved and smiled at us as we stretched our legs in the airport, and we realized with startling clarity that they thought we were on our way home! We wish! Our uniforms had four months of wear and tear on them from our train up time, but we weren’t nearly ragged enough to have just returned from Iraq. They were, however, the distinctive uniforms of the US military’s Iraq presence (at that time).

On our way home we arrived in Shannon at the ungodly hour of five a.m. (as an aside, if you’ve never spent 28 hours on an airplane, I don’t recommend it – it’s painful). Despite the early hour the management called the workers in and every pub and store in the airport was opened up just for us. Talk about hospitality!! We hadn’t had beer-thirty for 18 months, and some of our guys were desperate for a pint.

So I spoke to the Hockey Gods on your behalf. I explained that even though I had sacrificed the beer-and-steer to them on Memorial Day weekend to ensure a smooth Red Wings victory, you did deserve to get at least a couple of games under your belt before you hit the summer hockey drought. So I asked them to whack the Penguins on their collective heads and wake them up so we could actually have a competitive game, instead of three hours of watching the puck slide down the ice and into Pittsburgh’s goal.

It worked! The game was awesome! The Hockey Gods were obviously receptive to my request. It’s amazing what home-grown food and good home cooking can get you these days. But it’s the only one I’m going to give you. From here on out, it’s Red Wings all the way!

So Jennie, you now have at least two more games you can go to, as long as you’re willing to take one in at Joe Louis Arena. Please be sure to enjoy every moment of them because I will not do this again, okay? From here on out, it’s every team for itself. Red Wings in five!