I Met José!

As much as I hate for you all to know what I look like, I can't not post this photo. ;o)

I hadn't posted anything about this before now, because I didn't want to jinx the meeting. But if you follow my tumblr page, you probably saw me talking about it over there.

I won the online auction that the Wild held to "meet and greet" José after practice this past Tuesday. The auction ended on Jan. 31st, and a rep from the Wild organization called me a couple days later with the particulars of what practice, etc. We were allowed to watch the practice, which is a big deal, because they've never allowed the public in for practices. There were about 30 of us there. Every winner was allowed to bring 4 people. I brought my husband.

I live in Central Illinois, so it was an 8 hour drive to get to St. Paul. We drove up on Monday and got there about 5:00. We stayed at the Holiday Inn across the street from the Xcel. The practice began at 10:30 am on Tuesday and lasted until noon (they said it ran longer than normal.) We got to sit down close to watch them. Luckily José practiced most of the time at the end where we were. I didn't see much of Backs, because he was at the other end. I took some photos, but they didn't turn out real well. I thought my camera was ok, but I guess not. :p Maybe it's hard to get good photos in those places...but here are a couple just to prove I saw the practice.

There were 2 guys sitting quite a few rows up from the rest of us, and partway through practice, José hit a puck up towards them. It landed a couple seats in front. I thought about going to get it, but I thought he must want them to have it, so I didn't. Well, in a few minutes, one of the guys came over and said "Here you are" and held the puck out to me. I said, "Oh, thanks!" He said, "You're a Theodore fan. I'm his brother." I said, "You are?" Then he stuck out his hand to shake and said, "I'm José's brother." I said it was nice to meet him and I was there to meet José after practice. Then I thanked him again and he said he could tell I was a Theodore fan so wanted to give it to me. Then he went back. When I listen to the video I was shooting, he sounds so much like José. You can tell they're brothers by their voices. Then I told José I met his brother and he signed the puck for me. He said the other guy was another brother of his. So two of them were there. I thought that was so nice of him to come down and give it to me!

So after the practice, we went to a lounge to wait for the players to shower and come out. We were called in as our player was finished. I was called first, so my husband and I went in. Actually, Brent Burns came in before José, and I said, "Oh, we're not here to meet you." I felt bad as soon as I said it, because I didn't want him to think we didn't want to meet him. But they specifically told us we won the auction for one player, and we weren't going to get to meet others. One of the PR people told him his group wasn't there yet. But I said "It's not that I don't want to meet you though" and I held out my hand to shake. He shook my hand and my husband's. Then he sat down and asked who we were there to see. Then he saw my shirt and said, "Oh, Theo?" I said yeah. He said, "Yeah, I think Theo's still upset about the goals I scored on him today." Then he laughed. He asked how we got the opportunity to do this, and I said it was an online auction. I said, "You went to the highest bidder. Does it make you feel like a piece of meat?" We all laughed.

Then José walked in and came over and I said, "I'm Carol." He said "Nice to meet you. Very nice to meet you" and we shook hands. Then I introduced my husband and they shook hands, etc.

It was all kind of a blur. My husband videotaped a bit of it, so I can look back and know that it did happen, because it's kind of hard to believe now that I'm back to "reality." He signed a practice jersey for me (that was part of the auction.) Then he signed a couple other things I brought for friends (Hi, Berni! ;o) We talked for a few minutes, and he is such a nice guy. He didn't seem to hate being there or like it was a burden or anything. He was so neat to talk to. I only sounded like a derp once or twice. ;o)

Here are a few screen caps from the video. Seriously, one of the best days of my life. ;o)