Brian's Celebrity Blog: 2010

Saturday, December 25, 2010

2010 Olympic Gold Medalist: Roberto Luongo

Roberto Luongo is a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender for the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League. he has previously played for the New York Islanders and the Florida Panthers.

Playing major junior in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for the Val-d'Or Foreurs and the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, he won back-to-back President's Cups and holds the league's all-time playoff records in games played and wins as well.

Luongo was drafted fourth overall by the Islanders in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft.

He is a two-time Vezina Trophy and Lester B. Pearson Award finalist - both with Florida in 2004 and with Vancouver in 2007. He was a finalist for the Hart Memorial Trophy in 2007.

In 2008, he became the first NHL goaltender to serve as a captain since Bill Durnan in the 1947-48 season. Luongo served in that capacity for two season before resigning the position before the 2010-11 season.

Internationally, Luongo has competed for Team Canada in numerous tournaments. As a junior, he won a silver at the 1999 World Junior Championships, while being named Best Goaltender in his second tournament appearance. Luongo has won two gold medals at the 2003 and 2004 World Championships and a silver in the 2005 World Championships. He also won the 2004 World Cup championship and appeared in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin as a backup to Martin Brodeur in both instances. He succeeded Brodeur as Canada's starting goaltender during the 2010 Winter Olympcs in Vancouver, winning a gold medal. (wikipedia)

I only had a brief encounter with Roberto as he was boarding the bus to head to the game in Ottawa. He came out to drop off his things on the bus and was getting ready to sign autographs for people when he noticed a guy he had already signed for the day before. He told the guy that he had already signed for him and, in turn, the guy told Roberto that he had already signed for everyone. "Well then I'm not signing anymore", he said. Are you joking me??? I told him that he hadn't singed for me yet and held up my 16x20. He ended up signing it as it was the first time I had seen it.

I almost missed out on his signature because of that guy.

The team piece is coming along.

Running Count: 6 autographs
Drew Doughty
Cory Perry
Martin Brodeur
Rick Nash
Dan Boyle
Roberto Luongo

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Top Prospects: Louis Leblanc

Louis Leblanc is a Canadian junior ice hockey centre. He was drafted in the 1st round, 18th overall, by the Montreal Canadiens in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.

He played the 2008-09 season for the Omaha Lancers of the United States Hockey League (USHL). He played one season with the Harvard Crimson before signing a contract with the Canadiens in 2010.

Junior Career

Leblanc played minor hockey with the Lakeshore Minor Hockey Association and then joined the Lac St. Louis Lions, a midget team in Montreal. He led the league in scoring for two years, and led his team in penalty minutes both years. He was selected eighteenth overall by the Val-d'Or Foreurs in the 2007 QMJHL Draft, but instead went to the Omaha Lancers with the intent of playing for a university team.

He joined the Harvard Crimson in 2009 and on January 8, 2009 his QMJHL rights were traded to the Chicoutimi Sagueneens. His rights were traded again on June 5, 2010 when Chicoutimi sent him to the Montreal Junior Hockey Club. In his one year at Harvard, Leblanc lead the team in goals (11), assists (12) and points (23). He was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, and was a finalist for the ECAC Rookie of the Year.

On July 30, 2010, Leblanc signed a 3-year contract with the Canadiens. Leblanc is currently playing with the Montreal Juniors of the QMJHL.

On December 15, 2010 Leblanc was named to team Canada for the 2011 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship that will take place in Buffalo.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Vancouver Canucks

Keeping with the theme of photo blogs (plogs) rather than regular blogs, here is one from the Vancouver Canucks when they made their visit to Ottawa in November.

Dan Hamhuis

Mikael Samuelsson

Tanner Glass

Christian Ehrhoff

Ryan Kesler

Alex Edler

Corey Schneider

Keith Ballard

Mason Raymond

Sami Salo

Henrik and Daniel Sedin (11x14)

I don't really have too much to say about the Canucks. Most of them signed without a problem. Corey Schneider signed everything that anyone had.

The one interesting story of note happened when we were waiting for the Sedins to leave the hotel. They headed out to dinner with Sami Salo and none other than Jarkko Ruutu!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Montreal Canadiens

I haven't posted in awhile, but it isn't because I haven't been busy meeting celebrities and getting autographs. Things have changed a bit though. I realized that getting a picture with a hockey player isn't as important to me as it once was. There are still a few photos that I would get with players, but they would need to be in the right situations. When players come out in groups, it is hard enough to flip through photos to get signatures. There isn't time to get photos. I would still ask for a photo if I see a player one-on-one and there is someone around that doesn't still need autographs from that guy.

What does that all mean? Some of my blogs will be more photos than write-ups, and there will be less photos with hockey players.

There are few teams that are easy to access in Ottawa. Fortunately, the Montreal Canadiens are one of them.

Kirk Muller

Kirk is one of the assistant coaches of the Canadiens He used to play for the team and was a member of the Stanley Cup winning team in 1993. The Canadiens won the Stanley Cup Final four games to one. The win denied Wayne Gretzky from becoming the first to captain two teams to the Stanley Cup.

Kirk is always a great signer. I showed him four photos and he signed them all in one shot.

Maxim Lapierre

Maxim is by far one of the nicest guys on the team. I think if I were to buy a Canadiens jersey, it might actually be his. Maxim signed two photos for me.

PK Subban

One of the future stars of the team and easily a fan favourite for his play. He used to be a much better signer but still did two for me.

Ryan O'Byrne

He doesn't play for the Canadiens anymore. He was traded to the Avalanche shorty after I got his photo signed. I only had one. I will always remember when he scored on his own open net while trying to pass to the goalie on a delayed penalty call.

Jeff Halpern

One of the new guys on the team this year. He was a bit of a douche.

Brian Gionta

The captain of the team. He signed two photos for me and seemed genuinely like a nice guy.

Carey Price

After much criticism in the off-season, Carey Price seems to have come around and show the potential the Canadiens thought he had when they drafted him. There isn't a goaltending controversy anymore in Montreal and Carey has prospered.

Roman Hamrlik

Roman wasn't a very nice guy. He didn't seem to want to sign anything, but I was able to get one photo signed by him. The followed day I grabbed a photo with him.

Alex Auld

Alex was a pretty cool guy. Not many people had anything for him to sign, but I got him on a photo and chatted him up a bit. We talked about his days on the old North Bay Centennials and chatted a bit about Ryan Armstrong.

Josh Georges

One of my favourite players on the team. He is great behind a microphone. He signed a couple of photos for me.

Tomas Plekanec

Not much to say about him. He didn't really seem too nice, but wasn't a douche either.

Jaroslav Spacek

Another one of the nicest guys on the team. It would be a toss up between him and Lapierre.

Mike Cammalleri

We ran into Mike Cammalleri by chance. He didn't go out to dinner with the rest of the team, but went for a walk by himself.

Scott Gomez

He singed a photo for me, and then signed a photo for Steve. He followed it up by dropping the sharpie in Steve's autograph. His graph is absolutely terrible when you see him on the street.

Benoit Brunet

Benoit is a former Canadien who was also a member of the 1993 Stanley Cup winning team. Shortly after his retirement, Brunet became a colour commentator and is now the main French-language colour commentatio alonside play-by-play man Pierre Houde for all Canadiens games.

This concludes my Montreal Canadiens blog. More will follow shortly.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Norm MacDonald

Norm MacDonald is a Canadian actor, writer and stand-up comedian. He is best known for his five seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, which included anchoring Weekend Update for three years.

MacDonald joined the cast of SNL in 1993, where he performed impressions of Larry King, Burt Reynolds, David Letterman, Charles Kuralt, and Bob Dole, among others.

Soon after leaving Saturday Night Live, MacDonald co-wrote and starred in the "revenge comedy" Dirty Work. Later that year, MacDonald voiced the character of Lucky the dog in the remake of Doctor Dolittle. He reprised the role in both Doctor Dolittle 2 and Doctor Dolittle 3.

MacDonald voiced the character of Death on an episode of Family Guy. Due to a conflict with his stand-up schedule, he was unavailable to voice the character for his next appearance; Death has since been played by Adam Corolla.

On November 12, 2000, MacDonald appeared on the Celebrity Edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? winning $500,000.00 for Paul Newman's Charity Camp. MacDonald could have won a million dollars, but admitted he was too nervous to go for it. Had he done so, his initial guess at the million dollar question was correct.

MacDonald continued to make appearances on television shows and in films, including Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, and The Animal, all of which starred fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus Rob Schneider and were produced by Adam Sandler.

In 2006, MacDonald again performed as voice actor, this time in a series of commercials for Canadian cellphone services profider Bell Mobility, as the voice of "Frank the Beaver". The campaign had a commercial tie-in with the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and with the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The ads ran heavily on CBC during the Olympics and throughout the National Hockey League's postseason. Due to its success, the campaign was extended throughout 2006, 2007 and into 2008 to promote offerings from other Bell Canada divisions such as Bell Sympatico Internet provider and Bell TV satellite service.

In the 2007 World Series of Poker, he came in 20th out of 827 entrants in the $3000 No Limit Texas Hold'em event, winning $14,608. He also made it to round two of the $5000 World Championships of Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em.

Norm was a great guy to meet. It was raining slightly when we met him so he stayed in the car as fans passed him items in order to keep them dry. He signed all of our things and then asked if anyone else had anything to sign.