More Hockey Freebies: Hockey Bear Set

There was much intrest in another hockey type of download amongst my faithful few. So I have designed a whimisal kit with a hockey theme.

This will go just super with the Mites or Pee Wees. Even female hockey players might like this. In case it isn't "tough enough" for the older boys, there are some textured papers and tags that might go well with their photos.

Here is the first part of the Hockey Bear Set. Look for the add on tomorrow. The add on will include a set of numbers you can use "as is" or create your own to match the number of your favorite player!

You can get my other hockey freebies here.

Day 2 Hockey Request: Hockey Papers Freebie

I'm offering another hockey themed digital scrapbooking freebie today. I try very hard to fulfill as many requests as my talent can offer. Sometimes someone will ask for something and I just do not know how to design something like that.

My apologies for anyone who can't use this Hockey Paper download because the colors aren't right for their team!! If you have enough experience in your scrapbooking program you can use the magic wand and delete the background color and add your own.

If you don't know how to do what I am saying then email me at the link in my sidebar and I can walk you through the directions.

It was my intention to put some neutral colors in the pack so that you could at least use some of the papers.

If this download and yesterday's download, the Hockey Alphabet, are popular I can always make more hockey designs.

PLEASE let me post the layouts you make with theses papers. Who knows, one day your hockey star might be a huge NHL star and we will have had a layout of him/her when they were just a Pee Wee! Imagine what that would be worth!!!

By Request: Hockey Alphabet Freebie

A while back, when I was complaining about not getting a lot of traffic on my blog, someone asked for more hockey themed scrap offerings. Today's freebie, the Hockey Alphabet, is in response to that request.
As you can tell from my blog, I am a huge Carolina Huricanes fan since the days I used to work for their orginazation back in the early 2000s. My favorite player is Rod Brind'Amour! He is one good looking man (in a rugged, man-with-a-stick kind of way!!!)


This alphabet is really a 2-for-1 deal because I added in the plain letters (not attached to the hockey puck) in case you aren't a hockey fan. That way, you can still use the alphabet.


Come back tomorrow for some hockey themed papers and if you missed my other hockey themed freebie, the Stanley Cup Template, you can get it here.

Hockey Bear Set Add On Freebie

Here is the second half of the hockey freebie I offered yesterday. This is the Hockey Bear Set Add On.

As promised, here are the numbers you can use to honor your favorite star! Just use the ones I made up (zero to nine) or you can take the bear from yesterday's Hockey Bear Set and add the stand alone numbers from today's add on and make whatever number you need.

Realize that the numbers and the bear are made using the watercolor script in Paint Shop Pro and are supposed to be a little "blurry" for effect. The tag also has a slight blurred effect. So there is nothing wrong with the download! LOL

I hope these and my other hockey freebies have filled a hole that was out there for digi scrappers with hockey needs!

Your Layouts!

Thanks to Karen and her Mom for sharing their Hockey layouts! These pages were made with my Hockey Papers freebie.

Don't forget to grab the Hockey Alphabet as well!

And GOOD NEWS to all hockey fans...I am working on a hockey themed kit. So look for that next week!

Outdoor Hockey

The outdoor hockey game between Pittsburgh and Buffalo is just about to start on NBC! It is snowing hard. This is going to be great (besides Sidney Crosby is a hottie!)

This is the first outdoor NHL hockey game played in the United States and it has 3 times the regular crowd of a normal hockey arena.

If you have never seen hockey, turn it on for a second! Broaden your horizons!

Well, I am going to watch the game. See you later!

Stanley Cup Template Freebie

This morning I'm offering a freebie you can use to celebrate your NHL team's trip to the Stanley Cup finals! If you are like me, you may have to go back a couple of years, but that's ok!

I love the Carolina Huricanes, and especially their captain Rod Brind'Amour. They won the Stanley Cup in 2006! (That's actually THE picture of Rod Brind'Amour holding the Stanley Cup from that year in the template outline.)

In 2002 when the Hurricanes were in the Stanley Cup finals my fiance' and I were working at the RBC Center in Raleigh. It was an awesome experience! The Stanley Cup finals is like the Super Bowl of hockey so anybody who was anybody was there.

We met famous hockey players like Ray Bourque. (If you know hockey, then you know who Ray Bourque is!) I was working the suites at the RBC Center and met some of the rock group Three Doors Down, who were in one of my suites. I also met the singer Five For Fighting, John Ondrasik. There were politicians, like Elizabeth Dole in the suite too.

Working at the RBC was great becaue when Wayne Gretzky bought part ownership in the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team, the Carolina Hurricanes were playing the Coyotes that night in Raleigh. The Great One, as Mr. Gretzky is known in the hockey world, was traveling with his new team and was at the game that night!

It gave me goose bumps when they held a little impromptu ceremony at the beginning of the game. Imagine the Queen of England or a President of the US just happening to be in your neighborhood. It was THAT exciting!

Mr. Gretzky is THE best hockey player of all time, holding such a lead on most of the league's records that it will be YEARS before anyone can catch up to him!

Here is the Stanley Cup Template. I'm sorry to say I can't pull for the Detroit Red Wings because they are the team that beat my team in 2002! Besides, I don't think they need any of my support! They are doing fine on their own!

My fiance' is from Pittsburgh, so he is all about the Pittsburgh Penguins. They are running on a huge head of steam and could end up winning the whole thing. It should be an exciting series.

Why Hockey?

Some people have been asking me why I am so "into" hockey, especially if I am originally from North Carolina. Well, to make a long story short, I used to work at the RBC Center (when it was called the Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena) for 3 years when it first opened. That is the home of the Carolina Hurricanes.

I knew nothing about hockey but I was always a big sports fan. As I worked at the arena, I began to pick up on the intricacies of the sport. It was way different from anything I was accustomed to seeing.

What KEPT me hooked was what I follow as a general rule: I first begin pulling for the team with the good looking guys! If you have any doubts about the Carolina Hurricanes, just look at the picture attached to this post. That's our team captain, Rod Brind'Amour. There are also a bunch of other hotties on the team! By the way, for those of you who don't know, he's holding the Stanley Cup. That's the Holy Grail of Hockey. Carolina won it in 2006!

#2 in Most Valuable Player Template Series: Hockey Template Freebie

This is the second installment of the Most Valuable Player Template Series.

This is really where the whole idea for the series was born. I had been doing some hockey freebies and when I started this template I thought about the small amount of sports themed freebies out there.

Here is the Most Valuable Player Hockey Template .

Look for the other four templates in this series in the coming days.

Your Layouts!

Score, LadyPatsFan!!!!!

Here is an absolutely wonderful example of why we scrap (digi or paper.) It is for family memories like this to be passed on to future generations.

Way to go LadyPatsFan for such a "warm fuzzy" of a layout!

She used my Stanley Cup Template for her layout.

Here is the story behind the layout:

TV announcer: "He shoots! He scores!"

LPF (~ 1-2 yo, looks up from her playing): "Score Bobby Orr!"

Dad: "No, honey. Score (Ken Hodge / Wayne Cashman / Other Hockey Player)."

LPF (arms raised in celebration): "Score Bobby Orr!"

Dad: "No, no. Not Score Bobby Orr. Score (Ken Hodge/Wayne Cashman /Other Hockey Player)."

LPF (excitedly): "Score Bobby Orr!" “Score! Bobby Orr!”

Dad (laughing and sighing at the same time): "Ok, ok. Score Bobby Orr!"

(repeat all season long, regardless of which player actually scored, which team scored, or if the Bruins were even playing that night.)

Good News For Some

I know most of you come to this blog to get digital scrapbooking freebies. As you can see in my profile I have lots of other intrests as well.

But to be fair to those who don't want to wade thru all my ramblings about my hockey team's woes, I have installed a Carolina Hurricanes hockey widget on my sidebar.

That's not to say I might not mention the ' Canes occasionally!

Actually the team was doing super the first part of the season. But right now they are stinking up the place! But your favorite sports team is like your child...it requires unconditional love!

I'm woking hard on both the child AND the team!! LOL

Another Hockey Loss

Oh well. I am disappointed once again by my hockey team. But I'm not giving up on them. The season is long and every team struggles during the year. Hopefully we can get past this slump we are in right now! Go Canes!

NHL ALL STAR Balloting Now Open

Now that the NASCAR season is officially over and we are waiting on the results of the Chex Most Popular Driver Award, it is time to place your vote for the 2009 NHL All Star Team.

Ok, so let's say you have no idea about hockey and you really could care less. Ok, I accept that. Here's my point of view: I am more than happy to design digital scrapbooking things and giving them away free. I really enjoy it. I ask for nothing in return.

Well, now I am asking something. I would really love to see my favorite player, Rod Brind'Amour, make the team. And since this is all about fan voting, I'd like to ask you to take the time while your freebie is downloading and click on the link in my sidebar and vote for him.

It is really simple and you can vote every day. He is listed under the Eastern Conference as a forward. I'm pretty sure you have to vote for all postions so you can just pick a neat sounding hockey name for any of the other players. It really isn't all that hard.

Thanks in advance for helping out here. I'll let you know if he makes it. The game is in February.

Template Freebie: Canada

I'm sorry if I got a little out of line with my earlier post today . All of these templates were SUPPOSED to bring us all together as having one thing in common no matter where we live: our love of travel and the beauty of experiencing new places with the ones we love.

So I am hoping this little incident didn't change your opinion of me in a negative way.

Here is the Countires of the World Template Series freebie for today. It is the Canada template.
Canada (if it is still where I remember it to be: wink, wink) is such a wonderful and huge country I had a hard time trying to decide what the template would convey. Of course as a hockey fan I wanted to give Canada its credit for the evolution of ice hockey.

The fleu de lis in the background of the template represents the design on the flag of Quebec (simply because it was an easy design to incorporate into a background.)

And of course the maple leaf is included in the template because everyone knows (or should know) that the maple leaf automatically represents Canada. It is the symbol on their flag.

Carolina Hurricanes Hockey Tonight!

My hockey team plays tonight. But man, they kill me when they play the Flyers! They just can't seem to beat them most of the time! What makes it worse is that the Flyers are my son's team. I had to ban him from coming over to watch the game with me because he jinxes my team by pulling for someone else!!! He calls to rub it in and I say , "Don't you have a test to study for or a paper to write?" What am I sending him to college for if he has so much free time!!!

Kristi Is Still Going Strong

It's good to see that Kristi Yamaguchi is still going strong on Dancing with the Stars.

Things are a little tougher for her husband, Brett Hedican, though...his hockey team, the Carolina Hurricanes, are in a very tight race to win the Southeast Divison. The winner of that divison automatically goes to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

With 2 games left to go in the season, the Hurricanes are tied with the Washington Capitals.

Dale JR Qualifies For Chase!

By now most of you know that I am a huge Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan! Yesterday was a big day for Dale Jr. because he was able to earn enough points in the race that he is now locked into the NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase.

For those of you who aren't big racing fans, it means he qualifies to contend for the championship. It's sort of like earning a playoff spot in football or hockey. This is big because last year, at DEI, he did not qualify. Equipment problems and family issues kept him from competing in the Chase.

New year, new team, new chance for Dale Jr. to finish the season with a lot accomplished this year. He won a regular season race, as well as the Budweiser Shootout and another non-points race.

Good luck, Junior, as you continue to put rack up great finishes and maybe even some more victories this year!

Boo Hoo

Oh well, my hockey team, the Carolina Hurricanes gave it their all but just barely missed the playoffs by 1 point in the standings.

Considering we had MULTIPLE injuries all season long (including our captain who went down on 2-14) the team played strong all the way until the end. We had about 1/3 or more of the team made up of players from the lower league, the AHL. (Think Busch series versus Winston Cup.)

It went down to the last game of the season. Had we won that game we would have made the playoffs because we would have been the Southeastern divisional champions. Instead the season is over.

Oh well, I'll get NHL Center Ice again next fall and watch them again! I'm hooked!

Carolina Hurricanes Pull One Out Of Their...

Well, you know what I mean. Down 2 goals with only about 3 minutes in the game, the Hurricanes score to insure there isn't a shutout. Less than 1 minute later they score the tie goal. Then in overtime, they score first to win the game.

With hockey, it isn't over until the very last buzzer sounds! (Thank goodness!)

Carolina Hurricanes Fire Stanley Cup Winning Coach

Yes, it was coming for a while. Many thought he would be out in the off season, but NO ONE thought we would rehire the coach we fired to hire this guy we are firing now in the first place!

Five years after Paul Maurice was fired as head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes, he is rehired to lead the team out of their current slump. Go ahead and just shoot me now!

On an upbeat note, Ron Francis, Hockey Hall of Fame member and former Hurricanes star, will be the associate coach.

The good news is that Ron Francis is a cutie! LOL