Thursday, February 12, 2004
Because the gym we go to is the gym for the Hyatt across the street, sometimes we see an interesting out-of-town visitor. I ran on a treadmill next to Jerry Rice once, which was probably the highlight, but today was pretty close. In knots of three and four and five a group of young guys wandered in, joking and shoving each other. At first I thought that they might be some sort of boy band in town for a concert, but it soon became apparent that there were too many of them. In fact, it was the L.A. Kings, fresh off a 3-2 OT loss to Columbus, which ended a seven game winning streak for them. I don't think I've ever seen a team come in to work out, but there they were, and they were serious, if rambunctious, more heavily tattooed than I would have thought, chattering away in a mix of English, French and Russian. One doesn't think of hockey players as being particularly chiseled, mostly because they look so bulky on the ice, but I am here to testify that there wasn't a speck of cereal on these guys. It's a pretty serious gym, so the people there are in good shape, for the most part, but there is all the difference in the world between being a 50 year old lawyer in good shape and being a 27 year old professional athlete (golfers excepted).
