Rookies visit hospital, get Skills assignments

As part of All-Access All Things All-Star coverage on NHL.com this weekend in Ottawa, Philadelphia Flyers rookie Sean Couturier will be blogging his thoughts and experiences. Here are some of his thoughts on Friday’s activities:

OTTAWA -- As I wrote yesterday in my blog, I thought Friday was going to be the down day of All-Star Weekend -- but as it turns out, it was a pretty eventful one.

My teammate Matt Read and I went to the children’s hospital pretty early this morning at 9 a.m., along with Ottawa Senators rookie Colin Greening to visit some sick kids. It was just great to see how excited the kids were to see some NHL players visiting them. But to be honest, I think we did as much good to the kids as they did for us. When you can make a sick kid smile, it’s truly priceless. Getting a chance to see the kids so happy and forgetting their problems for just a few minutes honestly made my day.

Of course, the kids had another good reason to be so happy because the hospital was unveiling a new games room where they’ll be able to play Xbox, watch TV, go on the Internet or talk to their parents via webcam. It was pretty impressive.

Some of the kids were playing NHL 12, and some of them were pretty good! I would have liked to sit down with them and play a bit, like I do with Danny Briere’s sons, but our schedule was a bit too tight to fit in a game.

After we were done at the hospital the rookies hung out a bit, giving us a chance to get to know each other better. We’re all having a fun time.

I also got a chance to get away and have lunch with my parents and my girlfriend for a couple of hours, something I don’t often get a chance to do during the season. After that I relaxed in my hotel room for a bit before heading over to Media Day.

That’s where I found out I’ve been picked to take part in the Breakaway Challenge, which is both a good and bad thing. I’ve never done anything where I had to do trick shots before, and with so many people watching this event I’m really going to have to get creative and come up with three great moves that people will want to watch. I can’t just do the same one three times!

I never told anyone I wanted to be in this event, and no one asked me, but now that I’m there I’m going to have to do the job. But it’s not going to be easy. To be honest, I’m feeling a bit of pressure.  

Still, I won’t let that ruin my Friday night where all the Flyers who are here are going out for dinner with our families. It should be a fun night. We might talk hockey a bit, but I don’t think I’ll have time to come up with my trick moves for Saturday night.

Whatever I come up with, I hope you’re all watching!