Guests at Rebecca Leslie's 30th birthday bash on Friday will smell the hottest item on the menu the minute they walk in the door. While Postmedia's 'Nasty' Natasha Baldwin was busy dealing with more pressing Ottawa Charge matters, sources confirmed that the most popular food concession at the Canadian Tire Centre is generally the popcorn, which actually tastes as good as it smells. Fans sitting in the top two levels of the arena during Game 3 of the team's PWHL semifinal against the Boston Fleet are expected to consume about 280 pounds of kernels.
Whether or not there are leftovers depends on the actual attendance. With the PWHL head office secretive about advanced ticket sales, Ticketmaster shows most seats in the first two levels are already sold, suggesting Ottawa will challenge the PWHL playoff record crowd of 13,104 established last May 26 at Xcel Energy Center for the final game of the Charge-Minnesota Frost championship series.
In any event, it's safe to assume more people than ever before will surround Leslie on the day of her birth. 'It's really exciting when you can have a birthday in May and still be playing hockey,' the Kanata-born Charge star said Thursday. 'I'm excited to have family and friends here, and obviously a big birthday, but more importantly, it's just so fun to play playoff hockey on my birthday.'
While Leslie knows her 'extended family' has already purchased tickets, she has picked up about seven or eight for her relatives. But she really won't have much time to see them, or any other familiar faces that will make up the team's 'seventh player', for anything other than a quick post-game 'hi' because of the quick turnaround leading into Game 4 about 41 hours later.
Her game-day ritual is a little different from most, at least the food part. She'll take part in the traditional morning skate, then go home for a nap, but her pre-game meal is not the classic chicken and pasta many players pound down. 'I'm not so superstitious, but it's mostly breakfast food,' she said. 'I'll eat some eggs and kind of keep it a little bit lighter.' The scent of popcorn wafting through the arena generally goes unnoticed by Leslie. 'Sometimes during warmups, I smell the burgers,' she said.
What Leslie would like more than anything for her birthday, naturally, is a win that would give the Charge a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five and a chance to clinch a return visit to the Walter Cup final on Sunday. To that end, she and her teammates have a secret weapon working in their favour. Call it Monkey Power. 'Monkey' is a three-year-old mini-poodle owned by Charge defender Jocelyne Larocque that has become a favourite friend of the team. The players adore her, which was evident when a group of them took advantage of a water break during Thursday's practice to wave and shout hi to the little doggy as she watched from a friend's lap in the CTC stands.
