Hello Hello

Hello Blog World,

My name is Tom Llaurado, and I'm ecstatic to be a part of 2 Cents From the Nose Bleeds. I'm a junior here at the University of Wisconsin, and I hail from the Milwaukee area (New Berlin to be exact). I'm an avid Packers, Brewers, and Badger fan, but I'd have to say that the sports team I care about the most right now is the Chicago Blackhawks. This may seem puzzling, that I (a Wisconsin resident) support a team located south of the Wisconsin-Illinois border, but I grew up playing the game of hockey and the Milwaukee Admirals just didn't do it for me. Thus, from a young age I was drawn to the closest NHL team in relation to where I lived, and that team was the Blackhawks. In addition to the Hawks, I also watched National Hockey Night (Barry Melrose in his prime) on ESPN almost every evening, so I'm a pretty enthusiastic supporter of the NHL, and I try to watch as much hockey as a busy college student can.

In addition to these American sports teams, I'm also a passionate supporter of the illustrious Futbol Club de Barcelona. My grandfather grew up in Barcelona and still owns an apartment in the city. I've been fortunate enough to visit 6 times throughout the course of my life, and have attended multiple soccer (football) matches in one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, Camp Nou. I've seen greats like Ronaldo (the Brazilian one), Kluivert, Ronaldinho and Messi play there. I was also fortunate to have lunch with their current coach Pep Guardiola (a fellow Catalan and past Barcelona captain) this summer when the team visited Los Angeles for their annual tour of America (picture above).

The main goal of most of my contributions to this blog will be to deliver interesting posts about hockey and world soccer, two sports that are typically outside America's focus. However, I'll still do my best to try and discuss more mainstream sports content on a frequent basis as well. With all that being said, I'd like to give a big "Word Up" to Brendan for letting me become a more direct influence of the 2cnb Nation. More to come...