So, my second last post spoke of a great hockey adventure in
the future tense, and my last post hinted that it didn’t quite start as
expected, but then I left it hanging – sorry! This time of year just
doesn’t lend itself to my sitting at a computer as much in my spare time.
Go Oilers!
March 22
Well, to pick up the story I left hanging, we’d made it to
the Toronto airport, and I’d learned that car rental companies frown on expired
drivers’ licenses. So, we were standing at the car rental counter fairly
late at night with no car. It was clear that I wouldn’t be able to solve
the problem there that night, so we thought we’d head to the hotel. I’d
known we were getting in late, so I’d had the forethought to book a hotel near
the airport. I assumed there’d be a shuttle, so we headed to the shuttle
pick-up area. That’s when I learned that there were three Hilton Garden
Inns near the airport, two of which had shuttles. Guess which one we were
at? OK, a ten minute cab ride and $45 later, we got to the hotel.
Of course, through all of this, we hadn’t had supper, so that was our next
project. Well, by this time room service and nearby restaurants were
all closed. There was a McDonald’s across the street, but at this time of
night it was drive-through only. Fortunately, after a few tries, we were
able to get in touch with a pizza joint that would still deliver to us.
Eventually, around 3 AM we got to bed.
March 23
I got up at 8:00 AM to start working out the logistics for the rest of the
trip, letting Brodie try to catch up on a little more
sleep. We had tickets to a game in Ottawa that evening, so getting to Ottawa was our
first priority. We had an empty day between Ottawa and Montreal that would hopefully give us opportunity to resolve the issues.
With Sue looking into things in Alberta, we were able to determine
that there was no option for a temporary license in Ontario, and that license
renewal in Alberta had to be done in person. In keeping with our first
priority of getting to the Ottawa game, I figured out that if Brodie and I left our hotel
by 11 AM-ish, we should be able to make a 1:20 PM train that would get us to
Ottawa in time. That would consist of a bus ride to the subway, and then
the subway to the train. That was about all I had time to figure out
before getting Brodie up and heading for the bus. Fortunately, the bus
stop was just across the street. We headed downstairs and out the door.
The first thing we saw upon exiting the hotel was a television news
crew. The next thing we saw was miles of yellow police tape. It
turns out there had been a shooting involving vehicles at the intersection in
front of our hotel. I guess the sound proofing in the hotel was very
good, because we hadn’t heard a thing (gun shots, sirens, etc.). OK, fine,
so we can’t cross the street as planned – there must be another solution.
I went back and asked the guy at the front desk in the hotel. Sure,
there’s another way: a 20-minute walk to another bus stop. We
started heading down the road, knowing that the extra time put our plan in
jeopardy. However, given that the cab ride from the airport to the hotel
had been $45, I assumed it would be cheaper to buy a car than take a cab all
the way to Union Station. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do, but we didn’t
get far until the guy from the front desk came running after us and offered us
a ride to the bus stop. Yep, he gave us a ride in his personal vehicle,
so a great review for that hotel/employee! Next, of course, we ran into
one of the other problems caused by the shutdown of the artery in front of the
hotel: gridlock. We inched through traffic for a while, eventually
got close enough to see the stop, and walked the rest of the way. Good
news: the bus wasn’t scheduled to leave for another eleven minutes.
We waited patiently, watching the electronic countdown to our bus, and noting
that there were no busses of any kind going in any direction. The sign
continued to count down the time to our expected bus: 11 minutes, 5
minutes, 0 minutes, 23 minutes. OK, next plan.
In Calgary, Uber has been in a fight with our city council,
but they’re running in Toronto. Let’s give that a try. I created an
Uber account and found that we could get picked up quite quickly.
Unfortunately, without knowing it, I’d picked some kind of premium Uber plan,
so it seemed quite expensive. Still, hopefully we’d get to the
subway. Well, once the driver mentioned I’d asked for a premium plan, I
had to ask: how much to Union Station on the cheap plan? Great news: he’d get
us all the way there for $45. Given that our subway ride was already in
jeopardy, we went for it. Sure enough, he got us to Union Station by
about 1:05 – fifteen minutes to get our ticket and get on the train.
Despite all the construction in Union Station, we were able to find the
appropriate ticket office and train platform and we made the train!
Toronto's Union Station
As we were walking to the train, I noticed that the train
had free Wi-Fi. That was good news, because I had a lot of trip planning
to do. So, how could we get around without a car? Well, maybe train/bus/plane
would work. The more I thought that through, given all of the tight
connections, etc., and the fact that we’d packed expecting to have a vehicle
(i.e. two large bags), that just didn’t seem practical. It might be
reasonable to take a train between cities, but then either hauling our bags
with us to the arenas or getting rides from the train to the hotel, to the
arena, to food, back to the hotel, etc., etc., it just seemed both impractical
and cost prohibitive. The longer I thought, the more obvious it became to
me that we needed a car! OK, what does an unplanned trip back and forth
to Calgary look like? It meant changes to our Ottawa hotel plans,
transportation back and forth to the Ottawa arena, redoing the car rental, and
booking a last-minute, extremely over-priced flight. No problem – sure it
would be costly, but I had a few hours on the train to work it out.
That’s when I learned just how spoiled I’d become with high-speed
internet! I guess you get what you pay for. Sadly, my phone’s
reception was spotty, so I was stuck with what felt like dial-up
internet. It’s AMAZING how frustrating it is to try to make all those
plans on such a slow connection. I spent the entire 4+ hour trip making
travel plans. We’d planned on meeting one of my nephews (Brodie’s cousin)
in Kingston for lunch, but sadly our travel plan changes meant we could only
wave as we passed by.
When it came to last-minute flights, I was very happy West
Jet existed. They were substantially cheaper than Air Canada for a
last-minute flight, and the times worked out. I’d leave Ottawa at 6:00
AM, arrive in Calgary around 8:00 AM, leave Calgary around 6:00 PM, and get
back to Ottawa around 12:30 AM. Yeah, it would make for a long day, but
maybe I’d catch a bit of sleep on the plane. The flight was the same
price if I booked through West Jet directly or went through Expedia. I
decided to go through Expedia because I’d get their points in addition to the
ones West Jet would give me. After booking the flight, I noticed the “add
a car” option. Absent-mindedly (forgetting that the fact that I was
making the trip was due to my inability to rent a car) I thought perhaps I
could let Sue sleep a little longer. I clicked on the button and, for
$30, I could rent a car for the day. Just before I remembered I couldn’t
rent a car anyway, I noticed that by adding a $30 car rental, the cost of the
“package” (flight plus car rental) went down by over $300!?! Well, that’s
a valuable travel tip – look into it if you ever need to make a last-minute
flight!
OK, back to focusing on Ottawa. The arena in Ottawa is
WAY out of town. Public transit would take just over an hour if
everything went right, and we’d be hauling our bags with us. Fortunately,
we have some very good friends in Ottawa, and when Sue described our
predicament, she offered to pick us up and drive us to the arena. That
worked out really well, because she could also drive by the hotel so that we
could drop our bags off. Well, it would have worked out if we could find
our hotel! The GPS took us to a construction site. We eventually
got them on the phone and found out our “hotel” was actually a college
residence, which we were then able to locate. As we were driving from the
station to the hotel, and back to the freeway, we learned there’d been a
traffic disruption (accident and debris), and the freeway was at a
stand-still. Well, there are advantages to riding with a local. She
knew an excellent back road route, and she managed to get us there in plenty of
time for the puck drop. Thank-you Julene!!!
Hockey highlights in Ottawa:
We had FANTASTIC seats – close enough to
recognize the players by their faces even without seeing jersey numbers!
The anthem was sung by a very young-looking kid
(10, maybe) with amazing pipes!
It was an absolute delight to watch Crosby play,
even though he didn’t have his greatest game.
The game, especially the first period, was quite
physical, with lots of good hits.
The “fiddle along” contest, with the big screen
showing people with super-imposed violins playing along to a live fiddler, was
entertaining.
T-shirt guns, by now, are common-place, but
Ottawa had a t-shirt MACHINE gun!!! (We saw more on our trip, but I think
this was a first.)
The snow clearing crew was all guys, and they
used a very different pattern from Calgary.
The game went into overtime and then into a
shoot-out. Ottawa’s goalie (Anderson) made a SICK save in OT.
All three goals were scored from basically the
same spot.
At one point the crowd was booing Crosby, and a
guy behind me piped up with “don’t boo him – he’s a great player”. I
agree!
Traffic patterns around the Ottawa arena are
RIDICULOUS (even mentioned by Don Cherry and Ron Maclean on “Hockey Night In
Canada” this week). The bus, if/when we could catch it, would take an
hour and a half. We tried to take Uber back from the game, but it took
our driver nearly an hour just to get TO us from just outside the arena traffic
(i.e. he was very close when he started)!
Ottawa
Anyway, we finally got to bed at 2:00 AM, and at 4:00 AM I
was hailing Uber for a ride to the airport.
March 24
Yes, I got an Uber ride at 4:00 AM and got to the airport in
plenty of time for my 6:00 AM flight. By the time the flight left, the
weather in Ottawa had turned into a blizzard. It was so bad that I could
see nothing from the airplane window besides the runway lights. I was fascinated
by the vortices in the snow created by the engines. Anyway, it was an
uneventful flight to Calgary. I have a class 2 driver’s license, so in
order to renew my license, I needed a medical. Sue picked me up at the
airport, and had already done some research. She’d found a walk-in clinic that
would do the medical that opened at 9:00 AM. It was perfect timing.
She dropped me off at the clinic almost exactly at 9:00. However, when I
got into the clinic and told them what I needed, they told me they could do it,
but the doctor wasn’t there yet and wouldn’t be until 11:00. (Don't ask me why they'd open two hours before a doctor arrived.) Fine, we
managed to find another clinic, and I got it done. As expected, my
eyesight was borderline without glasses, but I got the renewal.
Given the trouble and hassle I’d had so far, and given the
fact that I was scheduled to arrive back in Ottawa at 12:30 AM, I wanted to make absolutely
certain that everything was going to work when I got there. There was plenty
of money available on the credit card, but I called to confirm anyway.
Having been very pleased with Budget’s Fast-Break option in the past (e.g. when
I was commuting to California), I made the new rental booking with Budget.
They took my credit card and gave me verbal assurance that all was well.
I finally felt a little relief, and I finished that up just as my brother and
sister-in-law arrived. This, it turns out, was an unexpected benefit of
my having to come home. My brother was in Calgary for a wedding that
weekend, and I thought I’d miss him, but it worked out that we got a bit of
time together and then he drove me back to the airport.
The flight was uneventful, and I got back to Ottawa. I
headed confidently to the Budget booth, but when I got there, my Fast Break
wasn’t ready. I asked what was going on and they said “Your credit card
didn’t work and we won’t take debit”. I was speechless. I’d had
assurances from both the credit card company and the car rental company that
everything was set. OK, I got on the phone with the credit card
company. They said “oh, yes, we have all your payments, but they haven’t
been posted yet.” Believe it or not, I managed to maintain my composure,
but both the credit card company and the car rental company eventually
understood that I was not happy. Also, the Budget guy, I think, was realizing
that whereas they were supposed to close at 1:00 AM, I wasn’t going
anywhere without a vehicle. Anyway, while I was “discussing” the situation on the phone,
the guy from Budget finally suggested that I just rent for a shorter time and
work it out later. He guaranteed me the same rate. To make a long
story at least a little shorter, that eventually worked out, and, at around
1:10 AM, they handed me a set of keys. My thought at that point was
“You’ll be prying these keys from my cold dead hands!” I made it out the
door with the keys and headed for the hotel. When I got to the hotel, I
couldn’t find a parking spot close by, so I had to trudge through at least six
inches of new snow for a couple of hundred yards. Oh, well, a bed was
waiting.
March 25
The nice thing about our college residence room is that it
had two bedrooms with closable doors. That meant Brodie got a decent
sleep without my snoring interrupting his sleep. But, cheaper hotels have
scratchier towels. (Ten points if you get that movie reference.)
Our drive to Montreal was very nice, with the best part
being that it was uneventful. I had hoped to get to Montreal, scope out
the parking, and then show Brodie around the city a little (Expo site, big O,
etc.). However, by the time we got there, hockey excitement was already
surrounding the rink. We found a parking spot and wandered around the
area for a while. We found a pub and grabbed some (delicious)
supper. Then we headed to the Bell Centre. We had the time to wander
around a bit before the game, and also learned that, once again, we’d scored
some awesome seats. Also, both of us were really looking forward to this
game because it was a regional rivalry (vs. Ottawa), and both teams were
fighting for playoff spots/positioning. The excitement in the building
was palpable.
When we were planning the trip, I’d basically decided that,
since this might be a once-in-a-lifetime trip with my son, we would not skimp
on tickets. I also decided that, even if it cost a slight premium, I’d
buy all our tickets via “official” channels. Yes, Ticketmaster now has a
scalping division where people can resell their tickets at whatever price they
want, but the tickets are essentially guaranteed to be legitimate. I’d
done this everywhere except Montreal. Montreal has their own system, and
from what I could discover, they didn’t really have a legitimate resale
process. I’d heard good things about Stub Hub (a friend of mine with
season tickets sells all his that way), so that’s what I used in
Montreal. Well, before the first period started, some people came along
and said we were sitting in their season ticket seats. OK, we moved to some
nearby empty seats and thought we'd sort it out later if we had to. Well, with about
five minutes left in the first period, we were kicked out of those seats as
well. I told the attendant about the situation, and we watched the rest of
the first period from the entry-way.
At the period break, the security people took both us and
the supposed season ticket holders to the box office for a chat.
Initially it looked like our tickets were good, but eventually the ruling went
against us. We were out. I’m guessing this is a common problem in
Montreal, because as they were escorting us out, they gave us a slip of paper
with Stub Hub’s number on it. Well, whereas I wanted to sort it all out
as quickly as possible, my first priority was to get back into the arena to
enjoy our most anticipated game. Fortunately, we were able to buy two
tickets to get us back in the doors. They were nosebleed seats, and they
weren’t even together, but we were in the building. I spent the next what
seemed like an eternity trying to work things out with Stub Hub. It was a
mixture of watching from various entrances and wandering halls talking to Stub
Hub. I kept getting put on hold and then eventually the call would
drop. Finally, on my third attempt, I got through to someone who could
handle the problem. By the time that was all settled, I’d essentially
watched three of the four goals to be scored in that game that night on
TV! When all was said and done, I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad
with Stub Hub. Obviously they could do nothing about the Montreal game,
but they gave us all our money back plus 50%, so I probably shouldn’t be too
angry with them. The Montreal organization, on the other hand, needs to do more
straightening out. How could both we and the season ticket holders even
get into the building?!?! Anyway, that problem was behind us, and we
enjoyed a fantastic game!!!
Hockey highlights in Montreal:
- Banners everywhere!
- Numbers and players' pictures on the wall in the
nosebleeds.
- A woman with a beautiful voice sang the anthem.
- Felt like a playoff game because of the regional
rivalry and because they were battling for first place in their division.
- The guys scraping the snow at TV breaks looked
like a bunch of older, maybe even retired, men. They did a lazy circle
around the ice with no passion nor enthusiasm nor plan – they really didn’t do a
great job.
- Karlson got booed every time he touched the
puck.
- Carey Price was magic.
- Shaw was a bit of a jerk.
- At one point, in the game, Weber was on the
point. Brodie just finished saying “he scores a lot of goals from there”
when the puck came to him and he slapped it in.
- There was a performance (karaoke, dancing,
whatever) contest on the big screen. It got narrowed down to two
contestants: a busty woman and an Elvis impersonator. Elvis
eventually won.
- The announcing and much of the entertainment was
in French, with some English songs thrown in, which was to be expected but
still took some getting used to.
- It was entertaining when, with two minutes left,
Ottawa pulled their goalie and Montreal fans starting singing “Ole Ole
Ole…”. There are a number of recordings of the crowd singing it on
YouTube.
- The stairwells had acoustics that lent
themselves very well to singing.
- We made the mistake of exiting the building
thinking we could get back in to buy souvenirs. We were wrong, but with
some sweet-talking we were let back in.
- Brodie: “everything about it was sick”.
Montreal
Right after the game we made it through the very muddy
parking lot, got into the car, and headed for Detroit.
March 26
At some point between our putting together our schedule and
game day, the Detroit game had changed from an evening game to an afternoon
game. We got out of the arena in Montreal around 10:00 PM and the game in
Detroit was scheduled for 12:30 PM the next afternoon and the GPS said it would take us about 9.5
hours to get there. Well, that saved us a hotel room! I drove
through the night, thoroughly enjoying the stars and pondering G.K.
Chesterton’s quote “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.”
We arrived in Detroit at approximately 8:00 AM and drove
straight into the Joe Louis Arena parking garage. I climbed into the back seat
and got a better sleep than I’d expected. We woke up at 11:30 and walked
over to the arena. Whereas it was quite an old building, I actually
thought it was much more fan-friendly than the newer arenas. It was
basically one big bowl with all the suites around the top. It didn’t give
the same feel as newer arenas that tend to separate the rich and the
fanatic – it felt more like a united fan front.
Hockey highlights in Detroit:
- It soon seemed appropriate that the arena was
named after a boxer. The fans were bloodthirsty! Any time there was
even a hint of a scrum or anything, the crowd got into it. They even
showed a video of a greasy, bench clearing brawl from 1980 that had included
the goalies. At one point in the fight they were showing a Detroit player
pounding on a guy from the opposing team that was just covering up. They
then showed a guy in attendance at the game (i.e. the day we were there)
holding a sign that said “Happy 20th Beat A Turtle Day” and the
crowd went wild. I also saw a hat in the crowd saying “Make hockey violent
again”.
- The game went into overtime and the crowd went
wild, despite the team not being in playoff contention. A Detroit player
scored a highlight reel goal to win the game, and the arena lost its
mind. I described it as pandemonium.
- I asked about the octopus-throwing, but apparently that's more of a playoff thing.
- The arena only had one concourse and two
exits. It took forever to get out of the building.
- On the way between the arena and the car we encountered
two separate, very enthusiastic, street musicians making surprisingly good music
by drumming on empty plastic buckets. They both put on a pretty good show.
- The walkway back to the car was more of a
traffic jam and took longer to navigate than the drive out of the parking lot.
Detroit
Because it was an afternoon game, we did a bit of driving
afterwards. We were headed for Buffalo, but only made it as far as
Cleveland before tiredness started to get the better of me. However, I
was able to do a bit of driving around Cleveland before collapsing into the hotel
bed, and was actually somewhat impressed. There’s a huge chandelier that
is a highlight of the downtown area and what's called their theater district. The downtown, the waterfront, and my
reason for wanting to drive a bit that night (the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)
were entrancing at night. It was probably good that I didn’t have my good
camera, or I might have been there all night! In my driving I happened on
a woman who’d run out of gas on one of the freeway bridges. I gave her a
ride to a gas station, bought her a gallon of gas, and took her back to her
car. Unlike the rest of Cleveland, that neighborhood didn’t feel
particularly welcoming.
Cleveland
March 27
In the morning I left Brodie to sleep some more, and headed for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was an unexpected treat
that I got to go – I’d thought of it, but really hadn’t expected it would work
out. I left a note for Brodie asking him to call me when he was up and
ready to go. Unfortunately, he’d left his SIM in the car (so that he
wouldn’t run up unexpected phone charges in the U.S.). Well, I was
enjoying the museum so much that I lost track of time. Brodie eventually
called me from the hotel room and I hurried back. Fortunately, Brodie had
managed to stay in the room until 2:00 PM, and I got there around 2:30.
I did want to share one observation from the
R&RHOF. Yes, I admit that I enjoy a lot of the music – probably more
than I should – but I couldn’t help but be left with a sobering thought.
Near the beginning of the museum there was a display showing old TV clips,
newspaper stories, etc., about the opposition to R&R in the earlier
days. I honestly thought that the museum did a reasonably good job of
displaying it neutrally, but given the context of the location, I assumed that
most people going through would see the opposition and dismiss it or laugh at
it. However, I found it very interesting that the opposition is
juxtaposed with many displays of musicians who had, either accidentally or
intentionally, overdosed on drugs or committed suicide. Yes, it seems that artists in many fields are troubled, but
the proportion in R&R does, to me, seem higher than in the rest of the
community. Hmmm…. worth some thought.
So, off to Buffalo. It was quite foggy in Buffalo when
we got there. Interestingly, a large part of the city, especially around
the arena, smells, according to Brodie, like Lucky Charms. We were
driving around with the windows open, and we think we saw a large General Mills
factory that might explain it.
Hockey highlights in Buffalo:
- The entrance area is huge and wide open, similar
to the new Edmonton arena. It was probably the best laid-out arena we
went to on our trip.
- There were suites separating the upper and lower bowls, but they
didn’t seem to break up the bowls as much as some arenas (e.g. Edmonton).
- There was more than one concourse. They were
the most open and least crowded of the ones we encountered, with a very good variety of restaurants/food
venues.
- The merchandise was disappointing.
- They sang the Canadian national anthem even
though no Canadian team was playing.
-
Tickets were much cheaper that the places we’d
been to so far.
- Probably due to lower ticket prices, there were
a higher percentage of kids and younger people in attendance.
- The arena didn’t look full, even though they
said there were 18,000 people in attendance.
- Energy in the arena was pretty much
non-existent. There was no cheering the team coming onto the ice, and
when there was chanting going on, it was quite lackluster. This may have
been due to the fact that it was a meaningless game from a post-season perspective.
- It was Gionta’s 1000th game, so they
did a presentation for him.
- The energy ramped up a bit in the third when, in
quick succession, there was a fight, a goal that was called back, and a penalty
that the crowd disagreed with.
- The power of suggestion was at work: when
the lady beside us got ice cream, it didn’t take long until a number of people
in our area did, too.
- The building seemed quite empty half way through
the third.
- They scraped the snow off the ice with metal
scrapers, which did a much better job than plastic scrapers do.
Buffalo
We made the short jaunt from Buffalo to Toronto after the
game.
March 28
This was the day we’d planned on going to the Hockey Hall of
Fame. We slept in a bit and then headed downtown. Before entering
the HHOF, we had lunch in the downtown mall attached to the HHOF. It was
one of those restaurants that have different stations with different kinds of
food and you can go in and pick what you want from the various different
spots. Well, Brodie has just found a new favorite restaurant. He
absolutely LOVED it! We spent a few glorious hours touring the HHOF, and then it was off to the Air Canada Centre.
Hockey Hall of Fame
Hockey highlights in Toronto:
Anthem sung by a teenager with an amazing voice.
Ice scraping was the same as Calgary.
The screen was almost as big as Edmonton’s, and
like Edmonton, they didn’t play very many replays.
The fans were awesome. We spent a lot of
time standing.
Austin Matthews scored the first goal of the
game, which brought him into a tie for the rookie scoring record for Toronto
(still far behind the league record).
Jagr scored a goal. I’ve seen Florida in
person at least four times this season, and the old guy doesn’t disappoint.
Toronto
March 29
Next stop: Pittsburgh.
Hockey highlights in Pittsburgh:
We didn’t know it when we bought the tickets (I
just bought what looked like good seats), but we were in a VIP section – we had
to show our tickets to get into the section. The seats were nicer and
wider, there was a separate bar/canteen, and there was a separate washroom.
This turned out to be the first game we attended
where the home team lost. Pittsburgh basically didn’t show up – Chicago
owned them.
Pittsburgh
If you know me at all, you’ll know that one of the things I
absolutely LOVE doing is driving around cities late at night (see earlier reference in Cleveland). Pittsburgh
was interesting for this. I hadn’t looked at a map much before going out
driving, and I didn’t get a very good overview on my small phone GPS
anyway. I spent quite a while, initially, feeling lost (which I really
don’t mind – maybe even enjoy on these late night drives) and confused.
It seemed like at every turn I crossed yet another bridge over the river.
I finally took the time to look at a map and discovered that there were essentially
three different rivers that I’d been crossing over in different
directions. I eventually found my way up Mount Washington (really just a
hill on one side of the river – I’m not sure why they call it a “mount”) and
got a beautiful night view of the city, including the various rivers I’d been
crisscrossing.
March 30
When we wandered out of the hotel, we discovered two
things: our first rain on the trip and a flat tire on the car.
Fortunately, by now Brodie is quite adept at changing tires. I felt just
a bit guilty making him do it because of the rain, but it worked out better
that way, giving me opportunity to get on the phone with the car rental
agency. They said it would be quite a while before they could get someone
out to us. I said “It’s only a tire – I’ve changed tires before.”
They said “Ok, then go to the airport to switch cars.” I said “That’s too
far out of our way. How about if I just get the tire fixed?” They
said “Fine, but we won’t promise to pay for it.” So, we headed to a tire
shop. The first one we got to was too busy, but they directed us to
another one. The second one had the time, so Brodie went out to the car
to bring in the tire while I started the paperwork. On his way in, Brodie
found the source of the problem: we’d picked up a piece of metal right at
the point where the tread starts to curve up to meet the sidewall. Well,
the tire guy was determined to play it safe, and wouldn’t fix it because he considered the hole to be in the sidewall. Budget
said “Sure, get a new tire, but we don’t promise to pay for it.” OK, so
off to the airport we went to exchange cars. Yeah, it was a bit of a
hassle, but no big deal compared with what we’d already faced. We still
managed to make it to Chicago.
March 31
We hadn’t actually scheduled anything between the Pittsburgh
game on March 29 and the Columbus game on April 2. I was going to play
that stretch by ear. However, when Brodie learned that one of the options
was to take in a game in Chicago, he was all over it. It was an added
bonus that I got to take him to my favorite pizza place: Giordano’s
Pizza. Note to self: Giordano’s is AMAZING, but don’t get the
personal-sized pizzas. The proportions just aren’t as good as the bigger
pizzas.
Hockey highlights in Chicago:
There was a lot of cheering during the anthem.
Pandemonium and singing after the first goal.
They did something I loved with the
scoreboard: most of the time, in addition to the live action, they were showing the names and numbers of
players presently on the ice. Why don’t all NHL teams do that?
The “bubble thought” cameras were entertaining.
They’d show a fan and then put a bubble-thought on the screen. Sadly, I
only noted the fact, not any examples, and by now I’ve forgotten.
Chicago
April 1
I got to do a bit of driving in Columbus during the day and
into the evening. Broad Street in Columbus is impressive (at least to
me), with its old stone buildings and stretches of mansions set well off from
the street.
April 2
Hockey highlights in Columbus:
- Beautiful arena and surroundings.
- Tickets were cheap.
- Fans were more into it than I expected, even if
the noise didn’t always make sense.
- They shortened the team name to CBJ so that it
would fit into chants.
- The cannon is both impressive and loud. I
was happy Columbus scored a few so that we got a chance to hear it.
- At one point Columbus scored a goal, which was
promptly followed by a fight. There was a mixture of cheering and booing
and I couldn’t make out what for and/or against.
Columbus
April 3
Amy happened to be in Toronto at the same time as we were,
and we were lucky enough to connect with her. We had a meal with her at
Brodie’s new favorite restaurant (outside the HHOF). This was followed by
an uneventful flight back to Calgary.
Now Brodie and I have a great man cave displaying our loot. It's a fantastic place to watch the playoffs! Come and join us sometime. :-)
The Man Cave
There are a lot more (mostly crappy, taken on a phone) pictures and even some videos available at http://pletts.elegantlogic.com/Photos/ShowFolder.aspx?Folder=HockeyAdventure2017. Enjoy!
