The following events took place on March 6th, 2009
Getting up was an effort Friday morning. Not only was I not able to sleep during the night, I had a terrible feeling my room was haunted, and the bedside lamps wouldn’t turn on…eek! I managed to check out by 5:30AM and was given the hotel limo to get to the Boston airport. My driver thought that I sounded Italian! It was like when the guy in Columbus thought my accent was Russian. No, it’s Canadian! Italian and Russian don’t even sound remotely similar!
You’ll be glad to know that I did get on that plane! I finally used one of the many airline tickets I had acquired over the past four days. It was 9:30AM when I drove out of the Buffalo airport. I was falling asleep on the plane, five days of insomnia was starting to catch up with me. There was a guy sitting in my row during the flight. I hate that! Usually, I’m alone. Anyway, I was exhausted and I knew I wouldn’t last until game time.
The soft morning light always makes me feel more tired. I drove around Buffalo looking for a place to crash for the afternoon. All the major hotels were booked solid! Finally, I found one downtown! As I pulled up there were hordes and hordes of people surrounding the premises, which could only mean one thing – hockey players! Whenever I have stayed at the same hotel as a hockey team, there are always groups of fans, collectors, and ebay entrepreneurs waiting for autographs. I’ve noticed that the Gretzky factor seems to triple the attendance rate of these individuals; it’s actually pretty insane!
The Phoenix Coyotes seem to be smarter than the Flyers. I saw a few of them in the lobby and they already recognized me from Boston! It took the Flyers at least a few months to accomplish that *I think.* Boo, there goes my anonymity!
I didn’t manage to sleep at all nor did I manage to be productive and do any work. Not really sure what I was doing the whole time. Staring into space I guess! I checked out early and decided to go for a drive (like I normally do before Sabres games). As I was driving off, a couple of the Coyotes players had grabbed a cab and were in front of me. Some of the more intense “collectors” chased their cab down and were trying to get autographs while they were held up at the lights. I’ve NEVER seen big fat guys run that fast in my entire life – wow!
The game time on my ticket was wrong, so I was at HSBC arena extra early. I was very grumpy and ugly. I was tired and my hair looked like ass. On top of this, I had impulsively purchased tickets to the Coyotes next game in Long Island on Sunday. So, now I was facing a drive to New York, which kind of terrified me.
The stress was really starting to get to me. Of course, I was mostly putting the pressure on myself. I was trying to force finding whatever it is that I’m meant to find. It’s hard to let go and just let it happen, follow your instincts, and try not to over think everything. For the majority of the game I was trying to fight off emotional breakdown #3. There were three guys sitting next to me that had decided to make it their mission to make me smile – this involved buying me beer! It worked! Thanks boys!
The Coyotes lost the game; the first of many. After the game, I jumped in the car and rode off into the night. I didn’t know my way to Long Island, and I didn’t have a GPS system. GPS systems are lifesavers, but I don’t think I could ever be trusted with one. I might just go road tripping and never come home! I decided to take the most direct route and head east on the I-90. I was in a race against time to pass through NYC before the hideous traffic started the following morning.
