My drive to Pittsburgh was uneventful for the most part, aside, of course, from the US border guards’ suspicions of a girl’s interest in sports – some things never change. It was nice to feel those same old hockey road trip sensations after a long five months of inactivity. The sleeplessness the night before travel, the way tired eyes feel in morning sunlight, the jitteriness from a diet of caffeine and no food for the entire duration of the drive, and finally the anxiety when pulling up to the hotel (to name a few). As long as the offseason felt to most of us non-Penguins fans, when I walked into the lobby of the hotel, I suddenly felt like my last game was only a few days ago. It was like nothing had changed, and business was carrying on as usual.
One thing is different this time around. People often joke that I’m on the NHL schedule because I always show up to the host city the day before the game. This time I decided to take an extended trip and come to town two days before puck drop. It’s a really weird feeling to know that when I wake up in the morning, it still won’t be game day. Not sure I like the feeling to tell you the truth. I prefer it when my hockey trips are all business all the time. But I AM having a good time! I had a really great dinner tonight at Soba. Soba reminded me of happier times at Buddakan in Philadelphia when I was a Flyers fan and everything seemed a lot simpler. Another plus was that they were doing a special awesome tasting menu (I LOVE tasting menus). Their chef selections were intense (four courses), and the portions were HUGE . Yes, I ate carbs tonight! Wooo!
However, some things made me wish that I stayed home today. Walking through the hallways of the old hotel, I started to feel an eerie heaviness. “Oh, this hotel is haunted,” I thought to myself. No big deal, I’ve been in lots of haunted places. Apart from the annoying pressure headaches, it doesn’t usually faze me all that much. So, I just disregarded the spirits in the hallway, and chalked them up to another neat feature in the hotel. However, later tonight, as I was about to take a shower, the charm of the haunted building lost its appeal pretty damn fast.
After I stripped down to my skivvies, I unpacked my shampoo and conditioner and put them on the ledge of the bathtub. I turned my back to them for a moment, and suddenly I heard a loud bang coming from behind me. I turn around, and one of the bottles had come flying off the ledge. I felt that eerie heaviness again, but I decided to deduce that the ledge must have been slanted. I moved both bottles to the other side of the tub where the ledge was definitely not slanted. I walked out of the room, and within a couple minutes, another loud bang. Now the other bottle had been thrown from the ledge. Ok, now I knew something was up. I moved both bottles again, and again the same thing happened. For someone like me, I was surprisingly freaked out.
I decided to investigate and do a routine Google search for the hotel with haunted next to the name. As it turns out, two floors in this hotel have been completely closed down because of the paranormal activity. People reported seeing things, feeling like they were being watched, mysterious gusts of wind barreling through the corridors, and strange laughter. Apparently, there was a murder up there.
Anyway, I was successfully creeped out, and managed to put off showering for a whole hour until I MacGyvered a way to shower with both the door and the shower curtain open. I don’t think I’ve ever showered so fast in my life (P.S. at this moment, while I’m writing this, something started kicking my bed). If you’re watching the Coyotes game on Wednesday, and you see me sitting behind the bench with terrible hair now you’ll know why. I never thought I’d ever say this, but I can’t wait to get to my hotel room in Buffalo on Wednesday night.
I’ve always been the fearless, independent type. I never thought that I needed anyone to make me happy. Tonight, for the first time in maybe my entire life, I felt, not just lonely, but truly needy. I couldn’t help but thinking about how much easier I’d sleep tonight and tomorrow night if I had someone here with me. This inevitably made me think about that Arizona boy that I’m supposedly destined to be with, and I couldn’t help but hope that somehow, someway, he’ll walk through the hotel lobby tomorrow and into my life.
