Yesterday at 2:34PM, with only two sleeps until Boston (and plenty of preparation to do, like: pack, study, work on essay), Trouble called… and I answered the phone. My seemingly long-lost road trip buddy called to play catch up since we hadn’t talked in quite some time. The conversation turned to getting out of the house and doing something “fun,” since fun was apparently lacking from both our lives. Shopping and anything with excessive walking was out, as she had REINJURED (naughty, naughty) her ankle in soccer. So, she says, “Well we could go get extensions sewn in our hair…” (random, I know) “…or the nearest game is in Ottawa.”
Most of my friends know that I can’t handle crazy talk because I will go for whatever is being suggested no matter what. For example, “We should go to [enter location name here] sometime.” [long pause] “Expedia says there is a flight leaving in 3 hours! We can make it!” There is a reason I’m the “crazy one.” So, naturally, when a completely insane scheme has been put forth to go catch some puck, I have to go for it. There’s no getting around it. The plan was to buy cheap seats and make complete asses of ourselves. This sounded good. So, I hung up the phone, threw on some clothes, and headed East on the 401!
I was driving like the wind, which was no easy feat considering it was apparently OPP day on the 401! The swift drive was only interrupted by a sudden swerve off the road to the Big Apple pie store (you know that mammoth Apple on the side of the highway?) because we were hungry, and a big pie was the answer! This wasn’t the first time we ate a WHOLE pie. Once, while in Edmonton, we went to the market and ate a huge peach mango pie (yummmmmmm!), so this was a nostalgic move. We bought a caramel apple pie, and ran it back to the car where we attempted to eat it while driving. Much like the Boston Pizzas we tried to consume in transit while pushing 145km/h out of fear of being late for the Flyers/Sabres game in Buffalo last season. But this pie was a crumbly bastard, and Lupie is in even worse shape (clean wise) as a result.
We finally pull up to Scotiabank Place a little after 7PM. The puck has already dropped. We go to the box office only to discover in horror that “cheap seats” in Ottawa are over $100 each! WHAT. THE. FUCK!?!?! What gives the shitty Sens the right to charge that for the nosebleeds??? Seriously, even Toronto isn’t that cruel; they charge $45! Suddenly, we were very pissed that Detroit and their $9 tickets were away in Nashville – just add that to my growing list of Nashville hate! So, we decided that was ridiculous for crappy seats, and opted to buy fourth row tickets in the lower bowl instead.
We were sitting on the Leafs side of the ice across from the bench and next to the penalty box. We were both wearing Leafs jerseys, which was odd considering we both hate the Leafs, and my friend is ACTUALLY a Sens fan! We thought it would be funny to piss people off, but a visible 2/3 of the arena was occupied by Blue and White jerseys, so we really just blended in. Yes, we did make asses of ourselves – mostly me. Mostly because there were a lot of penalties so I had to get up and say, “You’ve been a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad boooooooooooooooooooooy!” *shimmy shake* every single time! (I blame the beer!). The highlight for me was the poutine, but for those celebrity whores out there, Carrie Underwood was in the building. Unfortunately, I didn’t have adequate sign making materials, so my, “Tony Romo’s Sloppy Seconds” sign will have to wait for another game – perhaps, when Avery is in town *giggle!*
I felt like a hockey fan in the truest sense of the word last night. I don’t remember when the last time was that I went to a game which didn’t feature my favourite team and/or NHL crush. I had a lot of fun! It reminded me how things used to be when I was younger and I would go insane from the back section of the Air Canada Centre! I am now optimistic that when I do eventually switch teams, I will still be able to have a blast in my new team’s rink (whichever that may be).
After the game, we went out in pursuit of Wild Wing! We stumbled across a location in God-knows-where just in time for closing. So we had to order our wings to go. Once again, attempting to eat in the car. You’ll be glad to know that this time I didn’t try to drive while eating chicken wings. By the time we located the phantom 417 again and departed Ottawa, it was nearly midnight. “Uhh, I just realized we’re leaving Ottawa…and it’s Midnight…and it takes four hours to get home!” I sliced through the night like a crazy serial killer/Greyhound Butcher (too soon?), and descended into the GTA at 3AM while belting out the lyrics to classic Skid Row!
The drive was surprisingly easy as my Boston insomnia has already set in. Even though I got home at 3:30AM, I still didn’t go to bed until 5:30! I am currently 24 hours away from touching down in Boston tomorrow afternoon. I will try to sleep tonight as I’m taking off from Buffalo tomorrow morning! Eek! It’s going to be a very early morning!
we DID NOT eat the whole pie. i demand an edit on this blog.
you can’t deny we ate that whole peach/mango pie in Edmonton!