An ongoing adventure of travel and living while using a wheelchair. Tim has been disabled from birth. Darryl is his father and caregiver who travels with him.
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The one big activity we have planned while we're here in Canada's third largest city is to go see a hockey game. It'll be the most Canadian thing we do while we're here. It's Saturday night, which is hockey night in Canada, and the Calgary Flames are hosting the Winnipeg Jets in their final pre-season match before the season starts next week.
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We had learned from our adventures yesterday that it would be just as easy to walk the half mile from our hotel as to take the train. The weather report is a bit threatening but when it's time to leave, it's still dry. Walking it is, although we'll leave the return by train option open if the weather has turned nasty after the game. Straight as an arrow, we walk the street from our hotel to the Saddledome. As we're approaching, a police officer points us to the accessible ramp to enter the arena. It's pretty well hidden and it's no wonder we didn't see it on our walk yesterday. "It's the only way you'll get in," he tells us. Collecting our tickets from Will Call, we proceed inside. Of course, this only accessible entrance is almost exactly on the opposite side of the arena from the wheelchair seating so we have to walk halfway around to get to our seats. At least, this gives us a chance to see what kind of food offerings are available to us for this night of hockey. We get to our seats which are located on a row across three or four sections at the top of the first level. Basically, in this old arena, they just cleared out a spot on the concourse for wheelchairs. There is no 'built in' seating.
Another thing is that Canada today is like the U.S. was 15 years ago in companion seating requirements. We are only allowed buy one companion seat to go with Tim's wheelchair. I give that to my wife, my assigned seat is about 10 rows away. I decide to sit in the empty seat next to Tim until and unless the ticket holders for that seat show up...with the usher's blessing, of course. (As a side note, the ADA was amended a few years ago for the United States where is is now law that you must sell up to at least three companion seats for every wheelchair seat but, of course, this is not the United States)
The pregame activities begin with a warning that there will be fireworks. This turns out to be nothing more than flames shooting out of the scoreboard but it's still a nice effect. The game starts and about halfway through the first period, I feel a tap on my shoulder. A lady and her husband in a wheelchair are here to claim their seats. I immediately get up as nicely as I can but still get the wish-of-my-immediate-death stare from the caregiver. Jeez...is this an example of the famous Canadian hospitality I've heard so much about? I move to the other side of Letty and Tim. Pretty soon, a mother and her disabled son show up to claim the seats I'm sitting at. "No worries," she says, "we'll just scoot down one spot and you can continue to sit with your family." That's more like it. A little while later, an able-bodied man and his four able bodied kids encamp in the seats on the other side of the mom (the usher said it was OK but he'd have to move to his assigned seats if someone else showed up). When the mom and the kid take off to the bathroom, that family immediately scoots over to take the seats they just vacated. OK, this is getting a bit ridiculous. The lady was so nice to me that I feel obligated to defend those seats. This is a big, burly, mean looking guy but someone has to say something and it looks like it's going to fall to me. I steel myself up for a confrontation... "Excuse me, but those seats are already taken," I tell the gent getting ready for the inevitable shouting match. "Oh, I'm sorry...come on kids, let's scoot back over here," came his gentle and courteous reply. I guess that the first caregiver that gave me the death stare was an anomaly. There really is a overwhelming courteousness to these people. The game continues on. I get some hot dogs and popcorn for Tim and me...which were really very good...while Letty has some pirogi poutine. She says it's the best poutine she's had the entire trip. It's a hard fought game with the lead changing a few time. At the end of regulation, the game is tied 2-2. At the end of a five minute overtime, the game is still tied 2-2. If you know hockey, you know what comes next. Each team takes a turn sending a lone player onto the ice to shoot a puck at a lone goalie from the other team...it's the shootout! It's a very exciting and quick way to decide the match. A Jets player shoots and missed. Same with the first Flames player. Another Jets player misses. A Flames player scores. The games over and the audience goes nuts! Horns blow and more flames shoot out of the scoreboard. We make our way out and it's just starting to rain with a steady drizzle. We decide it's not too bad and walk back to our hotel. Hockey Night was a very fun night for us here in Calgary. Darryl Musick Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved
As most of you may have seen from a while back, I recently celebrated a big milestone birthday when I turned 30 years old on February 10 of this year. Some people that I know of who are from the older generations of folks such as the Baby Boomers or those from Generation X or Y sometimes refer to it as the "Big 3-0." Those of us from who are from the Millennial Generation have started referring to our 30th birthday as the "Dirty 30" birthday. Before I go on, I must point out that in my family since there are only three of us (my parents and I), we usually don't do too much to celebrate it and make a big deal out of it whenever one of us has a birthday coming up. Usually we just look at it as we're just another year older and wiser. During most years, we usually don't do anything too big. Most of the time we just go out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. Since I turned the "Big 3-0" this year however, my Family and I decided to make an exception to mark the extra special occasion. As I mentioned before on my own personal Facebook Page, I had originally wanted to see either a Los Angeles Kings or Los Angeles Clippers game at Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles since I am a such a big sports fan, but since my birthday this year just so happened to coincide with the Grammy Awards ceremony that took place on February 12, we had to come up with a Plan B.
Since all the home teams that call Staples Center home were on the road at the time, we decided to look up the schedule of the Ontario Reign, the minor league hockey affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings. Well it just so happened that we were in luck because the Reign were scheduled to play a home game against the San Diego Gulls on the night of my birthday. Bingo! The perfect Plan B was in place for my big 30th Birthday celebration. So we made the most out of going to a minor league hockey game in Ontario rather than in Los Angeles. While there, my birthday dinner consisted of one tray serving of chicken nuggets with ranch dipping sauce and a side of fries from the nearest concessions stand next to our seating section. Overall, the chicken nuggets and fries were very good and were also much better than the hot dogs that my Mom and Dad got for themselves.
In terms of what happened during the hockey game itself there were a couple of fights broke out between a few players from both teams which is pretty routine and normal for a hockey game. Heck I think that if you go to a hockey game and a fight or two doesn't break out, then you have not been to a "real" hockey game. Watching the fights happening in real time while being at the game in person was pretty exciting and it also provided quite an adrenaline rush. Out of all the things I did or saw on my 30th birthday, watching the fights in the hockey game will probably go down as the "dirtiest" thing that I witnessed during that weekend. The only bad part about the game was how it ended. The Reign lost to the Gulls by a final score of 4 to 1. Oh well. At least we all had fun at the game even though the home team lost that night. Of course no birthday celebration of any kind would be complete without a nice and delicious cake to enjoy. During the week leading up to my birthday this year, my Mom Letty kept herself busy throughout the day by putting together the finishing touches on my Mothers circus animal cookie cake with pink strawberry flavored frosting. To say that the cake was really sweet would be an understatement.
That cake was so sweet in terms of how it tasted that it took my Mom, my Dad and I a couple of weeks to finish the whole thing. We probably could have finished it a lot sooner than that if it hadn't tasted so sweet. My dad could not have as much of the cake as compared to my Mom and I because he has this little nasty and annoying disease called Diabetes. So he now has to be extra careful to watch what he eats because his blood sugar levels can go up or down depending on what he eats throughout a given day or week. When taking into consideration all the excitement and enjoyment that comes from going to a minor league and having more than enough cake to eat as described above, you would probably think that that would already be more than enough for a fairly complete 30th Birthday celebration. Well for the most part it is but I don't want to finish a Cerebral Palsy Stories post like without also saying a big Thank You with much love and gratitude from me to all my friends on Facebook (from high school, college and other places in between), and elsewhere who took the time to send more Happy Birthday wishes and greetings than I could count my way last month. I read through all of them and I am extremely grateful and appreciative of all the love and support that you all have given me over the last 30 years and counting of my life. Looking ahead to the future, here's a toast to enjoying the continued blessings of what this thing called Life has to offer as I enter the so-called "Over-The-Hill" phase and what is still to come my way during the prime years of my single life on wheels. Tim Musick Copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved.
