NCAA Hockey Regionals
On Thursday afternoon I went and got a rental car. Then picked up my friend Andy and we set out on our journey to Fort Wayne, Indiana.
It was a nice trip – always great to have someone to make a boring drive with. Plus even though we live 2 miles apart; we rarely see each other, so it was nice to catch up.
We exited in Bellefontaine, OH so he could get some lunch. As we were sitting in the drive thru at McDonald’s, we both spotted the Rax across the street. My reaction was that I hadn’t seen one of those in years. He completely freaked out!
About 2.5 hours into the trip, the car started dinging and indicating it was out of gas.
Huh? So we pulled over and concluded there just was no way it was possible since we hadn’t gone far enough to burn up a tank. We turned the car off/on a few times to see if it would reset. Nope.
Since we were in the middle of nowhere, all we could do was keep driving until we found a gas station. It was only about 15 minutes later that we found one. And sure enough, we only needed about $8 worth – so the car was just crazy!
We had a lot of good laughs over that one!
Got into Fort Wayne in the early evening. We were staying at the lovely Holiday Inn.
After getting settled, Andy and I headed up to Denis’ room for cocktails. Eventually our friend Dave joined us. The boys ended up going out, but I was a good girl and went back to my room. We had a long couple of days ahead of us and going out would only lead to trouble!
Our set day on Friday was ok. The hockey disk was frustrating – just a lot of stuff wrong with it. But my AP Russ and I powered thru.
Friday evening, I just ate at the hotel bar. Again, knowing better than going out with the boys.
Saturday we had a double header. The games went well – just a really long day!
Saturday night, we all met in the hotel lobby for drinks. Since we were staying at the hotel, I went down in flip flops, jeans that were too big with no belt, my drivers license and a room key.
The hotel bar was very crowded and next thing I know we are leaving. The boys didn’t want to wait for me to get shoes, belt and coat. So… oh well!
We stopped at a few places trying to figure out where we were going to hang out. I think it was as we were walking up to Rick O’Shea’s that I realized that I didn’t have any money! Since I wasn’t planning on leaving the hotel, I was just going to charge my drinks to my room.
I asked to borrow one of the cars; however Denis insisted I just take money from him. So for the rest of the night I joked about my allowance from dad.
We ended up at Ruby Tuesdays. They were about to close, but we begged them to stay open long enough for us to have a few drinks and some dinner. Thankfully, they obliged.
Once they finally kicked us out, the manager suggested we go to “Legends” – he said it was a sports bar, so we went there.
Well it was the first sports bar any of us had been to that didn’t have any sports memorabilia hanging on the walls, let alone any sports on the TVs. They had one too many fog machines going – you could barely see 10 feet in front of you.
There was a DJ doing something – not sure what – other than making a ton of noise.
On the TVs there was like a screensaver from a computer playing.
We felt extremely out of place, but decided to at least get some drinks.
Well that took forever! We couldn’t get anyone to wait on us. Eventually one of the boys had some words with one of the bartenders and we finally got drinks. REALLY bad ones!
We decided as soon as the drinks were gone, we were out of there!
In the meantime, a couple of the boys posed for some silly photos
Dave and Denis
Dave, Andy, Denis
After leaving “Legends”, it was decided there was only one other bar that was still open. However, it was said that “We can’t take Nikki there!”. Basically, it was deemed inappropriate and they assumed I would not go to a place like that.
Well, that only made me want to go – out of spite!
I won’t say exactly where we went, but I will tell you it was pretty nasty.
We had a lot of fun and the boys thought I was way cool for going there. Not exactly my cup of tea – but I will do just about anything to prove people wrong and for spite!
No photos were allowed inside the ‘establishment’, however, I did sneak one of Denis being silly in front of a projection tv screen. It came out very bizarre!
Not at all what we actually saw there.
Once that place closed at 3am, we stumbled back to the hotel.
Sunday we had one game. 8pm puck drop.
Which went well until it went into overtime. Ugh! Playoff hockey has full 20 minute periods.
And then it went into a second overtime.
This was not at all a good situation for Andy and I because we had to still drive back to Columbus. We had a 10am crew call for the PowerAde Jam Fest. Originally, we were not supposed to do this hockey site because of the late puck drop and the quick turnaround. But things don’t always go the way they should.
The drive home was BRUTAL! We were both so exhausted. But we really didn’t have a choice – we had to do it. We made it safe and sound … getting back a little after 3am.
This was definitely one of those nights filled with anger about our jobs. At least we had each other to complain to.
No comments:
Post a Comment