Or it’s the universe’s fault.
One of those.
You see, PH had it all planned out. He wanted the Canucks to go to game 6, because otherwise we would miss the party of the century. Can you imagine, the Canucks win the Stanley Cup and WE’RE IN NOVA SCOTIA?
Our plane was due to arrive in Vancouver at around 1:30. PH was going to gather a couple of friends and head downtown, so he could stand in the crowd and roar with triumph as the Canucks secured their final win. He has never forgotten the feeling in the crowd when he attended the 2010 gold medal hockey game, and this was his chance to recreate it.
So we land in Toronto, and find our gate. Then a Westjet employee makes his way to the desk and announces that our flight has been cancelled.
That’s right, not delayed. CANCELLED.
We had sudden flashbacks to our return from our honeymoon, when we were stranded at Gatwick airport when Zoom Airlines began to fold. That time we ended up staying over night, and only by sheer luck managed to finagle our way onto another plane the next day, no thanks to the airline that stranded us there.
I was bringing lobster home for a friend who is taking care of Beloved Dog and putting up with his chicken-bone-eating habit, and I was thinking “Oh, man, what if the lobster don’t make it??”
Thankfully, though, Westjet is NOT Zoom. I have been an enthusiastic fan of Westjet ever since I first flew with them (when I had a whole row to myself, and the captain told us a Newfie joke over the loudspeaker), and they didn’t let me down today. Unlike Zoom, they told us WHY the flight had been cancelled: the plane had been struck by lightning and was not safe to fly.
Fair enough.
Then they gave us 30 dollars in meal vouchers (Zoom only gave us 8 pounds, which was about enough to buy a bag of crisps for each of us from the expensive Gatwick concessions counter) and got us on another flight leaving in a couple of hours.
Which was great for the lobster, but not so great for our schedule.
We ended up arriving at 4 pm, only an hour before the game started. By the time we got our bags, loaded them into the car, and fought traffic all the way home, it was three minutes into the game, and according to the radio, the Bruins were already up 2-0. PH suffers from that sports-fan belief that one has to be watching the game in order for one’s team to be successful, so his face was grim as we pulled into the driveway.
We unloaded the car, got into the house, and turned on the TV.
The game was 4-0. In the four or five minutes of game time that PH had missed due to delayed planes, traffic, fate, etc, good old Bobby Lu had allowed 4 goals. FOUR!
PH did not go downtown. The Canucks did not bring home the Stanley cup.
So we’re going to have to wait until Wednesday.
I sleep now.
