Kindness for a couple of very lucky hockey fans
There was a heartwarming story on the CTV News site back in May, wherein a man and his nine-year-old daughter decided last weekend to take a trip from their home in Swift Current, SK to Edmonton to share in the excitement of their Oilers being in the Stanley Cup finals. Bear in mind that they didn’t have tickets – they were more than happy to join the large, raucous crowd that was expected in the plaza near Rogers Place, where the game would be broadcast.
The story caught my attention because my daughter and I used to go on those very same kind of adventures to watch basketball games in the US (as well as the many at all levels we watched in Canada together, to be sure).
Anyway, the dad and daughter in the story had to overcome all manner of logistical obstacles to get there, which they eventually did. It seems they were walking in downtown Edmonton to pick up some additional clothing, when a couple right out of the blue offered them free tickets to the game, and in prime front-row seating no less. What motivated the couple to do that? Apparently, they just “wanted to make someone’s day.”
Just when you thought that humanity has no hope, a great story like this surfaces. Made my own day to read that, to say the least.
Parad-ice lost
This reminds me of a time when I was 14 (1973) and the Winnipeg Jets of the old World Hockey Association had made the playoffs in their first season. I purchased a ticket for their first playoff game and I remember it because it was in Row 1, Seat 1, Section 1 of the old Winnipeg Arena. There was no such thing as purchasing tickets online in those days, of course, so I took the bus to the Arena a few days beforehand and proudly purchased my ducat. Couldn’t wait for game day!
As luck would have it, I lost the damn thing. I had it in my back pocket and what I think happened is that it slipped out of there on the bus on the way home (yes, kids took busses by themselves in those days, even when we were as young as nine, as helicopter parents the world over experience a collective shudder). To say I was crestfallen would be a massive understatement.
I don’t know what made me do it, but I decided to go to the Arena on game day anyway, to see if someone perhaps had turned the ticket in. I knew that no one in their right mind would but, as they say, hope springs eternal in the human heart. I got there, I asked, and received the response I expected.
Parad-ice found!
Then, a random security guard came up to me and asked me what I was doing there. I explained the situation to him matter-of-factly and, what does he do but pull a single ticket out of his shirt pocket and give it to me. I got to watch the game anyway, and from a pretty good seat at that, as I recall. A storybook ending in my little world.
The world has some good, kind people in it – it did in 1973 and it does now. Best not to lose our faith in human nature just quite yet.