I have plenty of interesting encounters but here are a few from the same weekend road trip I did with a bunch of friends during the lockout-shortened season in 2012-2013
The Flames had a unique schedule and went to LA/Anaheim to play 3 games in 4 nights. Anaheim on Friday and LA on Saturday and Monday.
I tried booking us at the Marriot/Ritz Carlton connected to Staples Center but they were sold out, I was furious cause I wanted to stay at the same hotel as the team so instead I booked us at the Biltmore which is an old fashion classic style hotel, think Fairmont Palliser etc.
In any event it turned out the team was staying at the same hotel for the entire weekend so we saw the players and management the entire time. After the Flames lost to the Ducks 4-0 on an insane performance from a nobody goalie named Viktor Fasth we went out and partied etc. The next morning we were furious and went to breakfast and stuff, some of us had Flames hats on and such. We shared an elevator a couple of times with guys like Hudler, Tim Jackman, Glencross etc No matter who we saw in our day to day dealings, nobody acknowledged us with so much as a nod.
For the Saturday night after the Flames got destroyed again we randomly met a group of gorgeous girls from Calgary who were also down in LA for the 3 game road trip. We had some drinks and everything was clicking so the big group of us wanted to go back to our hotel so we can chill, get some drinks and throw on some clothes for the bar. As we are about to walk in we here a voice say "Those are some dam good looking jerseys you have on" we all turn around and it was Ken King, Clay Riddell and Conroy geting out of a limo. The girls got excited and asked if the team was staying there and we said yes, well that was the end of that for us dudes, full ditched while they took pictures with Conroy and waited on the others to arrive.
We ended going out to Hollywood and had a blast, met some amazing local Cali girls who turned out to be hotter and cooler than the YYC ones and had a blast. We all ended up coming back around 6 am and guess who pulls up behind us, 3 sheets to the wind? Roman Cervanka. Guy was having a blast in America looked like.
The next morning Glencross had his luggage and was checking out for what we thought was a trade turned out to be an injury while some guys like Gio, Wideman and I think JBow got into Jaret Stoll's Range Rover with their golf clubs to play some golf on their off day.
On Monday the Flames got destroyed yet again for the 3rd time and that was it. We stayed a few extra days and we all had a blast. That was the weekend that the losses finally convinced ownership/management to start the rebuild cause a few weeks after Iggy and JBow were gone.
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